basketball practice...

Molo everyone!

It has been a week since arriving in South Africa and my time here so far is quickly turning into everything I hoped it would be. The first four days of work at H4H and in the townships have been fun, exciting, challenging, exhausting, rewarding, and at times uncomfortable. I’ve already had some experiences that would probably make my parents cringe (oops), but I am learning so much about culture, tradition, relationships—just the way of life here. From the crazy drivers (stop signs are more of a suggestion), to the tiny shacks that house large African families, to seeing sheep being cooked on the side of the road, T.I.A (This is Africa!) and I’m loving it.

Tonight I went to basketball practice at a local university—Cape Peninsula University of Technology. I got a good run in playing with a solid group of players, including three who are on the South African National Team. The team is preparing for the national college tournament in two weeks in Pretoria/Johannesburg, and Leah and I will actually be going up there with them…just a short 24 hour bus ride away (!). The plan is that we’ll do a few coaching clinics, help them prepare for games, and then go down to Joburg to meet people from NBA Without Borders.

In a way, playing with these girls tonight brought this first week full circle for me. Coach Kim at CPUT, also a national team coach, put us through the same drills and drew up offenses that I run at school. He praised us for properly executing an OOB (out of bounds) play, criticized us for not shifting correctly in our zone defense, and sent us to the baseline to run sprints for not communicating as a team—all three of which Coach Burr at Brown as well as every other coach I have played for has also done. Whether I am playing in California, Rhode Island, or South Africa, the skills and concepts of the game don’t change. 

While tonight I was a student of the game at Coach Kim’s practice, tomorrow afternoon I will once again be a teacher of the game in the Phillipi township. I can’t even really describe to you what these first four days have been like working in the township. It has been a bit of cultural overload as I am constantly trying to understand what life is like here by asking honest questions, talking to kids/young people/adults, just trying to understand and connect. Thabo has gone out of his way to help us form these authentic connections…and I know this is just the beginning.  But I can tell you that these kids at the 10 schools in the 3 townships who come out for the H4H after-school program 3 times per week LOVE basketball. In a country where soccer dominates, basketball is still very much a niche sport. It’s refreshing to see the joy that these kids have playing the game (try to imagine twenty kids all running to give their teammate a big high-five for just winning a round of steal-the-ball by scoring a simple layup)... perhaps because it is an escape from the realities of life outside the gates of the schoolyard. 

I say that practicing with the college team brought the week full circle because I have experienced the universality of sport in a new way. Whether it be at the collegiate level or at more basic level in an after-school clinic, the concepts of basketball are the same. I did not know any of these girls tonight, I cannot communicate with most of the kids in the township as they speak little English, but yet the basketball bridges that gap. It really is a unifying force.

The first week has exceeded all of my expectations. I’m meeting lots of great people from all over the world. Can’t wait to see what the next 5 weeks bring!

As they say in Africa, “sharp-sharp” (said shop-shop).

Lindsay