I was accepted into the Peace Corps way back in 2006 and assigned to the “youth development” sector. I had little idea of what such a broad term as youth development could actually be. Later I found that it is anything that you make it. For me it was organized sports. It’s not that I am a very athletic person or a big fan of basketball. For me it was the idea that male and female youth can learn a lot from organized sports. I didn’t just teach how to play basketball, but how to play fairly, work as a team and most importantly feel accomplished in training and hard work.

This photo was taken shortly before my service was over in a small nearby village named Hesinguyya. The balls were purchased through a grant that I had written that helped to bring the sport back to the area for the first time since soviet collapse. The gym that we are playing in was exceptionally well done. It was renovated a few years prior to this photo through a grant written and organized by a fellow site-mate of mine. All the kids were very athletic and trained rigorously for judo and wrestling. Their hard work and athletic talents easily carried over to the sport.