Hamomi learns baseball...or something like it

Considering the World Series is under way, this feels appropriate. And it's a personal favorite. It's re-posted from September 30, 2010 by Eric. He and his girlfriend, Laurel, worked at Hamomi for 8 months in 2010-2011.  


-Susie


Hamomi learns baseball...or something like it.

On Friday afternoon, I had the privilege of bringing the game of baseball to the Kawangware (Cow-un-gwar-ie) slum in western Nairobi. I’m quite certain this is the first instance America’s Pastime has ever been played in this corner of the world. However, not having known this at the time, I handed one of the grade 7 students a few balls and a bat (whiffle ball gear) and told him I’d be down to the open PE area for a game. A moment later, as I made my way to the pitch I heard a bit of cheering and figured the first inning had begun without me. I reached the open area to find that was definitely not the case. Rather a game reminiscent of 3 ball soccer mixed with Quiddich (for those Harry Potter fans out there) was underway. Not quite sure what to make of it, I was much relieved when one of the teachers quickly put the kibosh on grades 6-8 improvised game. He then readied the students for my marathon explanation of the rules of baseball.

It wasn’t till this moment I realized, for someone who has not grown up watching the game that was plastered on my family’s TV every summer night, baseball is a really tough game to grasp for the first time, and equally difficult to explain.  Where to begin? I thought to myself. So I just dove in head first. I set up the diamond which ended up looking more like a rhombus facing uphill on Hamomi’s less-than-flat open field. In fact, the PE/ play area is basically on a 20 degree, dry dirt slope with numerous pot holes and other inconsistencies, but it works. I discussed the idea of the 3 bases and home plate and foul and fair balls. I then showed them how the batter hits the pitch with the bat in order to advance to first base, then second base, and so on… This somehow was translated into Kenyan English as “the man with the beater” beats the "thrower's" ball so he can run to "corner one", then "corner two", and so on… It sounded good enough to me, we were making some progress. 

After answering what seemed to be 15 or 20 minutes of “what if…?” questions from the boys, I decided to just start playing and scrap the whole concept of balls and strikes for the time being. The game was quite high scoring, as every boy was tossed the ball until he hit it… or should I say beat it. The lack of balls and strikes didn’t really affect the game too much because the few boys who missed the ball repeatedly just passed the bat to their teammate and gave it another go after frustration wore off.

The game went really smoothly after the first few “men with the beater” (batters) with a few minor exceptions. Apparently while explaining scoring I failed to mention after you make it to home plate you should stop and wait to bat again. This confusion was fixed after I noticed Clyford had just scored his third run after only having been up to bat once. Also I had to explain a number of times that tagging someone out and throwing the ball at them were not the same thing. The kids ended up loving the game! It is also a new crowd favorite. By the end of the game most of baby class through Class 8 was there cheering on Hamomi’s newest All-Stars. The final score of Hamomi’s first baseball game after only 4 innings was 11 to 16 (or 14 if we don’t count Clyford's 2 extra runs).

-Eric