The first leg of our trip went off without a hitch. We are safely in the air en route to Paris, France. I met up with Scott at his house this afternoon to finish up packing (cramming as much equipment as we possibly could into any bag available). We ended up with 4 stuffed bags (somewhere around 150-200 lbs) of jerseys, shorts, shoes, and socks. It was hard to get any accurate count of exactly how much stuff we’re bringing with the rush of today’s packing, but if I had to estimate, I’d say we have well over 100 jerseys, about 50 pairs of shorts, 50-75 pairs of socks, and at least a couple dozen pairs of some really, really sweet cleats. I have to give a few quick shout outs to the US Soccer Foundation, Eurosport, and the Cheshire High School Soccer Club for hooking us up with the bulk of the gear. I’m so excited to get this to the kids!

It’s hard to believe that this all started as a tiny idea in the back of my mind some 5 years ago – Oh, how cool would it be to start a youth soccer/education program? Not even in my wildest fantasies did I ever imagine that this passing notion of a dream would eventually place me on a plane (well, two planes) to Africa. But my love for soccer and youth education kept this concept in the depths of my consciousness, slowly developing itself into more and more of a feasible project.

However, I still lacked the platform to make the idea into a reality. This came almost two years ago to the day, when my girlfriend at the time, Steph (who went on to do some awesome projects in Chile and Nicaragua) introduced me to her professor, Scott Lacy, founder of African Sky. Steph, I cannot thank you enough for making this connection and for all of your help, support, and input during the initial stages of starting this project. (In hindsight, I was probably a real pain at times, so thank you for putting up with me). Two years of planning, program designing, and fundraising later, here I am. Unreal.

Every penny that you all have graciously donated will go directly towards buying brand new soccer balls, socks/shoes/sandals for kids that don’t have any, and lots of educational supplies – books, notebooks, pens, pencils, etc. For the kids I’ll be seeing that won’t be participating in the soccer programs, I’ve brought along plenty of stickers, candies, and gum. As Scott said, “They’re gonna flip!”

After sitting in a bit of traffic on the shuttle to JFK (where Scott started prepping me for the trip, including a brief history lesson. The family names used to signify professions – Koite for musicians and artists, Kante for Blacksmiths, Sangra for herders, etc. Really cool. I’ll get into it more later.) and dealing with the joys of airport security, we met up with our other traveling partner, Drew, who will be lead man on some of the architectural designs on the new Dissan schools. A few hours later, and I’m 41,000 ft somewhere over the Atlantic, listening to the new Buddha-Bar mixtape on the in-flight entertainment system. (I’m actually quite impressed by their music selection – Aloe Blacc, Nina Simone, Coltrane, and Ella/Duke. I don’t know what it is about flights, but I always find something new. Like that Parkour video Paul and I watched on our trip to Italy back in ’05. Except for the flight to India, where the same actor starred in all 4 in-flight movies, which ranged from drama to comedy to action. You would think that in all of Bollywood and the 1 billion Indians, they could find one other guy.) Crazy. (This trip and Bollywood.)

As little as I usually sleep on planes, I should probably make an attempt. I’ll get at you in Paris. Oui Oui! (1 of 3 things I’ve managed to learn in French.)

And please forgive my drawn out reflection earlier. This is just the first time in a month that I’ve been able to collect and organize my thoughts. That’s what happens when you’re stuck on a plane for 8 hours and the French dude next to you passes out before the take off. Seemed like a good kid though.

-R