Day 10: Children’s Mass and a Proper Session
In the morning, I hitched a ride with Sister Mary to Nyumbani orphanage as a large group from Ireland left the Mary Ward Centre to head for the Nyumbani Village. The Mass experience is the best I have enjoyed in the world (and I have been to Mass in 11 countries!). The singing, drumming, dancing, clapping, extended time for sign of peace to get around to many people, and the loving intro and outro from Mass by the director of Nyumbani make it incredibly welcoming and engaging. You are a participant in Kenyan Masses, not merely a spectator.
Directly before Mass, I had asked the director if we could play socce later, and he said he would organize it. As I was taking tea and talking with the incredibly charismatic and clever priest who was visiting for WOW directly after Mass, the boys came over with a soccer ball, and I got the hint that it was time to play. After showing skills in a circle with players giggling and trying for themselves, one player reminded me that last year I had promised to run a proper session for them. I asked, “Would you guys like a proper session now,“ and they jumped in with an emphatic “Yes!”
We only had one ball, so we started with a rondo with two in the middle. Points were awarded for splits offensively and for winning the ball defensively. We then progressed to a half-field of space for a game of “21” where each team attempts to connect 21 one-touch passes, where two-touch and beyond are allowed but do not earn you points, they just help maintain posession. Then we moved into a game of “half-court” where goals must be scored off of a one-touch strike. As this activity wrapped up, the house leaders informed me that food was being served in the boys dorms and my lunch was there for me. I took food of rice and beef. Although I was given water, I could not drink it out of risk of getting sick, but I was given a sprite in a glass bottle by the house father instead.
Finally, we played a full-field (approximately 50 yards by 30 yards at Nyumbani) game after that. I then went to the middle of Nyumabi where the playground is located to be picked up, but Wachira and Laurie were experiencing delays from the day-before-school chaos, so I started drawing with one of the boys. I would draw, then he would try and replicate. Later, he drew, then I attempted to replicate. It became quite a spectator event. Last, I went around to the back, again being coaxed (not too hard to do with me) to demonstrate and teach some soccer skills before being picked up by Wachira and Laurie as the kids went in to clean up for their back-to-school meeting.
