I can't tell you that I solved their problems.
I don't think that I changed their lives. I'm not even sure that they'd remember me now. I'm positive that I didn't cure AIDS.
I'll tell you what though: for an hour every week those kids forgot about their lives. They forgot about the smell of the power plant, of the trash, of the mud. They forgot about walking home in big groups with heads bowed in an effort to draw as little attention as possible. They forgot about their mother, their father, their cousin, who had died of AIDS.
The kids were the poorest of the poor in South African society but did their best in the slums outside of Cape Town. Many of their homes had no electricity or heat and many had never seen a real doctor. Many hardly had food on their table each night.
Enter: soccer.
I know, you can't eat sports. Sports can't heal, and sports can't provide clean drinking water, and sports can't get their parents jobs. But thanks to an organization called Soccer 4 Hope, soccer can change the world, one goal at a time.
Each week the kids played real soccer. Once a week, they threw away their matted mess of tape and plastic bags and played with a real ball. They borrowed a pair of shoes and they made it down to the schoolyard for an hour session with actual coaches. They escaped.
Sure the kids played games, but it wasn't about the sports. Like church, every seven days these kids got structure, a break, and an escape. They were taught about responsibility and honesty and friendship. They were shown positive role models. And they were finally educated about the disease that ravages their community and about the positive, pro-active role their generation has to have in ending the epidemic.
Soccer 4 Hope is an organization that seeks to stop the spread of HIV and to address other crucial challenges that kids in townships face every day. Their mission isn't easy but you can't find a group of more passionate or dedicated people. When I studied abroad in Cape Town I had the opportunity to volunteer with them once a week, helping spread their message of hope.
As much as I was there to teach kids about clean drinking water and about AIDS, the best part wasn't when they paid rapt attention or when they asked informative questions.
It sounds corny, but the smiles on their faces when they sprinted onto the soccer pitch could have warmed a brutal Maine winter.
Those kids didn't just run, they flew. They flew away from the tin shacks of Khayletsha, the largest township in Cape Town, their home and the home of millions of others like them. They flew away from the crime and the fear and restlessness.
They flew so far that they forgot all language and started speaking in Futbol. Futebol. Football. Because they weren't playing in a dusty field in Africa, they were lighting up San Siro or Camp Nou, or usually Old Trafford or the Emirates.
They laughed and they cried, they jumped and shouted. They were kids, just like I was, and they loved sports, just like I do. And that's all that mattered.
Some of them spoke some broken English, I didn't speak any Xhosa, their native tongue. It didn't matter. All you needed to understand was a ball and a smile.
And maybe: GOOOOOAL!