Sunday morning lying in bed, staring at my cellphone ringing for the 6th time in twenty minutes, optioning whether or not to ignore it like all the other calls before. I had gotten home well after the sun had come to say hello. It's Kaka calling...
"We are going to Machakos, our soccer team has a game, leaving in one hour. Want to come? Meet us at 11."
Of course I couldn't say no, and with in an hour I'd had my coffee and sandwich and was packing into a car too small to fit the 6 of us well sized men. The rest of the team were in a larger van they had rented.
Our driver was a guy my age who drove like he had gotten his licsence the day before. Eevrytime a car passed he put on the brakes and wiggled the steering wheel. I put all my focus on the breathtaking country side.
Eventually we turned off the main road to go towards the field heading down a next to non existent road in between two mountains.
"They made a field here?" guys were asking. I couldn't imagine it myself.
A few hours after leaving Nairobi and many times to stop to ask for directions later we finally arrived in a village called Tawa. The whole village was at the game. I stumbled out of the car and couldn't believe my eyes. The pitch was perched on top of a hill underneath a huge lush mountain over looking the hilly horizon, by far the most beautiful spot for a field I'd ever seen. I stand around for a while watching the game lying around on the grass. Even the field's grass hadn't been cut and was knee high(apparently the school sells the grass to farmers for their cows to graze).
The next thing I know I'm having a jersey and boots thrown at me while being told I have no choice. I have to play.
I gear up and run on the pitch with the entire village watching (about 400 people). They all brake into hysteria. I heard everyone telling eachother "the white man is playing!". The kids had never seen a white person before. It was too much. I played my heart out or else I would have looked like a joke.
I don't even remember the score, i think we lost, but everyone had such a blast that no one even talked about the fact that we lost.
Even the way home was eventful when their van got a flat tire along the main highway in Kenya. No one was complaining during that either.
"It's always fun with us isn't it Nathaniel?" my friend Sigara asks.
They are organizing another trip to a different village. I'm being asked to join.
I dont have a camera right now so I couldn't take any pictures. But I have another video of me during my favorite past time and some photos of a typical day at work. Sorting, weighing and loading the truck with plastic.
"We are going to Machakos, our soccer team has a game, leaving in one hour. Want to come? Meet us at 11."
Of course I couldn't say no, and with in an hour I'd had my coffee and sandwich and was packing into a car too small to fit the 6 of us well sized men. The rest of the team were in a larger van they had rented.
Our driver was a guy my age who drove like he had gotten his licsence the day before. Eevrytime a car passed he put on the brakes and wiggled the steering wheel. I put all my focus on the breathtaking country side.
Eventually we turned off the main road to go towards the field heading down a next to non existent road in between two mountains.
"They made a field here?" guys were asking. I couldn't imagine it myself.
A few hours after leaving Nairobi and many times to stop to ask for directions later we finally arrived in a village called Tawa. The whole village was at the game. I stumbled out of the car and couldn't believe my eyes. The pitch was perched on top of a hill underneath a huge lush mountain over looking the hilly horizon, by far the most beautiful spot for a field I'd ever seen. I stand around for a while watching the game lying around on the grass. Even the field's grass hadn't been cut and was knee high(apparently the school sells the grass to farmers for their cows to graze).
The next thing I know I'm having a jersey and boots thrown at me while being told I have no choice. I have to play.
I gear up and run on the pitch with the entire village watching (about 400 people). They all brake into hysteria. I heard everyone telling eachother "the white man is playing!". The kids had never seen a white person before. It was too much. I played my heart out or else I would have looked like a joke.
I don't even remember the score, i think we lost, but everyone had such a blast that no one even talked about the fact that we lost.
Even the way home was eventful when their van got a flat tire along the main highway in Kenya. No one was complaining during that either.
"It's always fun with us isn't it Nathaniel?" my friend Sigara asks.
They are organizing another trip to a different village. I'm being asked to join.
I dont have a camera right now so I couldn't take any pictures. But I have another video of me during my favorite past time and some photos of a typical day at work. Sorting, weighing and loading the truck with plastic.
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