There is always a nauseating feeling that comes your way
whenever your parents inform you that there are guests coming over at your
place. There is this gist that comes to mind that you want to hide under your
bed, or in the closet but here at Sadili, that is quite the contrary. Upon
hearing that The University of Minnesota is coming to our home ground, a
feeling of ecstasy filled the space around. Yes, they came and also the
vivacious, meticulous, animated and ever-smiling girls of Olympic High School
were there to feel the inspiration and show their prowess in football. The day
was memorable, moments noteworthy, the discussions illuminating and
motivational and the football match amusing.
The day was filled with a bunch of activities but I shall
only detail about one; that is the football match. Gone are the days when
football was seen as a game only for the make gender while girls should be
skipping ropes and playing ‘kati’. The girls from Olympic High School are a
great paradigm.
You should have been there to see how they kick the ball, pass it, swerve it
against the opponent, and hit it with the head as if it is their daily bread.
It was as if I was watching a game between Barcelona and Real Madrid although I
could not pick out one girl to be Lionel Messi and another Christiano Ronaldo.
They are super talented and very fast just like the Flash. Subsequently, there
were our comrades from University of Minnesota. Most of
them admitted to never playing football and find joy in watching rather than
playing the game. Nevertheless,
they joined the girls from Olympic and battled it out on the football pitch.
I have never enjoyed a game like that in my life. The
Minnesota players were vividly afraid of getting hit by the ball but got the essence
of it with three of their players scoring for their teams. Talk about being
excited. When they scored the goals, their strength came out ten times more so
that they could score again and again but the girls from Olympic did not let
that go easily. They gathered their momentum, used their voices as a the sole
means of communication, hit the ball as if they were playing football for the
last time in their lives and showed us that football is indeed their daily
bread.
They supported the
Minnesota players by joining them to play together. It was indeed a tremendous
time for us here at Sadili. The Minnesota team taught us something that Oprah
Winfrey once said, challenges are gifts that force us to look for a new centre
of gravity. We should not fight them instead find a new way to stand. I mean,
they did not know how to play football but by the end of the day, they got a
little knowledge on how to play. For the
Olympic girls, they saw that they have so much talent hence have the full
potential to be whatever they would like to be. They viewed themselves as lucky
to have such skills and vowed to tap even more into it to use it as a channel to make a global difference.
To wrap
up, this day depicted that life has so many opportunities and it is up to us to
take them up. Through this, we get to learn more about the world and the people
in it live in peace, harmony and tranquility and as one alone cannot change the
world, but I can cast a stone on water creating many ripples on the surface.
Being together as the Family of Sadili Oval, Olympic High School girls and the
University of Minnesota sure made ripples on the water surface.
