On basketball and going-away parties

John Rono and some of the boys, working on building
the new basketball court

The Whalen team, Jared, Adele, and I drove up at 3:30 on the dot – exactly the time the festivities were to begin. We weren’t worried about being late because, after all, its Kenya time! We carried the six watermelons Jared had generously purchased into the kitchen to cut. The two men that were working at that moment had never cut a watermelon before so we quickly discussed a size that would feed over a hundred mouths and then got to work. With only two knives I had one of them make the initial cut into quarters and then finished the slicing. My mother, who loves watermelon, would have been tickled to see the size of the bowl we filled with watermelon slices. It looked like a regular American summer function!

Just as a team member and I carried out the watermelon, the kids were returning from school. They were decked out in their school PE uniforms and appeared ready to play (though I’m not sure they knew exactly what they were going to play).

The father of a visiting Whalen Family team began warming up the children. Imagine 90 children doing arm circles, push ups, jumping jacks etc in front of this basketball court with a pink ribbon tied from goal to goal. It was quite a sight. Once they were warm they sat down and awaited the opening of this new basketball court – a project of Jared Kreutzer (a summer intern).

Samuel Teimuge, the director of the Training Center, ran the ceremony alongside of Jared. They began with the story of the making of the court. Much had gone into the whole thing and it took quite a lot of persistence from Jared and other Kenyan staff here in Ilula. Next, one of the training center staff named Josiah did some karate. I’m not sure the kids have ever seen anything like that – there was all kinds of oohing and aahhing. And. if you watched the sidelines for the remainder of the afternoon you could see the kids imitating the moves he had performed.

The ribbon was cut, the rules explained and the first team selected. One backboard is the Kenyan flag and the other the American flag – it seems that it will forever be Kenya vs. America. :) Understandably, the Americans (though out of shape and struggling because of the high altitude here) “killed” the Kenyan team. But I am happy to report that each day after school there are two teams, America and Kenya, playing each other and learning day by day how to perfect their dribbles, passes and shots. They should be more than ready by the next team’s visit.

Besides the addition of basketball into these children’s days they also spent many hours last week perfecting their football (soccer) skills with the visiting team the Whalen Family. Things were a little confusing as they adapted to new and stricter rules, but by the end of the week I’d say we had our own Ilula World Cup :)

You can imagine with all this physical activity that these children would be eating a lot! And how thankful they are for the treats they get when interns, like Jared, Rachel and myself, leave. As a special evening they make a special meal including soda and chapati (a Kenyan staple similar to tortillas) for the children. These kids know its coming and its a welcome break from the routine meals they have day after day, week after week. They even keep track of how many good-bye services the west and east sides have had respectively. I think currently the east side is winning :)

~ Christy Thomas, Intern