Almost as strong as Honka

I started a girls basketball practise two months ago. I invited all who were interested. We had eight girls at the beginning. When the word got out the number started increasing. Today we have almost 30 girls in the team.

I took two of the players from my basketball team to coach with me. We are quite organised nowadays.

We practise Monday through Friday from 4 PM to 6 PM. Of course you have to remember that we are in Africa so the starting time is quite flexible. In spite of the starting time we are always stopping at six. Girls are responsible of cooking for their families so they can’t be late.

The youngest player is eleven while the oldest is 18 years old. Two of them have already kids. This doesn’t slow them down. They usually bring their babies with them to the field. While we practise babies lie in the sun and stay quiet. Sometimes they have some neighbouring kid taking care of them during the practise.

When we started practising most of the players played bare foot. Some were wearing a track suit, some had a skirt or a kanga (wrap around) on, but none was wearing shorts. Today all of them are wearing shorts. They still come to practise wearing skirts but when they enter the field they take the skirt of.

After first month of practise we gave them the shoes that were donated by Finnish friends. For some reason we had about ten new players wanting to join us. We haven’t given out more shoes but every day we get new players who come and ask for shoes. Some have stayed longer, some stopped coming after not receiving the shoes.

The percentage of those who have stayed after receiving is quite high. Only five players have disappeared after receiving the shoes. There is not really anything we can do about it. Another minor problem is our two players whose older brothers took their shoes. In Africa this is how it goes. It doesn’t help if we tell them to take them back. They can’t really do anything. And if we give them another pair, they disappear just like the first ones.

Our team looks quite nice nowadays. They are proudly wearing Honka uniforms without knowing that they are from Finland. Since everything here is bought second hand, they think that they are just like anybody’s uniform.

Coaching here is almost the same as it is anywhere else. Coach is a teacher and responsible of many things among teaching the sports skills. The different culture just brings some challenges which have to be overcome by lot of imagination.

Since the uniforms are sleeveless just like all basketball shirts, it would be quite suitable to wear something underneath. Well, bras are not very common here so you won’t see them really at the court either. African ladies are well-equipped so to me it is almost impossible even to think about playing sports without wearing bras if I was them. Slowly I have tried to encourage them buy some bras and some have managed to find something to put under the uniform. Few days back I decided to change it and went and bought some bras and tops, gave them to my friend, and she handed them forward. Maybe few of them have the right size to wear but honestly there isn’t much you can do about that either.

Now that we have organised ourselves, I made a little brochure about our programme. I gave each player one copy to take it home to show it to their parents. None of them speak English so players were asked to translate it to them. The brochure had information about our goals; how we try to educate girls in all areas of life through sports. How they will learn to work with others, and how to control their emotions which appear. Of course we wanted to emphasize on the fact that those who participate in sports are also more active in studies, get better results and go for further studies.

After few days we started to get some feedback. Parents seemed to be happy about our goals. Only thing which they wondered was how is it possible that those who attend sports get better results, since their daughter stopped going to school after we started practising. What a surprise! We have to work on that.

These cultural differences make you appreciate what we have back home. At the same time I can’t but admire the women in this country. Where to start? Bus ride from town costs 20 cents. They can’t afford it. Yet they come everyday and walk 12 km to the practise and back home. They have to be home right after practise so that they can cook for their families. Dinner has to be ready at seven. They have those basketball shoes which we have given plus black walking shoes for school. They usually come wearing school uniforms and walk or run home after putting them back on, on top of the sports gear. They are responsible of their own laundry. Since they go home late and leave to school very early, they don’t have time to wash their sports gear between practises. Sometimes they do it anyway, and come to practise wearing wet clothes. Shoes are always clean. They keep washing them weekly. If they don’t dry for the next practise they come bare foot. It isn’t uncommon at all.

Facilities and equipment is another thing. All courts are outdoors. Depending on which part of the country you live, but all go through two rainy seasons. Mwanza happens to have quite mild rainy season. It is going on right now. It rains almost everyday. The water comes like from the shower. It makes everyone wet instantly. Then after an hour it stops just like any shower, and we continue the practise. There are days when it rains all day. Fortunately it happens not so often.

The court we are playing on is pure cement. It is in a good shape. We even have two baskets which are on the correct height. There are no socks but squares are painted on the board. They are almost at the right place even.

We are using those balls which we received from Finland. We have ten all together. Half of them are men’s and half children’s size. It doesn’t slow us down. The balls are divided among players to keep them safe. When ever I walk by the court I see local village kids using them. This way they will only last two months, but at least they are all in good use.

Since I am leaving home quite soon, I decided to invite my players to my house to watch some basketball. Thanks to Tuomas, we have some college and NBA games at the house nowadays. Two of the girls had seen a real basketball game on TV before. Others had never seen it. We had a blast. I even showed them one women’s game Finland against Slovenia, just to let them see how far they can go. They were all excited. Now they are all dreaming about becoming stars and getting out of the country. I am not so sure that this helped to achieve our goals in teaching them how important it is to attend school.

Inviting people over and not offering food is out of question in this country. Well, cooking for 22 people isn’t an easy task. Fortunately I had my houseboy helping me. We cooked for three hours and thought we had enough food. As it turned out, these ladies aren’t dieting that is for sure. We had 5 kilos of rice, two big bowls of beans, 5 kilos of futari (local dish made of cassava) and 3 kilos of meat. Nothing was left. I didn’t even get to eat at all. That didn’t bother me though. Seeing them eat like they had never seen food made me not eat. My portion would have been less than 10 percent of theirs. I can’t believe where all that food went. They are all tiny and they ate portions at least six times of their stomachs.

Having them over was fun. It was great to see them wearing their best clothes instead of seeing them in school uniforms or sports gear. It was also fun to see how interested they were to see how a “white man” lives. We had hand-washing ritual and prayed before the meal just like they do home. But they had problems of using our toilet, since they are only used to the standing type of toilets. Well, let me just tell you that I needed to clean toilet after they had left.

I will be coaching “my team” two more weeks. Then I will be gone. It is sad to say goodbye this soon since we have just started. I am little worried what will happen to them. Those shoes and balls will be worn out after three months. They don’t have any sponsors and parent can’t afford to buy them anything. I hope they will find someone who is interested in helping them. Otherwise the programme will stop before it even started.

Anyway, thanks again to all those who donated sports equipment for us. They are really in use now. You are more than welcome to come and see the happy faces which are a result of your own generous action. Karibu!

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