Adventures With Mark

Okay, I should catch up on a few odds and ends before I do a little football (or better known to you as soccer) talk. We have had a busy few weeks, but our term break mid April is in sight. Full steam ahead and then a two week rest and some catch up. This month has been considerably more reasonable in work load for me and I thank you all for your prayers through February. Things have been busy, bust but not seeming to spin out of control. I am grateful.
I was surprised the other day as I was on my way to work. Our night guard was still around and opened the gate for me. We had our usual morning conversation in which he said that he was a new dad. I will admit I was caught off guard as I knew nothing about this, but just the previous day his wife had given birth to their fifth child. Yes, the Ugandan way is to keep quiet, even when it is obvious until the baby is born and all is well. Congratulations Francis on another girl.
In regards to a house cleaning item, if anyone did make a donation for us in regard to our work here with the African Children’s Choir in 2007 and you did not receive a thank you from us please let us know. If you did not receive a card or a note via email it is most likely that your donation did not make it to its final destination here and may have inadvertently been placed as a general donation for the organization. We have been aware of this happening in the past so we try to keep tabs on this ourselves. Thanks!
Now, on to more exciting things like football! Yes, yours truly, Mr. Williams was the goalie for the uncle’s team on Saturday as we took on our school’s Senior Boys football team. Let me start by saying that those boys are very good and it has been a long while since I have been the goal keeper. Needless to say we worked hard, but they beat us in the end by one goal. I will admit, I let one weak one by and their second goal was off side but allowed by the ref. (Man, it’s tough to get a fair call!) We had some good fun and the boys that scored were very happy. Yes, especially those two boys in the picture above who scored on me. I should also add that the last time I played goal was back in grade six in penalty shots when Bieseker took on Irricana in the battle of the Hickvilles. Yes, we came in on top, but that was more than a few years ago. However, I will be ready for next time…
Yes, the girls do play soccer too and tend to have better results. Unfortunately there is a lot of cheating here as many teams will bring players to tournaments that do not even play for there school and are often years older. We found this out first hand as our Senior Girls Football team battled through two tournaments to make it to the final four teams for all of Kampala again this year after taking the title last year. Our girls played very hard and made us proud placing second in the whole city. Once back in my office and viewing some video footage and collecting comments from the girls it was discovered that the first place team used girls that do not attend their school and are secondary students. It was disappointing for the girls and frustrating for our staff, but part of everyday soccer life here. As our teams press on enjoying soccer and practicing hard, we continue to refuse to follow those who do cheat as we are committed to teaching these children integrity. (The temptation to cheat is very strong here because everyone is doing it and I am proud of our coach for his choice to play fair.) Yes, we will bring this latest incident to the attention of the girl’s football association but we are not expecting the outcome to change. Needless to say we will carry on and do feel that even though we were number two in Kampala that we do indeed have the best girl’s football team in the country!