Titi's Story
Once we arrived at Ndzondelelo High School in Port Elizabeth today, we were led to the soccer field to meet some new girls on what was the first of five days we will spend with Grassroot Soccer girls and coaches.
I always brace myself when meeting new people here. I wonder will they like us? Do they think we won't like them? Maybe they worry we won't understand what they have to say. But these thoughts melted as the girls smiled at us and started shaking our hands.
The girls from D.C. Blast work on a cultural exchange during their first Grassroot Soccer session at Ndzondelelo High School. (Alice Keeney for the Washington Post)
Titi, one of the coaches, asked us to form a circle and play some warm-up games called energizers. As we were playing games such as "Do Like I Do", and "Bona Bona Bona, Eo" I glanced over my shoulder to see a group of about 20 girls watching us. I couldn't tell at first if they were laughing at us, frowning, or smiling. We kept playing until Titi and Courtney, a Grassroots Soccer volunteer, were satisfied that we were energized. [Editor's note: The Blast played against Titi, a 21-year-old center midfielder, and other members of the all-women's City Lads late last week in Port Elizabeth.]
We then entered a classroom lined with wooden desks, about six in each row. Titi, a beautiful woman with an athletic build, buzz haircut and earrings, came to the front of the room and sat down on a chair facing us. She started telling us what Grassroots Soccer calls "a coach's story" about her personal experience with HIV/AIDS.
The first thing she did was look each one of us in the eye. Then she began. When she was about 10, she met a man in Port Elizabeth who taught her to play soccer. He told her she had talent and encouraged her every time he saw her. He was, she said, like a father to her and the only person who encouraged her athleticism.
She lived some distance away from the man, and as she got older she saw him less and less. She heard that he had fallen sick with AIDS and was pushing people away, ashamed of the disease that was killing him.
When she made it back to the township in which he lived, she learned that he had already died.
By the time she was near the end of her story, the room was silent. The AIDS epidemic here was starting to seem real.
And then she said, "But don't be sad."
By Laura Sessions Stepp
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