week 4
This christmas week was certainly slower than previous filming with most of my stories going into relax mode with the holidays. The teams take a break from training baseball until the new year so most of the days focus on interviews and more “character building” stuff. Overall, I’m somewhat surprised by the laid back attitude for christmas around here. I like it though.
122209 - I hang out in Nsambya most of the day. I intend to spend a little more time with Eric, who I’ve mentioned. He is the one who is 23 and feels that the game has passed him by somewhat. He has been playing hard to get with me because he doesn’t really want to open up and discuss his leaving of the game on camera. I feel like he is important as a possible future for some of our younger players, a bit of a tragic character but with a growing and strong redemption story about learning to put his hopes and dreams for baseball into the younger generation… at least that is what George hopes he can convince Eric to do.
We chat in the evening as the sun is going down and I rush the interview as best I can to get the best stuff while I still have light. He tells me a story of playing when he was younger and on top of his game and training at an international school called Heritage with a bunch of American Peace Corps workers. One was apparently a good player named Mark Bennett and became a good friend to Eric.
At the close of a tournament they held a skills competition with the best players there. They were asked to do all sorts of drills and tasks like turning double plays, hitting linedrives, throwing fast, running fast etc… It was informal of course and just led by the Peace Corps players. Mark was considered the best and at the end of the skills they decided to name him the “Superstar”. But I guess Mark said he wasn’t the real superstar there because there was one task that he couldn’t do and that someone else could. “He couldn’t hit the ball to the opposite field.” Eric could. It was a great little story I’ll have to get again, felt like a nice open or close to the film when it happened.
Alex was hanging out near us during the interview and was definitely inspired by Eric’s story telling. After Eric was finished I walked back to Alex’s place and he talked to me like he had never before. That doesn’t neccesarily mean it was good or usable, but he was definitely open and emotional about his life.
He told me how he had never been more than 50kms from the ghetto, then talked about the stars and how far away they are. He asked me if there are people on them. I said, I wasn’t sure and that no one really knows. He said some people see movies and then they think people are up there but movies aren’t real, “they are just like baseball. When the game is finished, it’s over.” Another really good reflexive quote about this film.
122309 - It rained in the morning (this will be a theme during this week). I used the day for travel back to the complex to pick up some things so I could prepare to stay in the ghetto over christmas. I took a motorcycle taxi the entire way. My ass was sore. I only did this because the traffic in the city with Christmas coming was insane. It was the fastest I’ve ever gotten from the city to the complex.
122409 - Christmas eve I get to George’s early where everyone is just relaxing or buying some things to make Christmas lunch. Benard wants to head over to the internet cafe. He has been keeping in touch with a player he met in Italy from the Nederlands named Hato. He wants to wish him a nice Christmas.
There is a very slow but serviceable cafe near the ghetto that we go in. When he gets on a computer he loads up his yahoo mail. He has 1 new message, it’s from Hato. 
After figuring out how to open it (guess he’ll have a lot to learn if he goes into IT) it says: “I signed with the new york mets :D :D!!!!” Benard smiles when he sees it and utters “He signed. That is amazing.”
Now, I’m positive that Benard doesn’t grasp the enormity of that sentence and that may be the reason his response is subdued, but it is also his even keel personality at play. Benard’s response email is incredibly sweet and he tells Hato how proud he is and how grateful he is that he was signed. He wishes him a merry Christmas and thanks Hato for the courage he gives him.
We leave the cafe and go sit at the empty practice field at St. Peters. Benard is energized by Hato’s news. He says he knows what he has to do and he thinks he can do it, which is hit the gym and train as hard as he can. He says that he knows that Hato was better than him, but not that much. I’m not sure where Hato was seen and actually signed, probably at a showcase tournament in the Netherlands. Benard doesn’t have that kind of opportunity here, I’m not sure if he sees that.
122509 - Christmas day. It rains in the morning again and I follow Benard, Aron, and one of George’s nieces to church. The church is a small school house during weekdays.
I’ve been in African churches many times, and they are usually fun and more like music concerts than religious ceremonies. This one is no different. Benard dances and enjoys the moment. I get some shots of him praying although he has told me many times that he isn’t religious. It seems to be born from the family guilt to do these things, but he also enjoys himself. Maybe we’ll chat about his interesting relationship with god, religion, and his family sometime soon.
On the topic of god, religion, and family in Africa, the overt Christianity in Africa used to bother me. When I first saw it as a young teenager I half expecting Africa to reject Christianity of the religion of colonialsts, conquerers, slave traders, and outsiders. While that may be true historically, the rejection was and is incredibly minimal. But I was a young teenager, it doesn’t bother me anymore. Maybe fittingly, the way I make sense of it is with a sports mentality. It feels like a bunch of people whose lives are difficult getting together and rooting for the same team. The “truth” of the preaching seems secondary in a grand sense (which is how I try to sense most things). But of course the things that still bother me is the money the churches ask for at the end of the services and the religious scare tactics they use to get the donations. Oh well, the music was good so if the band gets a cut it’s okay with me.
The main event on Christmas day is the lunch after church. The rain slows just as we get back to George’s. His wife (and other girls in the house) made a lot of great food, chicken, chapati, beef, rice, matoke, pinneapple, and a cake for dessert. She gets some work as a caterer so her cooking is always good.
The conversation over food turns to Hato being signed by the Mets. Everyone is happy for him and ask Benard the same kind of questions I did the day before. George wants to help benard work out.
122609 - Boxing day. This is a day a lot of people celebrate by going to the beach, dances, concerts, whatever. Unfortunately, it rains… all day. A total wash out. We all make plans to do the beach on new years day instead.
122709 - Of course some more rain in the morning, but when it stops i talk to George about the Little League Tournament that hopefully happens in June/July. We talk about Saudi Arabia as the powerhouse of the division.
A little backstory: The Ugandan under 12 team competed in the Little League Regional last year in Poland (before filming on this project began). This trip was entirely financed by Richard Stanley, in part so his construction crew would get a first hand look at a world class baseball facility so they knew what they had to aim for in Uganda. The Ugandan team played well, or at least much better than anyone expected. They lost to Saudi Arabia 9-3, but that was the closest any team had gotten.
Saudi Arabia has never lost this regional in the 30 or 40 (I’ll get the exact number) years they have been competing. The team is mostly made up of American kids living on Army bases there. Not very “Saudi” but not against any rules.
George is sure that he can put a team together that could beat them. The team that went to Poland was not the best team possible. It was a school team where the players all had passports and could reasonably get visas for this trip.
George hopes to build an allstar team from kids across Uganda to compete next year, which will hopefully be on their home turf here at the complex. Some of the younger boys that will make the team I plan on spending time with are Augustus, Ivan, and Asharaf. I know Asharaf doesn’t know his age, but everyone is pretty sure he is only 11.
I notice him reading a newspaper with a recap of the year’s events including Barack Obama’s election. He tells me how excited the country was for that, that it was like “another world cup.” But he shrugs at the idea that Obama will really change the world or anything in Africa, the corruption in East Africa he says, is just “too strong.” Oh well, his youngest son Jacob likes him a lot.
122809 - more rain, getting a little crazy with that. I find Eric after the rain, we were planning on visiting the Heritage School to shoot where that “superstar” event was. But we’ll have to do that tomorrow with the rain making it too late.
I find him working out, which he does often. He sits down and talks with Alex about a lot of his old stories of playing in the All Africa games and other baseball adventures, many of them smack with nostalgia and border on longing.
Eric has sort of a role model place in the baseball community here. He doesn’t know if that means he should continue playing or go on coaching. His parents are old and he says he had to play less baseball to start making some money for himself and get his own place, which he did.
122909 - We do the Heritage School today. Unfortunately we need permission to shoot at the field so we’ll have to do that another day. This doesn’t happen often in Africa, but this is an International School, meaning it doesn’t cater much to Africans. It seems to school mostly American and European kids living in the area. The grounds are really beautiful.
Eric walks and talks with us outside the school anyway. It’s a lot of the same themes as we’ve discussed but this time he offers much more hope for the younger kids. He says he wishes he was 12 right now instead of 23, because he knows he would make it. Actually, maybe true.
I hitch a ride with my cameraman back to the complex to catch up on the footage. And Richard Stanley is set to arrive the next day. There will be more filming of action at the complex in the next month. They are preparing to host the MLB Envoy program starting on the 17th. I’m hoping to get filming with the younger kids, the talent in kyambogo (i was misspelling it, sorry), and Jinja before then. We’ll see if all of that can really happen. First, the rain has to lay off a bit.
