A Special Weekend

This past weekend (Feb 19-21) our Suba Lakers Football Club reported to Mbita for a weekend of training. Nineteen of the twenty-three girls came on Friday and stayed through Sunday afternoon. Some travelled by foot, others by public vehicles, others on the back of motorbikes, and about four came from islands on boats.

These primary school players come at least one weekend a month, but this one was extra special because Coach Ted travelled from Kisumu to conduct the training. He is the coach of a professional club in Kenya called Kisumu Real. Also, the director of Kisumu Youth Football Association, Kelsey Moore, also came with him to see what we are doing with our girls and to train with them. The girls loved having someone new putting them through a workout and they also loved having a mzungu (white) lady training with them. The girls worked really hard over the three days and impressed the visitors with their skills and ability at such a young age. Most of our girls are only in 6th-7th grade and are around 11-16 years old. They have really improved over the past year that we have been working with them. If they stay together and continue to grow at the same rate, we will have a pretty incredible team in the coming years.

The club is preparing for the Copa Coca Cola tournament at the beginning of March and also for the primary school ball-games immediately after. Most of these girls will be forming the team that represents our district at Regionals and many of them will represent the region at Provencials. Even a few may get selected to reach the National Level.

Our club was grateful to our good friends, Ted and Kelsey, for taking time to travel to Mbita, staying with the girls in the camp, and helping to train them.