Day 4: 2/14/2009
Today is Valentine’s day, the first time I have been away from Janel on Valentines since we started dating. As I thought through that, and about being so far away from family, I certainly began to realize just how important they are to me and how much I missed them already. But I know that God has me in Africa for a reason and we are going to find out why.
We headed out for another day around 9am as one of the local basketball directors (named Isacc) had scheduled a 17U-18U game for us at a local school in Ghana. Seeing this game would help me to get my arms around the local talent and see just what type of project we were getting ourselves into.
We arrived at the court just as the game was beginning and to my surprise the courts were nothing like the United States. The court was an outside playground court with the hoops so mangled that each hoop only stood at about nine and a half feet.
Despite the court, it was a lot of fun to watch and to see the potential that is in many of the kids. The athletic ability is incredible but the skill level is drastically behind the United States. Most guys were jumping off the wrong foot when shooting lay-ups and other little things that I often take for granted. The other item that must be noted was that the boys participating only came from the local Accra area, which is the current capital, but there were no players from the neighboring villages and towns.
Following the game I had the opportunity to talk with the boys, show them some drills, and provide a few encouraging words. Afterwards we jumped back into the car and headed to the new location for the Right to Dream facility.
The Right to Dream recently purchased 31 acres of land around the Volta River for its full construction of a new school, dorms, cafeteria, futbol fields, and hopefully a basketball training area as well. As we arrived there was a ton of construction going on with the building of dorms and school as well as the leveling out of the soccer fields. The construction process is nothing like that in the United States. Every building is made out of concrete blocks that are made directly on site with the oldest, most primitive tools I have ever seen. It is a very slow and demanding process but it allowed me to get a vision for the location and also allowed Chris to talk with all of the contractors. Chris will be the head guy for the building of any basketball facilities.
After we finished our tour of the new site we decided to grab some lunch along the river at a small, locally owned restaurant. All they had on the menu was fish, fish, and some more fish. So, I ordered some fish that was caught that day in the Volta River. Now, in Ghana they do not make the food look pretty . They catch the fish, put them on the grill, and then onto your plate. Despite the fish looking at me while I ate him, it was the BEST fish I have ever had.
Once we finished lunch we headed back up the mountain to the current location of the Right to Dream academy to watch a tryout. The tryout was with kids from villages as far as 4-5 hours away. They had roughly 25 kids trying out for three spots. The reason for such a small number being selected is that it costs about $8,000 per year to put one kid through the academy. So, spots are highly sought because for most, this is the only way to receive an education and create any future for themselves. After the tryout they decided to keep 8 of the kids around throughout the weekend and sent about 17 kids home on a bus back to the village. To see the look on the faces of the kids who couldn’t stay just killed my heart. But like Tom said, you just try to stay focused on the fact that you are going to have the opportunity to change the entire life of three young individuals.
Since the full day of traveling around Ghana had finally come to an end we were headed back to Tom’s house to shower and freshen up. Then a few of the primary staff from the Right to Dream as well as Chris and I took in a wonderful dinner at an Italian Restaurant in the heart of Accra. I was able to order some lasagna and almost felt like I was back in the United States; well that was until I discovered they put ham in their lasagna. We were able to have some great conversations about working with kids from Ghana and how their lives and early upbringing are so drastically different from what occurs in the United States. Before we knew it the time was a little past midnight and we were all ready to get to bed after a very busy day!!
The bent hoop
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