tomhazeldine:

It’s 12:30pm. It’s almost time to break for lunch. Julien asks who wants to play football outside before break. There are instant smiles. One young man at the front puts his hand up immediately. There is a spark in his eyes. He’s almost embarrassed by his own enthusiasm, but he couldn’t hide if he tried. This young man loves football. And he’s the smallest boy in the room.

It turns out he’s a firework. I thought we were going to play a game, but for the moment it’s clearly just him and me. He runs rings around me like Lionel Messi. He makes me feel like an ogre (I am an ogre). He’s amazing.

But then it’s time for a real game. Captains are appointed (he’s one of them). Teams are picked. The entire class is huddled in a group in the small crescent yard outside the school. Everyone is in: boys and girls. Julien and I are the last to be picked. On opposing teams. All as it should be.

It’s so fun. It’s just like any other game of football in any other school anywhere in the world: frantic, breathless, playful. The scuffling of shoes, the groaning when you miss, the laughing when you fall over. Dust rises in the yard, so thick that you can’t see the ball. It’s baking hot. And these children run like lightning. In a fitting end, Julien scores the winner as a result of terrible defending by me and an abject failure to clear my own goal line. For them it’s time for lunch. For us, it’s time to go. x