Day 1 - Bamako, Mali avec Right To Play

Bonjour tout le monde!

After one day in Mali with Right To Play, I'm already in love with this country and the people that live here.  The photo below is just of me handing out some "Merci beaucoup" pins/keychains to RTP Mali's incredible staff team (above is "don't trust your eyes"... more on that shortly)... I promise more good/better pictures to come, and thanks to Sarah Stern @ssstrn for posting it on twitter.  The motto in the Right to Play Mali office is appropriate, as my amazing and inspiring travelmate/Hopefully-London2012-Teammate (we hope we both make the team, so it's official) Clara Hughes already pointed out in her blog... "Power through Knowledge" as Boris, the country manager put it. Their presentation to us today was astoundingly informative, insightful into the challenges that Malian children face, and eloquent in two languages (Moiz apologized for his english in perfect english, rarely switching to his native french to be more precise, and waited until dinner that he also speaks (6 six!!) local indigenous dialects as well, ahem... Knowledge indeed).  Following a delicious lunch of local fare we went out into Bamako for a field visit to visit two community centres.  Thanks to funding from CIDA, a beautiful concrete slab was installed earlier this year for basketball and volleyball. The same area is used for RTP games and lessons, a few of which Clara and I joined in on.  Today the game was "don't trust your eyes" (see pic above) - a behind the back hidden ball game of deception which teaches AIDS/HIV awareness with trivia-style questions from and to the students for every wrong guess of the location of the ball. The game also incorporates gender equity and cooperation lessons, and is a lot of fun for everyone involved.

After just a day, a few things are abundantly clear to me...  Mali needs Right To Play, and the local staff are doing an incredible job ensuring that kids here (more than forty-two thousand every week!) are learning from and enjoying the RTP programming provided by yet another incredible group of local volunteers and teachers.  Mali is a growing nation, with a strong commitment to education, female empowerment, sport for development initiatives and health.  Malian kids love sport and play, and are anxious to learn.  Mali is optimistic and hopeful, and clearly motivated to improve their beautiful nation, and recognize that their children are their greatest natural resource.

More Mali-blog tomorrow.  We've got a big day planned, so I need some sleep!!