Remember the Blue Bear International School I dropped by during my free day on Monday? Well, after a talk with Edmund, the person in charge in the school’s office, followed by a further chat with the school’s Headmaster, Mr. Daniel, we were able to set up a double session early Wednesday morning.

In fact, they were so interested in running something that the kids were already outside their classrooms on Monday as I departed Mr. Daniel’s corner office room. “Wait, we’re not starting today?” asked one of the teachers. It was obvious they were excited, which meant I was over the moon. I told them I would be back very soon, as to give ourselves a bit of extra time to plan something special out.

Wednesday morning came quickly, soothing to my eager mind and body. We planned for two groups of 20, just to make sure I had at least one bracelet for each participant along with a donation of footballs for the school to keep. During my Monday chat with Mr. Daniel, I told him I was kind of rationing equipment with programs in Côte d’Ivoire on the horizon, so I could probably give Blue Bear only 5 footballs, but I vowed to see if I could move things around to try and provide them with more.

“Stephen, you know the story of Oliver Twist?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m familiar,” I responded. “Please sir, May I have some more, right?” trying my best to recall one of the most well-known lines from the script.

“Yes, that One,” Mr. Daniel answered. “That’s us here.”

“I can promise you, whatever you can give to us, and therefore for the kids, is more than appreciated,” he concluded.

Immediately, I went back to my house and set aside four more size 5 footballs, knowing and realizing that we could give more so we should give more. On Tuesday, I sent a text to both Edmund and Mr. Daniel in the afternoon just to confirm that I was still good for Wednesday. One of the signs at the school read “cleanliness is next to Godliness” and I just knew that professionalism was of the essence so I made sure to carry myself accordingly.

Wednesday rolled around and I was walking through the front gate of Blue Bear with a bag of footballs hanging over my shoulder. I exchanged pleasantries with both my contacts at the school, and met with a couple teachers who would be helping with the sessions or at least just being on hand to make sure things were orderly. Leading the charge was a tall slender man in a black suit jacket. Mr. Michael was his name. The headmaster would later tell me that Mr. Michael was one of the best in the business. Very kind. Very helpful. And trustworthy, he had said. I would only come to see these things with my own eyes as Mr. Michael not only supervised both sessions but even offered his hand in running some drills for me. World class dude, but I feel fortunate to have crossed paths with many just like him during this long journey. And how lucky am I to say that people like Mr. Michael are the norm, not the exception in this racket.

We were set up right in the middle of the quad, two walls of the school bordering our play area with not a wink of shade in sight. Ooh baby today’s gonna be a scorcher I thought to myself, immediately regretting my sad breakfast of just a sleeve of cookies en route to the school. Twenty kids were already lined up in front of me, so I decided to kick things off.

“Alright listen guys… today we have a football class for you all. But first, I’m only going to ask you for three things. But these three things are very important,” I said.

“First, I am going to need your attention.”

“What was that?” I asked, testing their listening.

“Attention!” They responded.

“Next, your energy.”

“Energy!” they yelled.

“And last, but most importantly – I need your respect.”

“Respect!” they exclaimed, wrapping up the short intro I had planned.

“Okay, so we’re going to start things off with a listening drill. Which means you’re going to need to use your…?” I asked, hoping to encourage even more audience participation.

“Ears!” said one boy, pointing to his own.

I instructed them to partner up, and aided by Mr. Michael they all situated themselves around a ball and a cone. I ran a couple rounds, then designated a captain, Josef, to run a few rounds himself. From there, I broke into some relay races, allowing Josef and some of the older boys to demo techniques for me throughout. Lastly, we broke into head it, catch it to close out the first session. I was unsure if the kids truly wanted to win, or secretly hoped for elimination just to rest under the cool embrace of a nearby tree’s shade.

Bringing things back into the center for a closing chat, I thanked the kids for giving me their attention, energy, and respect – as our next group of 20+ kids stood at the ready, eager to enter the fold once vacated by the group before them. This next group was just as much a joy to work with. The setting took me back to so many fond memories on this now 7+ year long journey of Around the Worlds as not only did I find myself with two dozen youngsters enthused to play in front of me, but dozens and dozens more behind them, above them, and lining the playing field showing their own support and encouragement just as a loyal fan base would. Immediately, a tall boy named Michal stepped forward as a captain – though I was already fortunate to have the help of an older student named Moses, as well as a participant from the first session. He had actually offered up his assistance unprompted, which was really cool to see.

Speaking of the older boy, Moses, who was helping out, Mr. Daniel said he was an extremely good kid, and a helpful one too at that. So this was hardly a surprise for Mr. Daniel to see. As I navigated my way through a variety of drills, hoping to stick with some of the highlights from session 1, but also hoping to mix in some new ones so as to surprise the boys who had watched the first session unfold, I would occasionally get interrupted (albeit politely) by some of the younger boys.

“Sir, can I please go upstairs? My teacher is calling me.” They would say.

This happened a handful of times with those kids going in and out of the session, so we had a bit of a revolving door – not ever more than 20 kids, but maybe up to 25 participants through all the changes. Despite the constant flux from this, the kids really were enjoying the program. They laughed their way through head it, catch it. They smiled their way through a dribbling drill. And they put their heads down and got to work through ball control grids led by Michal, Moses, and myself.

After wrapping things up with a question to the kids of whether or not they had learned something new and taking a couple minutes to hear each of their answers, I counted the group up one last time to make sure we had enough bracelets.

Uh oh… I thought to myself. We seemed to be one bracelet short. I blame the revolving door, but it is what it is.

Alas, I thought of a quick solution on the fly. “Michal! Where are you at, my captain?” I said, scanning the group.

His hand shot into the sky.

“Michal do you want a bracelet or do you want to keep the captain’s band to take home?” I asked, Hoping his response would open up the opportunity to give one more kid a bracelet.

“The captain’s band, sir,” he responded gently. I smiled, gave him a high five and said thank you.

With a round of applause for the students and teachers who had helped us carry out the session, followed by a final round of applause for the stars of the show – the kids themselves, I drew things to an end and made my way back into Mr. Daniel’s office. I had a smile on my face, but I was breathing heavily and probably all of 30 minutes away from an actual heatstroke.

“You must be tired,” Mr. Daniel said, as expected after a three hour session in 95 degree weather with little to no shade.

“What gave it away?” I asked, with a laugh.

“Come with me, Stephen, someone wants to meet you… it’s the owner of the school,” he said.

Okay, well now I was a little nervous I won’t lie. Plus, you know, I was tired too. Mr. Daniel led me into a big corner office and instructed me to take a seat, while he passed over an ice cold water bottle to soothe my body after the long morning of exercise.

“Stephen, this is Madam Doris – Blue Bear International’s proprietress (owner),” he said. I stood up and greeted her with a smile and a gentle handshake.

Apparently, she had been around on Monday when I first dropped by, but was busy with meetings and unable to speak on that particular day.

“I heard all about you and your work from Mr. Daniel, but I wanted to hear it from you since you’re here already,” she said with a smile.

“I’ve heard of NGOs but never sports ones, as they’re always for education, etc.” She added.

“But tell me, how was it this morning? How were the kids?” She asked.

My face lit up. I told her the kids were extremely polite and disciplined, “really it’s a testament to you guys,” I said. “you’re in a largely thankless profession, and you don’t hear it enough but let me be the first (and hopefully not last) to tell you today – thank you for what you do, your work is important and your work matters.”

Excitedly, she proudly shared the charity work the school did in their free time – feeding dozens of street children just here in the blocks surrounding the school, and turning it into a real team operation with teachers, and everybody involved… cooking, distributing food, etc.

“We might never see the fruits of this labor, but it still matters, and that’s why we do it,” she said.

“Ah that reminds me of this quote about trees and shade,” I said, hoping they might be familiar with it.

If not familiar, I at least hoped it might resonate with them, but I was certain it would given the way this whole conversation had played out.

“So it goes something like this… blessed are those who plant trees even though they might never sit in their shade,” I said.

“Wow,” she answered, as Mr. Daniel had a similar response with both of them raising their eyebrows.

“That’s beautiful,” she said. “And true too!”

Thirst quenched by now, but stomach rumbling as unsurprisingly the sleeve of cookies had not held me over well – I bid farewell to the school’s proprietress with one last handshake and another big thank you. Then, I made my way back to Mr. Daniel’s office and posed a very important question. “So, Mr. Daniel, tell me. Are you hungry?”

He nodded his head and we packed things up to head towards Marwako, a local restaurant serving African & Middle Eastern fare.

Sitting down over a spread of fresh fruit juice, chicken, rice, salad, and more, we got to talking. I always enjoyed these post-program moments and the conversations that came with them. We talked about sports, about soccer, about the premier league, about his family and his football-crazy son, and more. I asked him questions about the school, and he answered them proudly and thoroughly.

“We currently have 212 students, but we can go up past 400,” he said.

“Do you mind me asking what things were like for you guys during COVID?” I asked, knowing that certain African nations were hit particularly hard by the pandemic.

“Well, we were closed for 5-6 months during COVID, but honestly others were shut from 9 months to a year. Kids really struggled going back to school after that. Some never came back, and others came back at a much lower level than they had had before the pandemic. It’s a sad reality but these things are largely out of their hands. Some parents are illiterate, some kids went to the village to live with their grandparents with little to no access to study materials. So for them to come back and lack focus upon their return, all we can do is try to be understanding and patient with them,” he said.

“You know, Stephen, we’re actually the cheapest school in the area in terms of enrollment fees – it’s 600 Ghanaian cedis here per term, and there are 3 terms per year. I could tell he was really proud of that, and I’m certain they worked hard to keep those enrollment fees down as much as they could – offering scholarships to a large chunk of the students, with some of them even living on school property on the top floors.

As we walked back from Marwako, I had to thank Mr. Daniel one last time for bringing the two sessions to life, especially at such a short notice.

“What time do the kids get out?” I asked.

“Well, school starts at 7 and runs until 4. But I get here at 6:45 a.m. and I’ll be here until 6 p.m.. I’m the first person here and the last person to leave,” he said with the same smile he had the first day I met him. Leaders lead, and this man was certainly doing it from the top down as headmaster.

Night had gone, and it was now the Thursday before my Friday flight to Côte d’Ivoire. My last walk as we close the Ghana chapter of this West Africa run of sessions, the sun setting, a young boy walking besides me – in perfect cadence, stride for stride. I saw him doing some stepovers over an imaginary ball while he was a couple paces ahead of me. Finally as I caught up to him, he turned my way – “afternoon” he said softly, “afternoon” I said back.

 He smiled. “You visited my school,” he said, a bit louder, his smile widening.

 “No way! Really? Did you have fun?” 

“Yes sir,” he replied. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Tesfaye,” he responded. 

“Wait, where’s your bracelet?” I asked, telling him I would’ve immediately recognized him as a clinic participant had I seen it on his wrist. 

“It’s safe at my house,” he said, proudly. We kept walking stride in stride as I asked him some questions about the session like if he was in the first or the second group, and what his favorite activity was. 

“Head it, catch it,” he responded, without hesitation.

Hooking left at the corner of the street I bid the little man farewell with a fist bump as I was in a rush to the supermarket to grab some last minute things before my flight the next morning. Another left later I was in familiar pastures as I heard a scream from down the street. 

“Stephen!” the voice yelled out. 

“Coach!” the others followed. 

I squinted, immediately recognizing an older boy who participated in session number one, then stayed after for session 2 to help out, despite not being chosen as a captain in either. I admired his willingness to help back then and was thrilled to see him a second time. He rolled a ball my way as I decided I could put off my supermarket run a little longer to entertain some footy with the boys. 

We all circled up for some keepy-ups as some of the oldest ones threw down their best tricks like rainbows, around the worlds, and more. One boy dropped a super clean around the world which I responded to with one of my own.

“Hey bro! Come play with us this Saturday! We play every weekend. It’s really nice, close by too… you should drop by,” he said, playing the role of teammate and recruiter albeit still keeping the ball bouncing in the air. 

“Man I would! You know I would!” I responded, “but I got a flight to the Ivory Coast tomorrow,” I said, regrettably, but flattered still by the invite. 

We continued to go around the circle as some boys left while others inserted themselves in as new faces, even a girl or two too, which was awesome. As the ball bounced up and down, up into orbit, then back down to earth, I heard another voice, trickling down from the sky. 

“Hey!” I looked up. It was Mr. Michael! The teacher who had been ever so helpful during my sessions at the school, he was watching our keep-ups session from the fourth floor window of the school, smiling down with pride. “Good to see you Mr. Michael!” I yelled back. 

Finally, a young boy with some vapors broke into the circle. It was his Adidas ball that we had been using. “Guys my mom is calling me back home, and I need the ball,” he said. The ball was tossed back into the air to his welcoming arms and he spun back, disappearing down a street connected to our play space. With no means of playing any more, I too bid the boys farewell with a wave and sprinted off towards the market, the sun setting behind me – a perfect ending to a flawless week of sessions here in Ghana.