Soccer Shoes and Bicycles

One of the team members that came on this trip brought a bunch of soccer shoes. Soccer (called football here) is “the game” in Haiti and I‘ve seen soccer fields in the poorest areas of Haiti. They will use any kind of ball or even rags balled up together to play “the game”.

So a gift of many soccer shoes is a big deal here. You may remember that our village was the soccer champs last year in the Gressier soccer tournament even though we were the newest village and the smallest.

Attached is a picture of some of the aspiring soccer players in their new soccer shoes. They had huge smiles on their faces!!

OK, so the other two pictures are about John Peter. He lost both parents in the earthquake and has been taken in by relatives. He is doing OK but in this culture he is at the bottom in the rung in the family. That is probably why I pay more attention to him, so when I had the opportunity to buy him a bicycle at a good price, I couldn’t pass it up.

Question: How long does it take to wear out a bike on Haiti’s gravel roads being ridden constantly by a boy who has never had one??

Answer: Two days.

Haiti can be just “too much fun!!”