I'm not good!

On my last afternoon at Namwianga, I walked down to the Wasawange village with one of the ACU interns to confirm what I already knew...I'm not good at football (soccer)! Like seriously. You know it's bad when an entire village of African children laugh at you (in unison). They were all standing in a group, and wanted us to head-bump (I don't even know if that's what you call it) the ball to them. Apparently, I'm about as good at that as I am actually playing. My head-bumping skills improved marginally after a few tries. Luckily, they never asked me to legit play. I ended up playing tag instead. I'm decent at that. 

It was a little intimidating how good they were. They had a pretty intense game going.

 The kids were completely fascinated when we pulled out our cameras. Everyone wanted to be in every picture. It's funny because the toddlers at the Haven know to be still and smile when a camera is pointed in their face, but these kids didn't quite get it. They live down the street, and often play football with the kids from Eric's House, but they're worlds away. It was really difficult to get them to stay in one spot while I backed up to get them all in the frame. They wanted to be as close as possible.

I could never get them all looking at the same time!

Thanks, Ashley, for taking this!

There was the one little girl who attached herself to me. She was quiet. I got the impression she got pushed around a lot. And kind of left out. She was so precious. She didn't want to let go of my hand at all. She got to the point where she would cry if the other kids tried to steal my hand from her. She would fuss and brush them away. And I was never able to figure out her name.

Isn't she cute?!

When It was time to leave, we tried to tell the kids that we had to go back. We started walking away, and they followed. All of them. And as we walked through the village, more came, more followed. We tried multiple times to get them to stay behind. They would let us take about five steps, and then they would swarm us again. We got to the main road (and the very edge of their village), and we were still having a hard time getting them to let us go. They asked if we had any "sweeties" (candy), which we didn't...but apparently hair bands are also cool (and fortunately Ashley had a whole pack). Once all the hair bands were passed out, we were able to go on our way. It was a great way to spend my last afternoon! 

They were quite interested in my shoes.

They had some great facial expressions. They'd be great at the Gamma can-can.