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The Gift of Soccer Balls

As we began pulling the soccer balls — a dozen in all — from the duffle bag, curious faces broke into broad smiles. Like many children in the developing world, these Rwandan boys spent hours each week perfecting their soccer skills. Yet seldom, if ever, had any of them touched a real soccer ball.

Here in rural southern Rwanda, where basics like food are scarce commodities, there is no money to buy toys or sports equipment. What few play things children have are fashioned out of abundant vegetation, or scraps of plastic, cloth, or other materials they can turn into the "luxury" of toys.

Take a moment to think of your own home, and a few of the things that don’t even register much value to us on a day-to-day basis. How many plastic bags collect at home following trips to the grocery store or drug store? How many times do you clean out another closet and donate a bag of clothing to a local thrift store? Plastic bags and old clothes are precious items to budding soccer enthusiasts growing up in poor countries. They are the stuff of which soccer balls are made as the world's poor children hand down the skill of fashioning balls from compacted plastic bags tied into a ball with stretchy cord.

So when real soccer balls arrive, the children's endless smiles are testimony to the impact of the gifts. In Rwanda's Mudasomwa community, where donated soccer balls were recently delivered, the boys' enthusiasm can scarcely be contained. Growing up in families that struggle to eke food from depleted land and trudge long distances to carry water to their homes, few have dreamed that one day they might have a real soccer ball to take onto the field. But today they do, and as the boys hold the balls in disbelief and awe, they say "thank you!," "thank you!" again and again. Some of our team members pause to play soccer with them for a bit, then we climb back into Land Cruisers to continue our journey. As we maneuver along rutted dirt roads, running beside us are 12 boys with 12 balls, boys who are jumping up and down at the SUV windows and thanking us once again. For many, it's as much about being remembered by someone who cares as it is about the sport itself.
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