Softball, Peace Corps and Foreign Policy

SOFTBALL, PEACE CORPS AND FOREIGN POLICY

            Term Two has begun at Botswana secondary schools, and with that, the beginning of the “ball sports” season. Term One (January through March) features just one sport: track, known here as “athletics”. Ball sports include, at my school, football (i.e. soccer), softball, basketball, netball, volleyball, table tennis (i.e. ping pong) and badminton. Chess is also offered this term, but I am not yet sure how the competitions are arranged. All of the sports have separate boys and girls teams, with the sole exception of basketball, which did not get enough female recruits to field a squad.

            Before settling in with a team, I surveyed the early practices. The most serious team is, not surprisingly, boys’ football (soccer). Students play football here almost from infancy, and it is offered as a sport in primary school. Every village builds one or more football fields, called “pitches”. A young maths teacher at my school has stepped up nervously to be this year’s boys head football coach. It is a thankless job since everyone here knows enough about football to second guess any decision made by a coach. Because my prior experience with football consists of an unlucky season years ago serving as a referee with my daughter’s recreational soccer league, I decided to take a pass on a return engagement.

            I had not heard of netball, so I checked into that sport early on. It is played outdoors on a dirt plot the size of a basketball court. There are two poles and a hoop, but so far no net. Each team fields seven players. The ball (the size of a basketball) gets passed but not dribbled. Once a player gets possession of the ball, he or she cannot move except to pivot on one foot. Defensive players are restricted in how close they can get to the ball handler. The ball moves fast, but the players don’t, so I decided not to get involved, even despite the pleas of the coach, a very eager young phys ed teacher at my school.

            Next came softball. The boys and girls trying out for the team displayed an appealing ragtag quality. Some had never before handled a bat or thrown a softball or worn a glove. The early practices included lessons on how to swing a bat, to throw a ball and then to catch it. Meanwhile, the veteran players began to loosen up their arms, working on their underhand fast pitch and practicing fielding ground balls.

            I was hooked. While my softball skills are limited, to which my Manchester friends can attest, I definitely had something to offer these students. So, I dug out from the equipment box the one and only left-hander’s glove (the ball players here rely upon the school to supply the balls and gloves). I played catch with the new players, boys and girls. I also helped show bat swinging techniques.

            Over a couple of weeks, the boys and girls teams began to take shape. The boys’ team had a number of experienced hitters and two decent pitchers. The fielders could throw balls well, but they could not catch them consistently. The two lead coaches, a science teacher and a design and technology (i.e. “industrial arts”) teacher, are themselves good players and enjoy instructing the students.

            The teams faced a practical problem. Left field had largely been taken over by a newly fenced in area, deployed for individual vegetable garden plots for Form 3 students. Their agriculture course grade depends largely upon their success growing onions and spinach on their plot. So the school hired a bulldozer to clear a nearby field of scrub brush to make a new softball pitch. It happened just in time, since opening day was to take place Saturday.

On Friday, the school’s maintenance man planted a dozen tall poles in a semi-circle to frame the backstop. He found long pieces of chain link fencing and brought them over. During practice time, we fastened the fencing to the poles, double height. Then out came a measuring tape borrowed from the closet of the track and field team. The coaches knew from the rulebook the required dimensions for the field. Most important is that of the diamond itself: 18.25 meters for each baseline. We deployed students at appropriate measuring points, but it took some time to get the diamond to form into a perfect square. I was appointed the master of measurement, and soon we got it just right. Then the team members used spades to trench base lines into the dusty red earth. A student appeared with a bucket of gray wood ash (there was no chalk), and he sifted a line of ash into the trench. The gray ash contrasted well with the red dirt. We then measured and marked the batter’s box and pitcher’s mound (circle).

All of this effort paid off. Over the weekend, the school hosted round robin competitions with ball sports teams from two other junior secondary schools. The visitors bunked out Friday and Saturday night in our classrooms, bringing their food, gas burners and cooks with them. I discussed my own experience with these traveling competitions in a prior post.

Saturday’s opening day for softball went well for the most part. Our boys and girls team each won their first games. The backstop held, although the wind kicked up a lot of dust from the newly exposed dirt on the infield. Still, the players enjoyed themselves, with lots of smiles and laughs for their own triumphs and mishaps. I have a particular fondness for a very small Form 2 boy, nicknamed “Junior”, who plays first base. He hustles at fielding and looking to make double plays. He is also reliable at bat, although he is not by any means a power hitter. He even tucks his pants into his pulled-up socks, to look more like a major league player.  

Junior running to first base, trying to beat the throw. Note volleyball match in the background.

After a wild pitch, an opposing runner steals second. All you can see is his right foot and his helmet flying off.

Our pitcher's wind-up. The school assembly hall is in the background.

So, how did softball become a staple of Botswana secondary school ball sports? The answer appears to be Peace Corps. Semi-verified legend has it that some Peace Corps volunteers, assigned to teach in secondary schools in newly independent Botswana in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, introduced softball into the sports lineup. The students took to it like mad as an alternative to football.

As Peace Corps volunteers, we are all trained to be obsessed with sustainability: making sure that whatever we do here will remain and not die out after our departure. We are discouraged from starting any project that cannot sustain itself. A good illustration of what could happen is recounted in the memoir of the late Senator Paul Tsongas, who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia in the 1960’s. He worked with his village to build a school. However, when he returned years later, the school building was in ruins. The fact that I am helping out with softball at a school forty years after some Peace Corps volunteers introduced it to Botswana proves that what they created is sustainable; it has stood the test of time.

That brings me to the less well-understood importance of Peace Corps. For more than 50 years in developing countries around the world, volunteers live modestly in villages and work with local people, often students, to help improve their futures. Those students grow up, and they remember the Peace Corps volunteer from America who cared enough to help them. Our village houses the paramount traditional chief for this part of Botswana. He told us about a Peace Corps volunteer who was his teacher in secondary school more than 20 years ago. This chief is a rising leader in this country. Other political figures in Botswana have fond memories of their Peace Corps teacher or coach. That is not uncommon. In some developing countries around the world, presidents and prime ministers remember their Peace Corps teacher, and in turn hold Americans in high regard.

Foreign economic and military assistance is not popular with Americans. Peace Corps is a low budget program. For instance, we each get paid less than $300 per month -- money (and time) that may not show an immediate pay-off.  However, long-term attitudes toward America can be changed for the better through contact with Peace Corps volunteers. A bit of know-how combined with a large dose of patience, perseverance and American-style friendliness can work wonders.