It had been a minute since our last Africa-based session, so it’s safe to say I was eager to return to a place so deeply in love with the beautiful game. I was equally as excited to go back to a continent rife with talent, especially footy-based talent. The last run of sessions here was back in December of 2021, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. If you can remember, that was a special one since Burkina Faso was the 50th country to receive our free programming. Well, as it turns out, Ghana was going to be equally as special. Why, you ask? Because Ghana was adding itself to the list as country number 51. Honestly, Ghana had been on my radar for a while, but without visa reciprocity it largely became an afterthought – in the periphery of other sessions based in South and Central America.

Time passing by just as time does, I decided to be a bit more proactive and applied for a multi-entry visa for Ghana in NYC back in March. The process was messy, and made even more so considering I applied on my Filipino passport to not relinquish my US passport for our upcoming run of sessions in Argentina.

Weeks passed and finally, a prepaid envelope arrived at my door – inside it, my Filipino passport with a brand new, shiny Ghana visa within it. I immediately messaged my local contact in Accra, a young man named Kwame who had been incredibly helpful in providing some very necessary details for the visa.

Kwame runs his own NGO in Ghana called Little Tokens Foundation, where they work to improve literacy and the quality of life of schoolchildren in under-resourced areas outside the country’s capital. If it wasn’t obvious already, Kwame and I were cooking something up and we would be collaborating our efforts between Around the Worlds and Little Tokens. The plan was a morning of sessions at one of their adopted schools in Little Ada. Kwame asked if we could set aside a few footballs for another school they work with, albeit much farther away, in a region known as Volta. Despite being strapped for resources, I gladly obliged – knowing that we could always reallocate footballs and other gear as needed.

My first day in the country, following a red eye flight, was a doozy. I’ll spare the details, but I got in late in the afternoon so I was unable to exchange any cash. Then, the following day being Sunday, I couldn’t exchange cash either given the forex shops were all closed. I was left to fend for myself on Saturday and Sunday, scrambling nearby streets for even just one place that might accept credit – though there were none to be found.

Finally, I found a nice establishment 25 minutes away, and decided that I’d be going there for the next week for all my meals. Meanwhile, after one nice shower at my AirBnB, someone cut our pipe outside the house and we were left without running water. This would continue until Wednesday, which was five days without running water. Alas, I was rolling with the punches – I’m not even gonna lie, the bucket showers were delightful. They brought back fond memories of my childhood, of visits as a young boy back to the Philippines to shower using a bucket and “tabo” back there. That little bit of nostalgia made these bucket showers in Accra all that more enjoyable, which was especially necessary during the 5 AM wake ups where a cold water shower seemed the least appealing thing.

Still rolling with the punches, I spent my days inflating footballs to be used at our first program in Ada. Resting in between sets, I decided to search the area nearby my flat. I came upon a school known as Blue Bear International School, and rang the doorbell. I would be proposing a session or two for later in the week, so we could give out the rest of the resources I had allocated specifically for Ghana. However, I’ll finish this tale later on. Fast forward to Tuesday, the day of our double session with Little Tokens.

Ada, though closer than their other beneficiary in Volta, which was four hours away, was still an hour and 45 minute trek away. We planned to leave at 7:30 for a 9 AM first session, but Kwame moved that up to 6:30 due to the high chance of traffic. I piled all the equipment I needed into our Uber and we began the long journey. A bit tight for space in the car, I decided to wait a bit before inflating additional balls for the session.

Our driver made fast work of the commute and got us there safely before 9 AM, as Kwame took a moment to introduce me to some staff members, with a man named Bright – the school’s PE Teacher, being one of the first introductions. He was certainly appropriately named as his personality and smile perfectly matched his moniker.

The sessions were set to field 49 participants – which we divided up into two groups of 24 and 25. Setting up our first exercise, assisted by Kwame, another Little Tokens volunteer – Belinda, and our driver, I watched as the kids flooded out of their classrooms and onto the large, dirt field. They were all wearing their sports uniforms, yellow Adidas kits which I can only assume had been donated to the school.

The kids took good care of these kits though, as I watched them wash them after the session and dry them along the ground for the sun to take over the rest of the job from there. The kids situated themselves in two orderly, single-file lines as I addressed them as a whole. Kwame had warned me that though Ghana is the only Anglophone country surrounded by Francophone ones, these kids coming from lower-resource communities oftentimes struggled with English and only spoke a different, local dialect known as “Twi”.

“But don’t worry, I can help translate, or Bright, or anyone else can,” he said, reassuringly.

Knowing I’d have to take him up on that, I broke quickly into our listening drill, aided by the biggest boy in the session, Amadou, who would be acting as our captain. I watched with admiration as he belted out commands and quite literally commanded the space around him, pacing through our grid between rows so that each and every participant could hear him clearly. It’s safe to say he was already a born-leader long before that armband made its way around his bicep. After that, we broke into relay races. These kids were talented I swear. Their ball control was flawless as they weaved in and out of the cones. That same control was just as clean as we practiced rollovers with the sole of the foot, first to the left and then to the right.

With relay races exhausted and the time of our first session wearing thin I decided to get us some prizewinners with “head it, catch it”. Basically, we would be leaving some footballs for the school to use as they best saw fit – then a couple drawstring bags ~10 for each session, to be given out as prizes. To top it off, a bracelet for everyone else participating – so that no child left home empty-handed or in this case, empty-armed. I ran a round myself to grab a few winners, before stepping aside to let Coach Bright do his thing. Along the way, just like the exercises before it, I always encouraged the kids to applaud for winners – because a little bit of recognition and positive encouragement never hurt anyone. Coach Bright wrapped up a round and I quickly circled everyone up so we could distribute little prizes.

With a final couple rounds of applause, for my captain, for Coach Bright, for the Little Tokens crew, and lastly for the kids themselves – the session was over as fast as it had begun, and just like that another group was marching towards the field in their matching bumblebee yellow kits. I hit a quick introduction, then broke into drill number one, assisted by this session’s captain – David. From there, we skipped over relay races to instead work on ball control techniques. One group led by myself, the other by David, and the last by yep you guessed it – Coach Bright. The kids were killing it at this one, their touches were all buttery smooth – volleying and heading the ball back to me perfectly at chest-height, one by one. We broke from there to our dribbling drill where participants had to stop the ball with whatever part of the body I called out.

They got a kick out of this one, especially when the command “buttocks” was used. With only twenty footballs available, I had to swap some players in and out, but they were all extremely understanding and patiently waited their turn. That drill done and dusted, I moved to our ‘king of the hill’ exercise just to nab some winners ahead of ‘head it, catch it’. With our time well past when the session was expected to stop, I scrambled to snag some last minute winners – eventually doing so through a little crossbar challenge.

Finally, the kids plopped themselves down in front of myself and the Little Tokens crew for a cool down chat and the usual distribution. I popped into the headmaster’s office with Kwame, for a short introduction and a couple words of thanks from my side for allowing me to drop by and share our curriculum with the kids. He reiterated that it was a special experience and that the kids had fun, sharing his own words of thanks for the footballs being left with the school for the kids to use whenever they wanted to play ball. We piled back into the car, the trunk filled with empty bags as opposed to how it was full of footballs during the morning journey.

Kwame ran around to the backside and pulled out some “malt” beverages – two made by Guinness and the others called Beta Malt.

“Come on bro you gotta try it, it’s a Ghanaian rite of passage,” he said, placing a Guiness one into my hand.

I’m not sure if it was the taste or the fact I had just run sessions for 3 hours in 95 degree weather with the hot Ghana sun beating down on me, but I put that Malt to sleep I swear. On the ride back, I chopped it up with Kwame and co. as we spoke about football and our own, respective journeys with our charities. Before reaching my house located off Spintex Road, I thanked him for allowing me to be a small part of the important work they do. I told him how much I admired that he took the jump and started something himself, because it’s never easy to build anything from the ground up like that – especially during COVID times and even so now after them.

“A lot of businesses didn’t survive COVID, and even more charities than that went under, so just the fact that you made it here and that you’ve made it til now is a testament of hard work and perseverance, so congratulations Kwame, really,” I said, as we pulled up to my destination and in shutting the passenger door, effectively closed the door on a marathon first day (from 630 AM to 230 PM) of sessions in Ghana.

Country number 51…. Check. Country number 52…. loading.