Finally I was off to Africa. After many days of shopping and packing, making sure that I had all the essentials I was eventually ready to go.
Our journey to Manica in Mozambique though wasn’t as simple as a direct flight to our destination, far from it. The first stage of the journey for me was flying from Heathrow to South Africa. It was a pleasure to be reunited with my fellow gappers: Armando, Albin and Amo, who I would be sharing this African adventure with. In Joberg, we met a man named Doc, he was looking after us there and I would soon find out he is one of the most generous people I have ever met.
Doc works for a organisation called YouthZones, which helps to provide poorer people in Africa with life skills, including language, computer and of course football skills. They work in multiple African countries. Doc oversees the countless number of soccer camps in and around Joberg that YouthZones work at. They provide these poor areas with equipment like footballs and bibs as well as coaching. Twice we went to these soccer camps in the favellas and were able to do a little bit of coaching. This was an incredible experience.
The kids here had very little. Many of them didn’t have football boots, basically all of them had dirty and ripped clothes but this definitely hasn’t dented their spirit. I managed to get all the kids in my group chanting: ARSENAL, ARSENAL, ARSENAL!!!!!They were delighted to see us and just be around us. As we were about to leave I had kids clinging on to me, it was all good fun. After coaching we then played with the older boys. This was challenging because the dusty pitches they play on are very bumpy and have big rocks you need to avoid. This made me realise how lucky we are to have the grass pitches we have in England.
Whilst in Joberg we also visited the Apartheid museum, some of it was hard to see as you realise how tough it has been for black people in South Africa but I am very glad we did it!!
We also went to watch a Bidvest Vits football match, who are third in the Premier South African league, the team Doc used to play professional football for. They conceded a calamitous goal early on when the GK in possession was charged down and his kick deflected off the attacker and looped over him into the goal. We couldnt help but laugh. However, they managed to equalise and get a point from the game.
5 days after our arrival we were ready to leave Johannesburg and start our long journey to Manica. We had been on the coach for 12 hours listening to Zimbabwe tunes on repeat and taking in the African scenery, when disaster struck at the Zimbabwe border. Here we found out Amo would have to go all the way back to Joberg with our guide Alec because of visa problems and would have to come to Manica later.
After this frustration the rest of us carried on, eventually getting through the Zimbabwe border. Nine hours later we had travelled through Zimbabwe and finally arrived in Mozambique, let the adventure begin…….