May 3rd, 2018
The African Journey has begun for Tj Kolesnik, Tamotsu Kubota, and Myself (Max Norcross). After I traveled a long 40 hours from Brazil to Mozambique, we had no service, no sleep, very little food, and absolutely no WIFI. Being out in these countries shows you how much we really have to appreciate. Especially having good WIFI on almost every corner of the states we can walk, out here… WIFI is scarce.
When we showed up to the AirBnb we were welcomed to an awesome view of the Indian Ocean. After a good nights rest, we woke up super early and Tj and myself cranked out a ton of work before heading out for the day. The entire trip has been wake up, work on media before we start our days, go out teach children and locals about kendama, get back to our place and continue to grind until we are too tired to function. In Brazil we got a lot of work done and decided that we should enjoy our time with the locals (@SAMAUMAKENDAMA) and celebrate great friendships as well as the start to a new beginning of the big kendama push in Brazil. On these trips, its very important to get the work done… It’s also very important to create connections and friendships with the people who surround you. You never know if this will be the last trip or the last time you see the people in the area you visit, so its important to experience life, create memories, and become family with these communities. At the same time, a lot of work is getting done for kendama.
On our first official work day in Africa, we visited the Japanese Volunteer organization that Tamotsu worked with many years ago. He was actually here to teach kids Japanese and he also ended up meeting his current wife while volunteering through the JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency). “With its partners, will take the lead in forging bonds of trust across the world, aspiring for a free, peaceful and prosperous world where people can hope for a better future and explore their diverse potentials.” The meeting went very well and will hopefully open doors to more opportunities here in Mozambique, Africa. Especially with the help from Flavio Macarringue, the ambassador for kendama in Africa. We are hitting schools hard, hitting the ministry of health and the ministry of education to help us on our mission to Spread Kendama Love.
At the school we visited, it was in a village area and didn’t have much around the school besides dirt roads, street vending, and people who are just trying to make ends meat anyway they can to provide for their families. While Demonstrating kendama and teaching to the children of the school, they got so excited it was hard to manage groups to teach kendama and have circles of kendama lessons. We had to adapt, and we ended up doing really well. Even while swarmed by the chaos, we managed to teach a lot of kids how to Big Cup as well as even Spike! You will see the videos from this in the @sweetskendamas Story and the Norx Vlogs. Our impact here is huge, we just have to really grind and take advantage of all the opportunities ahead at helping these children in this next week.
Please support us in our efforts to raise money for the Crowd-funding Project for the KWC 2018. If we meet the goal, we may be able to bring players from Brazil and Africa to Japan. We are trying to create opportunities for people that may never be able to get the chance to travel to Japan for the Kendama World Cup. Click the link and help us in our efforts, https://en.japankurufunding.com/projects/project03/.
Thank you, and we will continue to Spread Kendama Love here in Africa. Stay Updated with @KendamaUSA, @Gloken_dama & of course @SweetsKendamas.
-
<3 Max Norcross
Leave a comment