Another amazing day in South Africa! I can't really explain how beautiful this country is in words. Waking up every morning to a sun rising over the mountains, with the ocean beside it, is truly amazing.
Something even more amazing is the reaction we have received from the community members that we have worked with. Today we worked with two huge groups of people. Our first stop was to Zerilda Park Primary School. About 300 children in their blue and gold school uniforms were waiting for us with smiles on their faces. We hosted a few relay races before sitting them down and sharing with them. I got my first chance to talk to a group, and I really enjoyed it. Stefan Baskin accompanied me, and I thought the kids really took our words to heart. These were truly great kids and it seemed like most of them were headed in the right direction, and I feel like after hearing us talk today that we influenced them to stay out of trouble and to make the right decisions in their lives.
After speaking to the group we had a chance to talk and play with them. I had all 300 kids circle around me for a few minutes while I preformed some of the coolest looking ball handling drills I could think of, dribbling two and three balls at a time. The kids all had huge grins on their faces and they enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun for me to be able to show off some of the drills that I do, especially seeing that the kids were really enjoying it.
After the dribbling expedition the kids stampeded us all. We played with them for a while and signed hundreds of autographs. We all signed shirts, hands, shoes, and anything else they could find. This truly was a great group of kids.
After we left Zerilda Park, we went over to a community called Capricorn to play a few games of soccer. We lost our first match 2-1, but managed to sneak away with a 2-1 victory in our second match. It was amazing to see a community gather for an exciting afternoon full of soccer games. We sat down to talk with the teams and we actually had a lot of the community members that were there to watch the games, listen to our speech as well. Andy Wicke, Stefon, and I talked in front of them, and I feel like it touched some of the soccer players, along with some of the members of the community.
This trip has changed me already, and it has only been three days. I have never experienced anything like this, and I’m so glad that I am getting the opportunity to help out. I’m excited about getting the chance to work with other communities, and I am looking forward to helping out as many people as possible for the rest of the trip!