Tanzania Day 2 - July 13th

Woke up early to get breakfast and get onto the bus to drive to play soccer with some local children. It took 2 hours and 30 minutes to find the place, on dirt roads that were the farthest thing from flat. We finally got to our destination and all the children were wearing matching jerseys based on if they played on Ivo team or if they had played on the team with disabilities. We then got off the bus and grabbed two children’s hands and headed to the field. They were so cute, so excited to just hold our hands. When we arrived at the field, it was not what I expected. I was thinking it would be like Egypt's fields, but it was not at all. The field was completely sand with wood sticks as goals. We pulled out the couple cones we had and set up a game called eagles nest. It was hard to explain as some didn’t know any English but we told by doing examples and it worked nicely. These children were amazing. Some had no leg, no working arms, and they would still dribble. With one leg and arm crutches, they all had a smile on their faces. They all had so much will, it was amazing to see them play. Next we played a passing type game. They were all so competitive, they were not afraid to push each other over even with their disabilities. We then spilt into three teams to play a real game with them. Some of these children are so good, better than I ever was and they are 10 years old. I could not get over their smiles!! After the games, the children wanted to dance for us, as they had practice and planned dances! It was so damn cute. I just can not say enough how happy and willing these children were. It amazes me. Ivo, the coach from Tanzania, wanted us to show our skills so Amanda had me do a flip throw and I did the three pick ups that I can actually do. It was so fun to see them get excited about us doing skills or dancing, once again just so happy to be able to play with us. We then walked back to the bus with the children and headed off to lunch. The drive took a while again. The lunch place was cool and new. The owner was making sure it ran well but it needed some more work though. I was the last to get my food and it took an hour and a half for some low quality chicken. The children ate all of our leftover food, they cleaned all the plates. After lunch we dropped them at their home and started our way back to our house. When we got back, we quickly changed then turned right around and headed to the village. We were set to eat dinner with William, the pastor and man the runs the show in the village. Driving towards the village was not what I expected, as many houses surrounding the area were nice and newly built. The city of Dar is growing fast and so are the surrounding areas. The rich will just walk into the villages and tell them they need to leave because they don’t have proper documents and it leaves all the people without homes. This is what has happened all around Mandala Village. Amanda and Brandon worked really hard to try and get paperwork for the village, hopefully they will be safe and not have to leave their land. The village itself was adorable, but the people within were even better. When we stepped off the bus the children came running, all so excited to see us. They followed us around when we went on our little tour of the village. We saw the church and it’s new addition from last year, the school, and the soccer field. The village has gotten much smaller in the last two years with the large houses going up around. It is very sad to see their land just taken from them. I’m excited to help out in the next couple days in Mandala Village!