June 28:
This was a crazy one. Barry, who is a OFC (Oceania Football Confederation) Just Play Trainer, asked us: “How many kids should we bring?”, and we said “as many as possible”. At last, we wanted to get to 10,000 signatures by the end of our trip to Kiribati. And as many kids as possible should be able to experience the Spirit of The Ball.
250 headers in one go? “Let’s do it”, said Andrew.
When we arrived there were about 50 kids. “Ah, this is going to be quick one”, we thought. Barry smiled and said “just wait”, plents more kids would be arriving. There were different teams and their trainers arriving in open trucks from different areas of South Tawara island. As we waited for the rest of the kids to arrive, we taught those already there a few words of German. A choir of 100 children was cheering “Hallo, wie geht’s (Hello, how are you?”) and “Ein Ball, Eine Welt (One Ball, One World)!” Slowly, more and more teams arrived. Andrew talked about the story of The Ball. “Do you want to sign The Ball too?” he asked. A choir of 200 children echoed “Yeees!”.
Once that last group had arrived, we went outside to the sandy parking area. A massive round of the ‘Catch the Fish’ game? follwed. For future reference, explaining a game to 250 excited kids who don’t speak English, can be extremely chaotic. We still somehow managed it and had some good (and exhausting) fun!
Next on the agenda were 250 headers, or maybe more than 300 headers, because many of the kids wanted to go for another round! We went to each group to gather more signatures. Of course, the coaches and some bystanders were not left out. By the end of the day, we had reached 9,998 signatures on The Ball!
