Yianny writes from Nairobi, where he is getting his first taste of TackleAfrica at the coal face, and pioneering our new level 1 course structure with one of the most successful sport for development organisations in Africa.
We arrived safely and with no problems from the UK (if you don’t count the broken back from 9 hours in economy class seats) and were met at the airport by Joseph from MYSA and George the driver.
The roads through Nairobi were a touch bumpier than your average rollercoaster but we made good time a
nd were at our guest house in just over an hour. I was sad to hear that the ‘Matatu’ or shared taxis will be no longer as of June 2011. You have to look out for them as you would a sugar crazed 10 year old in a bumper car but to me they are a piece of Africa and are being discontinued because they create too much traffic in the city centre. In their place people are gathering together to buy 25+ seater vehicles which is now the minimum size although I’m not entirely sure this will solve Nairobi’s chronic traffic problem as they are double the width and triple the length of the old mini buses.
The Kenya School of Accountancy will be our base for the next few weeks and Ben, Clive and I recovered from our flight in the dining room over coffee, cake and sausages (a traditional welcome offering or all that was left from breakfast). Clive was doing his best Clint Eastwood impression with beard and toothpick while I checked out Ben’s lovely pink watch.
The evening brought with it the obligatory Premier League feast which we enjoyed in a nearby hotel and our first contact with David from MYSA. We lost the feed of the match at one point while a monsoon downpour hit which cleared the air ready for our first day on the course. Commiserations to Chelsea fans on being humbled by Sunderland at home and here’s to many more twists in this year’s race to the title.
As I finish this blog we have wrapped up the first day and a wonderful one it was too. Hopefully if Ben’s photography skills are better than his goalscoring (competitive goal no.1 at MYSA: Ben 17 mins o.g) we will have some great pics to share with you all so check out our Flickr galleries.
One game saves lives
Yianny 15/11/2010
Thanks Yianny,Ben and Clive for your time to come and teach us more on how to link football and HIV.
This is a big step in our communities towards helping us overcome HIV/AIDS challenges while doing what we love most – Football.
it has been a great 5 days of learning a new concept from tackleafrica to MYSA and i hope is will go along in developing our coaches and players at the same time informing them on both lifeskills and HIV messages.
This was a wonderful training, We learnt on how football can be used to transform our lives off the field. secondly it proved that if you can win off the field then in the field it can be much easier. At MYSA the trained 16 coaches will train other 960 community coaches starting February 2011 at the zonal level.