Soldier Children (or Children As Soldiers)

A TENNIS BALL FOR HASHIM
By: Perla Limbaga Manapol

My work in community development takes me to remote villages in the Philippines. Early this year I was sent to a community in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to help set up a livelihood training program for the families of former rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

As I went around the village on my first day of orientation, I noticed something odd: there was not a single playground, not even a basketball hoop that is a common sight in basketball-crazy Philippines. My guide, a teacher who is one of only two Christians in the community, told me that once a month, after payday, she takes her five children to the nearest city (two hours by pump-boat) for their favorite treat: a few hours on the swings, see-saws, and slides at a public playground. I asked if there was any kind of recreation at all for schoolchildren in her village, and she answered, “They all play with guns!”

True enough, the only playthings sold at most of the village shops were all types of toy guns and weapons. We passed by a yard where two boys were playing. They were squealing and laughing as one held the muzzle of a wooden toy rifle to the temple of the other and then pretending to pull the trigger. Seeing the shock on my face, my guide said, almost matter-of-factly, “In a few years they will be recruited by the MILF.” Right there and then, I vowed to myself – as an avid athlete and part-time coach – that besides teaching parents how to earn a living, I would also introduce a sport, any sport, to the children of this village.

On my next visit, I brought with me two dozens used tennis balls. I envisioned teaching the kids how to throw a ball, hit it with a bat, or shoot it into a hoop. Wide-eyed children and parents surrounded me as I popped the bright-yellow balls out of the oblong cans. I then playfully rolled one to a boy, motioning for him to roll it back to me. Instead, he cowered in fear and started to cry. I bounced another ball to a little girl, who screamed and ran out of the room. So here I was – someone who had assumed all her life that any child in this planet knows that a ball is a plaything – patiently and gently explaining to my audience what a ball is, demonstrating how to bounce it, throw it in the air and catch it. Finally, I showed the parents how to play a simple game of roll-bounce-catch, and made them promise to teach it to their kids. Later that day I had a local carpenter make two wooden “rackets” and two “bats.” A plastic pail with the bottom sawed off was nailed a few meters up on the trunk of a coconut tree – the first-ever basketball “hoop” in the community.

Two months later I was back at the village. One mother ran up to me and announced excitedly, “Hashim (her son) and his friends are playing with the balls!” I could hear shouts and laughter as she led me to the backyard, visions of children playing catch, stickball, maybe even hoops, running through my head. I was stopped dead on my tracks by the sight of Hashim and his friends who were, indeed, playing with the tennis balls – but loading them as fodder into a toy grenade launcher.

I have a long way to go.

E-mail: firlatot@yahoo.com

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