Stories from the Grameen: Village Soccer!

What this is all about?

Grameen means "rural" or "village" in Bangla, so literally this translates to 'Stories from the Village.' I travelled to Bangladesh in 2010 and did an Internship with the Grameen Bank and was amazed by the people there especially in its rural villages. The 'desh' and its people are an inspiration and will always have a special place in my heart.

Since then, I continually see how important villages are, be it in rural Bangladesh, or in urban core neighbourhoods in Canada. A strong village is what brings people together and welcomes newcomers and supports those in need. Villages are what I fight for and this blog is how I do it.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Village Soccer!

Our first day we decided to just walk down the country road and see where it took us. We ended up walking almost 4km apparently and found a soccer field with a couple kids taking shots on a goal. It was an open field with grass which the village used to let cattle graze in. This also meant that you had to be careful to avoid the cow droppings when you were running around the field.

The Soccer Teams!

We played Eleven-a-side and even had a ref (the guy on my left in the red). Everyone was very friendly, the guy on my right, Roman, spoke a little English and we were teammates at first. It was a very cool experience though, we played barefoot, and drew out most of the village - you can see in the background of that picture the people standing on the sidelines.

Lots of bangla being spoken, it took quite a while

Eventually we lined up... and then talked some more bangla

And finally off we go! Ross is in white on the far left, I'm in white way at the back, and Alfonso is up close in the red and black.

The teams were foreigners plus some locals against the rest of the locals and in the end we won 4-2! I scored a goal and set up two as well.

Cheers,
Mike