Rob Green: 21 days that changed my life

Tag : Wood Boring Bits


Without doubt, it was my finest moment in football. In front of acrowd of around 500, I was in Dagoretti, one of Nairobi's manyslums, surrounded by burnt out cars, fighting stray dogs,free-roaming chickens and glue-sniffing street children. There waslitter strewn everywhere and it was a dust bowl of a pitch but, allmodesty aside, I scored one of the greatest goals the beautifulgame has ever seen.
Playing for the British consulate against Railway Wanderers, I hadalready abandoned my traditional role of goalkeeper after refusingto dive in among the glass and rocks to save the opening goal ofthe match, and roamed the midfield in an attempt to be a bit moreof a positive influence. After a few minutes a hopeful punt forwardcame to me in the centre circle. As I took the ball on my chest andturned, I heard a shout from one of my British team-mates: "Go on,go it alone."
Being in the middle of Kenya and at least 45 yards from goal, Ithought better of it and, on the volley, smashed the ball as hardas I could over a back-pedalling keeper, one bounce into the roofof the net. There might be a better goal scored this coming season,but I doubt it.
The crowd went wild, I got mobbed and the African fallacy ofPremier League footballers being superhuman grew just a little bitmore. I substituted myself immediately so as not to ruin themoment.
Come the end of the game, I was beckoned over by the local crowd totake a look at their "main stand". Glancing over, all I could seewas more slums in the distance. Closer inspection revealed the mainstand to be a row of tree stumps, lined up parallel to the pitch,with chopped and varnished branches on top to make crude butsurprisingly comfortable benches.
"Each game we have, we go around with a hat and collect money forour stadium," I was told in perfect English by a spectator whoshowed some authority among the crowd. I was shown the hat. It hadaround 100 Kenyan shillings (about 70p). "This is enough to buy onemore tree stump from which we will make our bench, we make themourselves," he continued. "We have no help from the Government,nothing. They are all – how you say – 'fat cats'. Butit is our dream to surround our stadium in seating so the people ofDagoretti can sit and watch their football."
It took a moment for it to sink in. These people have nothing. Theylive in homes made from mud and faeces. They have no water, verylittle food, and not much hope for the future. But it meanteverything to them to build a football stadium that they could beproud of. And they were proud of it. It was their life.
At this point I realised why I had come to Africa.
This was the first summer in a number of years that I had had morethan a few weeks' break. We knew back in November that Englandwould not be competing at Euro 2008 – which is not to presumeI would have been in the squad, but obviously I'd be at least aninterested spectator – and having no family to think of, andspending the last few years' holidays boring myself on differentbeaches, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to explore apart of the world that I thought I might never get the chance tosee.
I would be able to experience something different, something that Icould learn from, appreciate a whole different level of life. And,most importantly to me, perhaps I could even use the status of aPremier League footballer for some good.
Playing professional football you surround yourself in a bubble.For 11 months of the year you don't have a choice of trulyexperiencing real life. Having left school and gone straight intofootball, I have played almost every day of my adult life. As faras lives go, I admit I have a pretty great one. But as far as lifeexperiences go, it has been of fairly limited scope.
In a similar way, life as a footballer is self-focused. It can beeasy to take for granted the life that you lead. Focusing on thenegatives, not appreciating what you have, things that anyone inthe western world could be guilty of. As a footballer you live onchallenges, whether they are set by fans, managers, media, theopposition or yourself. This summer I wanted something to challengethe habits, thoughts, and beliefs that I had built into myselfafter 12 years of full-time football.
So around Christmas last year I approached a number of charitieswith my thoughts on how I wanted to use my summer break. Amref (theAfrican Medical Research Foundation) came across as positive andactive and saw my interest as an opportunity they could makesomething of: to use football and, in particular, the popularity ofthe Premier League as a vehicle to spread their Aids, HIV, healthand peace messages.
On arriving in Nairobi, I found the dusty, bustling streets werejam-packed with rushing commuters, similar to London, but withfewer suits. But there were some instantly familiar sights: thechaotic roads were full of local buses – mutates – halfof which were dedicated to a Premier League team, player or ground.There was the Drogba Bus, the Adebayor Bus and the Gerrard Bus. Andit wasn't just the buses. Huge billboards lined the streets:Ronaldo, Joe Cole and Fernando Torresselling anything from mobilephones to saving plans. A pattern was emerging.
The first place we visited was Amrek's clinic in Dagoretti, whichwas positioned next to a sea of makeshift tents. These were filledwith refugees from the civil war earlier this year. We met a groupof eight children, aged from six to 16, from two related familieswho had fled from their homes and farms outside the city. Amongthem was eight-year-old Peter Mwangi, a cheeky-looking boy, with apermanent grin who had just had a cast removed from his broken arm.The children explained, through an interpreter, the ordeals oftheir families hiding at night in their maize fields for two weeks,while they watched rioters burn down their home and attack friendsand family with clubs and machetes.
It would have been a terrible experience for anyone, let alonechildren as young as this and Peter had not spoken throughout. Weasked what the clinic provided and the children responded withanswers such as schooling, food, safety, and health checks. ThenPeter sprang into life shouting: "Futa!" (Football in Shen, amixture of Swahili and English). I asked him his favouriteposition. "Goalie!" This needed no translation. I had found a newhero.
Wandering back out of the clinic, we walked on to a smalldust-covered area where a mixed team were holding a footballtraining session. Amazingly, it was almost identical to a specifictraining session we use back at West Ham. It's not just footballthat is universal, it seems. Football training is too.
Behind the fence that protected the dust bowl the movement ofrefugees from their camp had stopped as people enjoyed the trainingsession. The stark contrast between the organisation and skills onshow right next to the chaos of broken and lost lives was difficultto avoid.
A few days later we were able to watch a game of football. Arejuvenated Kenyan team were hosting Zimbabwe in a World Cupqualifier. It was carnage from start to finish. The crowds tryingto get in five minutes before kick-off were getting restless andswarming the turnstile in an attempt to catch the start. Theiranxiety was met by that of the police, who were quick to brandishclubs and bayonets on rifles to clear the mobs.
Inside the ground it was equally manic, with dancing and singing inthe stands before, after and during the match. Early and lateKenyan goals sent the 35,000 crowd into raptures, causing surgesand shaking within the terracing. I couldn't – rather thandidn't – see much of the match, but the exuberant crowd morethan made up for it. It was the first time in a long while that Ienjoyed watching a game of football on a day off.
The experiences of Dagoretti proved to be warm-up for the streetsof Kibera. A two kilometre square slum and home to a millionpeople, it witnessed some of the harshest violence during Kenya'spost-election troubles. The Kenyan government barely acknowledgesKibera as a settlement and it is almost understandable why. Thesize of the place and the problems are so big that it is impossibleto decide where to start. Amref decided to start right in the heartof the slum.
Surrounded by thousands of tiny mud huts, the Amref clinic was theonly brick building to be seen. The streams of rubbish and bags ofsewage line the streets, causing sanitation to be non-existent.Children who could barely walk, roamed the streets alone, pickingthrough the filth for anything they could find.
For me, this was a culture shock on an almost indescribable scale.It was hard to take everything in. I found it a fight not to besick from the smell. It was difficult to understand, and evenharder not to be overcome, by the enormity of it all. This was aneducation. It took me some time to realise that at the end of a daythe stench in the hotel was me and my sweat from the hours spent insuch squalid environments.
Amref's work in Kibera mainly consisted of treating HIV and Aidssufferers from two of the 14 villages that make up the slum.Meeting two single mothers who lived "positively" through Amref wasan extraordinary and in many ways uplifting experience.
Mildred Kendi was a young lady who had overcome the stigma,discrimination, and physical difficulties of living with HIV aswell as the general problems of living in the slum to become avibrant, positive person who led groups set up to help others inthe same way. It was wonderful to see someone so positive and happyregardless of her situation and surroundings. She didn't have moneyto pay the rent, she watched her neighbours scrub the communal bathafter she had used it and wasn't allowed to use the same washingline as them, but she was genuinely happy.
The next time I struggle to rise from bed for a 10.30am trainingsession at West Ham, I will think of her. In fact, I will think ofmost of the people of Kibera. Friendly and lively, they wereintrigued by the "strange, tall white man" walking around theirhomes. All so positive and happy living their normal lives in suchextreme circumstances.
They knew their football as well. In among the homes people wouldpoke their heads round a corner and shout my name. On turning roundI would be greeted by another shout of "West Ham" or "England".Shops in the slums may have been made of wood or mud, but theyprovided the same services as any western shopping centre. Thedifference being that these would be named after footballingsubjects. Football Sold. The Emirates Library, Lineker's VideoStore, even to the Real Madrid Battery Charging Service.
Kibera's pitch made the one in Dagoretti look like Wembley. An opendrain ran straight through a patch of ground on which it would beillegal to keep animals in the UK. Here, though, it was achildren's playground. In fact, it was the only children'splayground for the thousands of kids that lived in the area –and they loved it, playing with anything from a stone to a rolledup sock. It staged numerous impromptu football matches.
The main event during my stay in Kibera was a game named as a"Peace and Reconciliation" match for the 14 villages within theslum. Each was home to a different tribe. Each of the tribes wentto war with each other during the post-election violence earlierthis year. For the match each tribe would be providing two playersto make up two sides, and I was refereeing.
I must admit I didn't grasp the enormity of the situation untilafter the event, when I was told the disturbing recent history ofthe tribes. What I did notice at the time was the tension –there was even some snarling between members of the teams –which was a huge contrast to the friendly people I was meeting justa few moments before.
This was perhaps the first time that members from other tribes hadcome into contact with one another since they were in civilconflict, and I was in charge with a whistle. In fact, the gamewent by without so much as a murmur, but come the full-time whistlethere was not the jubilation or celebration that I had witnessed inprevious days.
It left me wondering whether we had actually done good or bad byusing football to bring the tribes together, or whether it had justantagonised already fraught relations. But as I thought about itmore I felt that, no matter how precarious, football had builtbridges between previously fighting groups and I guessed I wouldhave to leave it to Amref to decide on how to develop this.
What I knew for sure was that the sights, sounds and people ofNairobi had given me a life experience that I would remember longafter those I had visited had forgotten me. I would not be able totell you where I went to for my summer holiday last year. Thisyear, I will never forget.