A Day in the Life

Managing 400 plus people requires a great deal of organization and flexibility.  Throw in over a dozen languages, multiple cultures, a wide age range and you have chaos in the making.  The Festival For Hope team is a well-oiled machine who has thought of just about everything and if they haven't, they are ready to make necessary changes to ensure problems and issues are dealt with quickly and efficiently.

The 32 delegations (eight players and three to four adults) are divided into four groups for all activities and two groups eat meals together, an early shift and a late shift.  The first week of the Festival is comprised of workshops, clinics, field trips and cultural exchanges.  The day begins early in the residence halls with excited jet-lagged teenagers laughing, chattering and running around the hallways to the dismay of us older folk.  It was beginning so early that a rule had to be instituted that players had to stay in their rooms until 7:00 AM.  The residence hall is divided up by sex on each floor and each room has four people crammed together in a ten by fifteen space with two bunkbeds and a cupboard for two people to share.  It is about half the size of my college dorm room with twice as many people.  Thankfully, tight quarters are nothing new to the Cambodians and our four girls and four boys each share a room.

Meals are taken in a dining hall where noise levels at times can reach dangerous levels.  The kitchen crew has the unenviable task of trying to please the palates of the world.  Not enough rice say the Asians, not enough starchy food say the Africans, too much meat say the Indians and more Kosher food say the Israelis.  If these delegations can be satisfied, world peace may be possible.

After breakfast, groups are broken into their activities groups which rotate between a Johannesburg tour, an Alexandra Township tour, an HIV/Aids interactive workshop and a soccer clinic.  The coaches and delegation leaders also have activities to increase networking with other organizations and share ideas and information.  Each group has a dedicated volunteer to help navigate the daily schedule and answer questions.  Volunteers have come from around the world to specifically work at this event and most groups have volunteers who speak their team's language.  Unfortunately, the Cambodian delegation does not have a Khmer speaker, but foturnately our American volunteer, Amanda, loves the team and has been a big help.

In between meals and activities, players vie for space on seven computers, play foosball, pool, pingpong, playstation and just hang out.  There is programming well into the evenings, be it watching World Cup matches, cultural performances by each team or attending World Cup matches.

Thus far, the Cambodian team has toured former apartheid prisons of Johannesburg, which they likened to the Khmer Rouge, seen the South African Capitol Building, been on the pitch of the Pretoria Stadium, seen the Spain v. Paraguay match @ Ellis Park (where SA won the Rugby World Cup) and visited a lion and rhino park.  Not too shabby for a group of kids from rural Cambodia.  Despite the cold and lack of Cambodian fish and rice, they are loving the experience and thriving in the new environment.

Traveling with 200 to 400 people is a game of hurry up and wait.  Get to the buses, wait for everyone else to get to the buses, wait on the buses, finally leave on the buses.  However, the delegations have a police escort for each excursion, so once we are on the road, we are cooking.  At least three speedy police VW's accompany each of the World Cup buses, usually one in the front, one in the back and one on the side boxing out interferring cars, with sirens blaring.  When there are multiple buses involved, you can imagine it is quite an impressive motorcade.  Pedestrians wave as we speed past assuming we are a World Cup team zipping off to a practice or a game.  Well, we are....kinda.

After another long, eventful day in South Africa, we are exhausted and ready for bed!