Kickball

This week, we implemented a kickball afterschool program. On Wednesday I went around recruiting in all of the classes, trying to give a brief synopsis of what the term kickball meant. I described it using the word soccer, so most of the boys were interested. The first day about 60 kids showed up, all not having a clue of what was going on. I quickly grabbed three backpacks to make first, second and third base, and had them all make a straight line so I could count them off into teams. The game started at around 2:00 p.m. and by 2:15 we were down to about 30 players. Most of these kids can’t stay after school because they have to go home and take care of younger siblings or cook dinner for their family. They certainly are not off to dance class, baseball practice or music lessons. I had to explain the rules and regulations as we went because these kids just wanted to play. They do not go to a gym class once a week like many of our students do in the states, so this might be there only form of physical activity at school for the entire week. Once everyone got acclimated to how kickball incorporates both soccer and baseball, they really seemed to enjoy it. These kids were kicking a hard soccer ball out of the playing field and are sure to beat any group of American kids any day, any time. Over the course of next two days, we kept recruiting, and more and more kids showed up to play. It was so great and we would have played until the sun went down, but unfortunately they lock up the school gates at 3:00…leaving these kids needing and wanting more. Hopefully The Kusasa Project can get some volunteers to keep this after school program going, because it will help keep these kids very active and off the streets…for a little while at least.