Archive: June 24, 2007 - June 30, 2007
Doing Good: Readers React
Doing good, for some American teenagers, means handing out sandwiches at a homeless shelter in order to fulfill a graduation requirement. For the D.C.-area soccer girls you've been reading about, it's beginning to mean a whole lot more. The 11 members of the D.C. Blast, a Washington-area high school soccer...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 30, 2007; 9:53 PM ET | Comments (0)
The Starving Children of Africa
We spent today in Richmond, a town of about 9,000 and a four-hour drive from Port Elizabeth. The day left both of us with very mixed feelings. Though the soccer clinic was only for girls our age, we were surrounded by young boys and girls between the ages of...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 30, 2007; 4:28 PM ET | Comments (0)
Skilled in Life
--> Rachel Starnes limbos during a game of Pressure Limbo, which illustrates the increasing pressure to have sex. (Alice Keeney for the Washington Post) We had our first encounter with homeless children, or "street children" as they are commonly called, on the way to our first health class at...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 30, 2007; 12:00 PM ET | Comments (1)
Of Death and Life
Driving into a township in Port Elizabeth, we were well aware of the high HIV infection rate. On the way in, I saw signs for four or five funeral homes, marking death as one of the biggest industries around. Yet throughout our entire match against the City Lads, a...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 29, 2007; 5:41 PM ET | Comments (7)
Sore Butts
Editor's Note: The girls' coach, Ian Oliver, was in the doghouse today. He had said the ride from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth would last about eight hours; it ended up taking 13. The team gave him some good-natured grief about that. Here are the reactions of Clare and Allie,...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 29, 2007; 3:01 PM ET | Comments (3)
Smile!
Anna Rassman with players from a soccer clinic in Cape Town. (Alice Keeney for The Washington Post) Photo Gallery If I could explain one thing in words, it would be smiling. Weird,right? I've come to realize that we will all be doing that a lot throughout this trip. Smiling...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 28, 2007; 7:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
The Wrong Side of the Road
A couple times a day, maybe two or three times, I look out the window of the van and experience a split second of sheer panic. We're on the wrong side of the road!!! I want to scream. This lasts for about half a second before I realize that the...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 27, 2007; 2:45 PM ET | Comments (5)
Photo Gallery: The First Game
Photo Gallery: Day One -- The First Game -->...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 27, 2007; 1:53 PM ET | Comments (2)
Crossing the Dance Floor
[Editor's note: The D.C. Blast went up against a South African women's soccer team near Cape Town on Tuesday night.] We started to shiver as we got out of the van and started walking toward the field to warm up. It was pretty dark on the field and the lights...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 27, 2007; 7:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
Kitten Held at Gunpoint and Other Tidbits
Right now I'm sitting in a van with 17 other people, including the driver, frantically typing with a laptop on my lap and Table Mountain looming just to the right. Very strange. The last couple days (Has it been a couple? It's Tuesday, but feels like it should be Monday.)...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 26, 2007; 2:17 PM ET | Comments (4)
The Team Has Arrived
The D.C. Blast arrived in Cape Town on Monday evening with a full day ahead of them on Tuesday including a briefing at the U.S. Embassy, a visit to one of Cape Town's most famous landmarks, Table Mountain, and a match against a South African women's soccer team. The girls...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 26, 2007; 10:24 AM ET | Comments (0)
Introducing Worlds United
What happens when 11 Washington area high school girls, the picture of health and privilege, travel 8,000 miles to South Africa to teach soccer to girls their own age, all of whom know the downward drag of poverty and many of whom will be infected with AIDS or are living...
By Laura Sessions Stepp | June 26, 2007; 9:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
