by Sara Bonk
You can only do so much in ten days. Between my first and last day, the experience that I had at buntkicktgut has been eye opening in terms to how I would work with this engaging NGO. First off, due to the scheduling that this program is under, most of the lectures are in the afternoon which led me to miss out on many training sessions and a tournament in order to make it back to the hotel on time. And due to this, I haven’t really done much to my embarrassment except get to know Rudi, Matthias, Sokol and Brandon better as well as work with other co-workers such as Jan, Max and Julian. I’ve helped with some laundry, construction of trophies for the Sommerfest (which took place on my last day), and work on some spreadsheets (all of which were in German, and I had to get on Google Translate in order to do a simple task). . . oh. And get lost with some of the praktikants (student interns all of whom are no older than about 17) while out and about in the city.
Yesterday was an absolute treat though, as I had the chance to watch a final tournament for the boys’ age group of 13 and 15. There had to have been at least 6-7 teams that were playing on the pitch today, and of course it was pouring rain and windy. These poor boys were standing out in the freezing rain as they prepped for the game, but their attitude would have said that they were about ready to play any normal game of soccer (though this day had the power to name which team was the reigning champion until the next season). I sat out there with the teams and watched with the other teams as the boys had fun and would give each other a hard time as the games continue.
One observation that I have made about the boys that were playing today, was that they were very shy to be anywhere near me; if they were, it was because it was the only space left to sit under the little awning that sheltered them from the rain. They mostly kept to themselves and their teammates. The reason I think this occurred throughout the night was that I was the ONLY girl on the field, and one that happened to speak little to no German. This was probably a little intimidating for them as most of the praktikants that I have met were embarrassed about their level of English.
Again with today, the children had a great time at the NGO as it was the championship for the Street Work group ages 9/10. These kids were running around all day yelling the names of their coaches and even excitingly striding up to either Rudi, Matthias, Sokol or Jan. Of course, once they found out I was an English speaker, their interactions with me dropped and they became very shy, turning to their coach and asking if they could translate for them. I loved watching this particular group of kids today though because it reminded me of the times that I had with my own kids when I worked with The First Tee. The excitement that they all had for the game and the joy that they had for just playing was a great way to end my time at the NGO. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to stay and watch the award ceremony as i had to be back at the hotel in order to go to a nice lunch where we had the amazing chance to say thank you and goodbye to our host NGOs, and the amazing lecture speakers and tour guides that we had for the city. Vielen danke für alles, München. It was amazing and I know I will be back for future trips and to help volunteer!
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