tick tock

This one is slighlty overdue as I’ve been busy trying to cram in some stuff to film before flying.  There was more than this that happened but I’ll have to roll some over into the next entry.  This last stretch has been a mixed bag of filming so I’ll hit a few of the major points.

First, was a quick trip up to Soroti with Benard so he could tell is Mom the good news about the invite to the MLB Academy in Italy in August.  We head to his house early as the family is waking up.  His mom is obviously tired and worn down from hard work but is arranging the house for the day.  After he finally got her to sit down to listen to him, he hands her the invitation letter and asks her to read it.

Her reaction is very steady.  She is happy, but there is plenty of worry mixed in.  She expresses worry that Benard will end up just sitting at home.  He is stubborn with his dreams of baseball and tells her that no one knows the outcome of Italy, maybe something good will come from it.  She tells him how tired she is, that she is struggling to support everyone in the family.  

Benard’s Grandfather (we visited with him way back in the year during the working papers saga) was in the house to Benard’s surprise.  We learn that he suffered an injury in his leg at the farm, something like a stick pierced his ankle and became infected.  He has been staying with Benard’s mom for about two weeks and can’t walk without a cane, and barely can even with that.  Benard’s Mom dresses the wound, hugs Benard, and heads off to her job at the hospital.

On the walk back Benard says that maybe he gets his stoic reactions from him Mom and that he knows deep down she was very excited for him.  Her pressures with money and his Grandfather’s injury weigh heavy on him as we head back to Kampala to continue his training.

His training meanwhile is going well as he has hit the gym hard and is quickly adding muscle that I hope adds some punch to his fastball.

I spent 2 days dedicated to getting a little deeper into Asharaf’s life.  He is the steady 12 year old second baseman and one of the two players who experienced the 2008 tournament in Poland (Tony was the other) where he was playing as a 10 year old (which wasn’t technically allowed by LL, but they allowed the Ugandan team to compete of course, also because they knew they didn’t have a legitimate chance of winning with that team).  

I meet up with Asharaf as school lets out where I find him carrying a page from a magazine that a friend had given him.  It looked like it came from a Sports Illustrated or something but I’m not positive.  He and the handful of ballplayers at his school walk across the street (literally) to Sharing after class just about every day to train and play.  Frank, an outfielder on the Survivors goes to the school as well.

Part of the challenge for the members of the Survivors is finding a place to play.  The big field at sharing is most times overrun with soccer players so they throw on the side in a little fenced off area.  They had 2 balls to play with, a torn softball, and a cricket ball.  I’m not sure where either came from, but they don’t complain.  

Aaron, who has been living with George the entire year, walks down and joins them to lead drills and practice most days.  The soccer players yield the field 2 or 3 days a week for the players to be able to take a full infield practice.  This is Asharaf’s life until about 7pm when the sun goes down, so I follow him home.

I’ve mentioned before, but I’ll remind again that Asharaf’s father situation is the usual, he isn’t around or involved.  But Asharaf’s mom made him aware that he was soon to travel to Poland for a tournament and asked if he could help get him some baseball shoes.  I’ve only heard Asharaf talk about his Dad, named Musa, briefly in a dismissive unflattering matter.

Aboki (younger player and good friend of Asharaf) comes with us and we hop on bodabodas to go see him at his job.  I knew he had a good job that paid him decently which only added to the disappointment that he didn’t help out Asharaf, but I didn’t know how good.  He is a chef at an extremely fancy restaurant that is upstairs in a beautiful theatre downtown.

He is a bit intimidated by the camera, but he puts on a good show of caring about his son when we sit down at a table.  He gives Asharaf 20,000 shs (about 9 bucks) and says a few things about Asharaf needing to be ‘a strong man’ before he says ‘I’m done here’ and goes back to his job.  As he was walking away Asharaf couldn’t contain his smile and holds the 20,000 note high, it was pretty revealing about their relationship and what he was there for.

The next day I’m at Asharaf’s house before anyone is awake and get the beginning of their day where Asharaf walks off to school with his sister by 7:15.  I’m spending the day with his mom Sarah who is the hairdresser and is planning on going into the salon that she works at.  A short bodaboda into town gets us to a small shopping center as it is opening for the day.

Sarah has only been incredibly sweet and smiley to me but I really have no idea about her life, as soon as I started asking questions the sweetness turned to something else.  Her story is this: She grew up in a small village in the eastern part of Uganda and came to Kampala when she was young (about 13) to find work, money, and a life.  It’s a pretty common story.  You’ll find that most people in the ‘big cities’ here have a ‘village’ somewhere that they go back to visit often.

Sarah met Musa at a hotel and loved him.  She got pregnant and lived with his family.  She had Asharaf when she was 14 or 15, she wasn’t sure of the age, and lived with Musa’s family.  They had a daughter.  Then he started to take other wives.  She left with Asharaf and his sister by the time he took 3 wives.  

She works in the salon and at home and travels to different clients who pay her about a dollar for a few hours of working their hair.  She says she is still looking for the life she tried to find when she came to Kampala years ago, there is a thick sadness and regret that she tells all of her story with.  She smiles when she talks about Asharaf’s baseball and hopes it takes him far.

I hang out with her for a bit grabbing some shots of the salon and then head to her home to be with Asharaf and his sister as they wait for her to come home late (she usually gets  in around 10pm).  I find his 7 year old sister cooking and Asharaf watching a bootleg dvd of Street Fighter.  His sister studies english and draws on the floor and Asharaf helps her out.

I ask him a lot of questions about his family and his Dad and get the best on the nose response about fatherhood from any of my players when he tells me that he ‘prays he grows up to be a good man, not like my dad.’  He also tells me that he wants to play for the Red Sox one day and help his Mom and sister.  Sarah comes home late and they eat the rice, ground nuts, and matoke that Asharaf’s sister cooked and arrange the beds and go to sleep to start it all again tomorrow.

I spent a day filming at Reverend John/Crane High School where 4 of the Survivors and several older and younger players attend.  The highlight was filming Tony in art class where the teacher was giving examples of a typeset something like Times New Roman.  The students had to write something using the letters, Tony of course wrote “SURVIVORS”.  (It reminded me of writing “NIRVANA” in class in the exact same font when I was his age, ha).

After the school day the players head over to the ‘field’ behind the school for training.  There is thin strip of semi flat land that they can field ground balls and throw, beyond that it isn’t fair to call it a field at all.

And during all of this time there has been the challenge of getting Visas and proving ages for the Survivors.  It hasn’t been as daunting as I had expected, and unfortunately there hasn’t been a ton to film of the process.  But we’ll have plenty of the coaches talking about the hurdles they’ve had to jump to get birth certificates for all 12 players.  Coach Eric handled much of that task and he tells me plenty of the details.  They aren’t fully processed yet but we should have them in hand in the next couple days hopefully.

Ochen, Opio, Solomon, and Arthur all came down to Eric’s to sign the documents where he also gave them a very motivational speech.

Eric also did something challenging for me and read from the same old newspaper article about the tragic car accident that killed his brother along with 9 other players.  I want to thank him for going through that story at least 3 times for me which was never easy for him.

And finally I made a trip out to Jinja to film with Opio and Ochen’s mother.  I follow Opio and Ochen after school on their walk home over the Nile river where they discuss baseball and their chances of winning in Poland the whole way.  When we get to their small home I meet their mother, Helen.

She was a tremendously gracious, thoughtful, and well spoken woman.  She spoke in depth about the horrors of the Lords Resistance Army in Gulu.  Her husband (the twins’ father) was killed by rebels on the way to work when she was 5 months pregnant with them.  When things didn’t get much safer over the next few years she took the small family and moved down to Jinja with her Dad.  When her Dad died shortly after that she was left in a pretty desperate situation alone in Jinja with her twins and their older brother.  She found small work in a shop and saved enough to get a little place for them and is back on her feet now.

She speaks very well and clearly about problem with men in the country and how she won’t remarry and focuses just on making her kids happy.  When we get to the baseball she is great and talks about the boys trying to teach her how to throw and their endless conversations. I really loved talking with her and hope I can get some more time with her in the future, I feel like there is a lot more there.  And she has done an incredible job raising her boys.

So that’s about it, the Survivors are getting together at Richard’s complex for the weekend for another round of serious training to get ready for the tournament in Poland.  They fly on July 16th, and the games will begin on the 20th or 21st depending on how many teams actually show up.  It’s getting down to crunch time.

And this last picture here is a nod to the incredible talent I’ve seen outside of the baseball story I’m following.  Often times the boys train in open community playgrounds that have some pretty cool things going on if you look hard enough.  These kids were doing some pretty incredible gymnastics on the edge of Sharing Youth Center.  These groups often ask me to help them out with some filming, unfortunately I can’t really dedicate time to them with my focus on the baseball, but it doesn’t mean they deserve it any less.