Sports, Education and Everything in Between

One typical evening as the sun set, 10 year old Tom was walking, barefoot, back home from a nearby dusty field where all the kids in his village gathered and spent their late afternoons. Nothing in particular made this day any more special than the ones before. Tom had gone to his local school since he was 6 years old and did pretty much the same things on a daily basis. Life for Tom was just as far as he saw it but somehow he had a little dream deep down in his heart that he would travel the world and meet many people from all walks of life. He dreamt of hearing about how they spent their days and if they played the same games as he did. He even wondered if they wore shoes when they played. Tom's shoes were old and beat up, quite uncomfortable to be honest, so he prefered walking and playing barefoot. Tom thought about all the things he would ask his new friends when he met them; their homes and how they did things and what they wanted to do when they grow up. Tom even wanted to ask them who their heroes were and wondered if he would know any of them when they told him. Tom liked football and his hero was definitely Ronaldo. His friend, Peter, had a poster of him which he seemed to always have on him all the time. Tom found that very odd. Tom had never seen Ronaldo play, they had no electricity and no TV, but he had heard a lot of great things about this amazing man from Brazil that scored goals as if he was playing against the blind. Unfortunately, every time Tom thought about this he found himself feeling very sad for reasons that were beyond him.

On this typical evening, Tom got home to one of his mum's typical meals and the familiar state of his father's typical absence at dinner time. Tom had 3 siblings that were all older than him. The eldest, Gerald, the silent one, had just finished school. He spent most of his time away from home and Tom only saw him at night when they had to eat before he quietly went to bed without saying much...as usual.Gerald always seemed exhausted and sad and Tom didnt know how to cheer him up. I wish I could make him smile and laugh more, Tom thought. The tween girls Abigail and Amanda were 17 and little Tom did not understand most of the things that they found interesting. All they did, according to Tom, was come back from school and listen to the family's old beat up battery powered radio that only they knew how to work properly. So, dinner time for Tom was a silent affair where the candle lit room and the shades on the walls were by far the only entertainment that Tom's imagination could work with. Tom's mum always seemed to put on an exhausted face and didn't say much either. She looked very tired. The date was the 12th of July 1998. Little Tom grew up to be not so little anymore and as it turned out he never quite managed to be as good at football or any other sport for that matter. Tom never got introduced to any other sports, he didnt know anything else really. Tom was not necessarily good at his studies either when he was still in school and often he wondered what his life would have been like had he managed to be good at something...anything. Again, when he thought about this, he could not help but feel sad. On one typical evening, just after the sun had set and Tom was getting ready to saddle his bicycle for his hour's ride back home from work, Baas Smith asked Tom to have a cup of tea with him before he took off. Tom agreed even though he really didn't want to. You cant say no to the boss, can you? "Am i getting fired?" Tom silently whispered to himself. Tom had spent all day working Smith's yard and garden like he did every other day and he was hoping that if he rode back a bit earlier he would manage to get home before his two little boys went to bed after they had their dinner. "Tom, you remind me of your father. He was a very good man, a hard worker" said Smith as he gazed into the fading evening light slowly sipping on his tea. "He was a keen football fan too, was your dad. I remember inviting him inside one evening to watch the '98 world cup final that Brazil lost, he actually cried." Smith broke out in laughter as he went on to tell Tom about that particular day in detail, he even remembered the date...it was the 12th of July. "One of my fondest memories of your father" he said. After finishing their cups of tea Tom took off and rode home rather slowly as it was too dark and he could hardly see a few yards in front of him. Tom too remembered, in detail, that same day that Smith was talking about. He too, like his father before him, would be absent from the dinner table tonight. On his way home, Tom wondered if his children's lives would turn out to be just like his and his father before him. This made Tom feel very sad and like his father, Tom too, wept. Not so little Tom grew up to be much older. He had grey hair and walked with the aid of a stick that his grandson made for him. One typical afternoon as the warm sun beat down the dusty streets, Tom sat under the shade of a tree he had grown up climbing as a young boy. He remembered how he was once full of enthusiasm and enchanted dreams. Then, from a distance he saw a figure that took him back many years. Through the dust a shadow of a man on a bicycle appeared from a distance. He rode with a certain familiarity and poise that looked just like Tom's father. Oh how Tom wished he could experience one of those days again. How he wished he spent more time with his old man. To not much surprise, it was Tom's son, Sam, who had come with the unfortunate news of Baas Smith's death. "He passed away peacefully in his sleep," he said. He was a good man, Tom thought. Smith's son had allowed Sam to leave a bit earlier today as he would need him to come in much earlier the following morning to help set up the yard for his father's funeral service at their lavish family home. Sam knew that he would have to clean up after the ceremony too and chances are he would get back home very late and miss dinner time with his two little girls. Just like Tom, Sam too wondered what life for his children will be like one day. Would they also work for Smith and his family? Would they ever get to enjoy time with their own children? Sam had a lot of questions and just like Tom, when he thought about this, it made him feel very sad.

Some Questions

1. Can Tom's family break the cycle of poverty?

2. If you could, what type of intervention would you provide for families like Tom's?

3. How can we best explain the relationship between Tom's and Smith's families?

4. If identity matters, why do all the African characters have English names?