I've just heard from Kelly, the coach of the Dynamic Stars Academy. This is a great thing. Lusaka is a long way away, about 6000 miles and communication is difficult with those in the compound. Very few have access to the internet and even less their own computers or laptops. To send an email, money would need to be found to visit the village internet shop, a shack with a man and a computer. About 2 months ago I managed to arrange delivery of a laptop, bought with donated monies in England, to the academy. Since then Kelly has been attempting to raise the money towards an internet pay-as-you-go dongle thing - the only way to get online in the compound - and a month ago he contacted me to say he had raised half the K300 (£35) needed. Goal Zambia supplied the other half. I got an email from him yesterday on his new laptop through his new internet dongle and it was a great. we will work towards regular news bulletins about the academy and teams and see what happens and I hope that this will lead to some of the players contributing to their part of this blog thing.
There are about 130 children in the Dynamic Stars academy, maybe more, who regularly meet and train on Chainda pitch. They are not the only academy and the space has to be shared with the whole community. This takes a lot of Zambian time and Zambian organisation, on top of the training sessions and time spent talking to the children about social and health issues. Kelly does enlist the help of three coaches from within other academies for adults but finds it difficult to find time to email me. Access to the internet is unreliable and the electricity supply, where it exists, erratic. Many households live without electricity or share supplies with neighbours when needed. At 35, Kelly passed his Grade 12 exams earlier this year but communicating in this language is challenging for him. English is taught in all schools and spoken in "formal" settings across most of urban Zambia, where people have been able to attend school. However, it is always a second language behind the vast number of Bantu tribal tongues and whilst we communicate in English, I am learning Nyanja but I have some way to go before I reach the level Kelly is at in English. Learning Nyanja is exciting and there is a whole new language evolving in the city of Lusaka that is a mishmash of English words, pure Nyanja, Bemba, urban Bantu slang seasoned with all the other tribal languages that people in the city and country speak. It's known colloquially as Urban Nyanja and the first phrasebook came out this year. I go it and it's good. I've written all over it. The only problem with a new language being made up is that everybody makes it up differently so that the word you learnt from a bloke at one end of the street is different for the person you first use it with at the other. It's fun though. Written English is more difficult for Kelly to undertake and every email is a tremendous effort. Nyanja, the prominent tribal Bantu language in central south Zambia, without a widely known standard written form, is rarely taught, and even frowned upon in schools so I hope that Kelly's contributions to this blog are of benefit to him too and perhaps the players who are unable to attend school. One academy member, Eric, loves writing and I want him to write some match reports if he can find the time in between playing football and writing about how to chat up the lasses. We will see.
Anyway, here's the latest news from the team bench of the Dynamic Stars Academy...
The Team bench
"hi steven am happy to see yo email u sent us on 8 th december it is nice to hear from u mate we have francis the top scorer in the previous cup games he was out standng amoung the big players even chainda bombers players they failed defeat us.am in town today from here il spik to erick,andrew has scored in chrismas cup already and junior each 1goal mubita as well scored.tomorrow we are playing a big team at chainda we must the game.all games are being played at chainda ground.tomorrow il send u email after game giving u the result.girls played last week a cup game organised by the americans we won books pens and soft balls for girls with calculaters i gave them to thoze who go to school.thank u for email." (Kelly Mukuka - DSA Coach)
Joel Simwanza in action against the Future Stars
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