Playing a new GAM3
Sunday, July 1 -- I arrived at Hoops (where I’d never been before) a few minutes before the first practice was scheduled to start and knew I was in the right place from the river of children I saw flowing from the corner of the block along the narrow sidewalk in through the front gate.GAM3 in Beirut had funding until the end of July, and the Qas Qas practices had only one week left, so Mac saw an opportunity to brighten some kids’ lives, and he took it.
The 75 kids I saw streaming into the Hoops court complex were Palestinians temporarily living just south of Beirut’s city limits in two refugee camps after fleeing fighting between the Lebanese Army and a group of armed militants at their camp in the North.
Mac’s friend, Ahmed, lives in the Burj al-Barajneh camp and told him most of the refugees from Nahr al-Bared were staying there.
He knew Hoops was close by, so he set to work on organizing hour-and-a-half open-court sessions over six days throughout the month for two groups of 75 kids.
The kids aren’t here only to learn basketball. Hoops has three courts under enormous tents attached to a smaller building with offices, bathrooms, storage space and a concession stand.
The court-area is like a building with chain-linked walls.
Today’s group of 75 was broken into three smaller groups and loosed on the floors. The two outside courts were football pitches and the middle court was for basketball. Football matches started and the kids playing basketball practiced dribbling and took turns shooting.
Mac’s friend, Ahmed, lives in the Burj al-Barajneh camp and told him most of the refugees from Nahr al-Bared were staying there.
He knew Hoops was close by, so he set to work on organizing hour-and-a-half open-court sessions over six days throughout the month for two groups of 75 kids.
The kids aren’t here only to learn basketball. Hoops has three courts under enormous tents attached to a smaller building with offices, bathrooms, storage space and a concession stand.The court-area is like a building with chain-linked walls.
Today’s group of 75 was broken into three smaller groups and loosed on the floors. The two outside courts were football pitches and the middle court was for basketball. Football matches started and the kids playing basketball practiced dribbling and took turns shooting.
They weren’t really taking up the entire court, so I decided to take pictures of the basketball first. I got about 3 shots of some little girls dribbling, and my photography days were over. After each click, the kids would run over to see themselves on the screen of my camera. They were almost running over to see the picture before it’d even be taken.
The crowd of posers gathered and the scrum of little hands
wanting to catch a glimpse of the picture grew wider. Pretty soon the camera was out of my hands and the kids started having a ball.
It was great because they spoke almost no English and I speak almost no Arabic. They’d ask me things. I’d understand one word, then try to imagine what their question was and answer it with the other 8 words I know.
They loved taking pictures and then looking at themselves. It was this hour-long flurry of activity punctuated by repeated 2-second moments of stillness. They traveled in a pack, trying to get ahold of the camera.
I just followed along, occasionally attempting to arbitrate when one little kid thought another had taken too many pictures. I’m pretty sure, “Hey, it’s my turn,” or some variant was what kids kept pleading with me, as if I was in any way controlling the swarm.
They loved it. They’d move over to the sides of the basketball court to catch a shot of one of the football matches and the 1, 2, or 3 kids within the camera’s range would stop in the middle of the game to pose and then run over to see themselves.
The coaches weren’t really thrilled, but none of the kids seemed to mind.
The crowd of posers gathered and the scrum of little hands
wanting to catch a glimpse of the picture grew wider. Pretty soon the camera was out of my hands and the kids started having a ball.It was great because they spoke almost no English and I speak almost no Arabic. They’d ask me things. I’d understand one word, then try to imagine what their question was and answer it with the other 8 words I know.
They loved taking pictures and then looking at themselves. It was this hour-long flurry of activity punctuated by repeated 2-second moments of stillness. They traveled in a pack, trying to get ahold of the camera.
I just followed along, occasionally attempting to arbitrate when one little kid thought another had taken too many pictures. I’m pretty sure, “Hey, it’s my turn,” or some variant was what kids kept pleading with me, as if I was in any way controlling the swarm.
They loved it. They’d move over to the sides of the basketball court to catch a shot of one of the football matches and the 1, 2, or 3 kids within the camera’s range would stop in the middle of the game to pose and then run over to see themselves.The coaches weren’t really thrilled, but none of the kids seemed to mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment