Somebody loved a stranger

Hey, Wilson,

We're baaaaaaaack! Blue and I have returned from the gelato capital of the world. I must have eaten a ton, but I only gained a pound.  Ha! Probably because I walked miles over uneven cobblestone streets to eat just tiny bits at a time, with itty bitty spoons like those in the photo below.

Italian-style gelato needs only small spoons to be appreciated.

And while we were in Rome we visited refugee centers, distributed One World Futbols, and we may have started laying a foundation for a network to distribute the remainder of the 179 futbols we raised this past year!

An anthem, a slogan, and a benign cancer

Along the way, we selected the Team Wilson's anthem, developed a slogan, and recognized a wonderfully benign and incurable cancer.

For the past year you, I and the donors have raised unbreakable futbols for distressed communities where standard soccer balls didn't have a chance of survival. We also distributed some of them -- 10 to Ecuador, 4 to Tijuana, two to China, 3 to Thailand, and just as we were leaving for Rome, 3 to India. And in Rome, we saw a real uptick -- 23 to two refugee centers.

At one of the refugee centers, a contingent of University of Washington anthropology students cooked for the refugees and spent time with them. And as I was packing to leave, I heard back from their professor that the students had revisited the center and the residents were making good use of the futbols. So we done good.

It was after I returned to Seattle that I had time to reflect on this cancer I mentioned a moment ago. This has to be the kindest cancer of all. It can appear seemingly out of nowhere, grow exponentially, metastasize rapidly, disappear overnight, and then unexpectedly reappear. And it can transfer between hosts. You may wonder how any cancer can be benign and what this has to do with you and your cousins.  Well, I'm getting to that. First of all it will help to know who is immune to this cancer.

The Colossus of Xenophob

One of the people who seems most immune is running for president, and he has a tremendously loyal following. He thinks refugees are scum. He uses terms like "anchor babies," and "rapists" and things like that to refer to them. He wants to sort people by religion. He displays characteristics of clinical narcissism, seeking power, glory and attention, not for the good of others, but for himself, at the expense of the most vulnerable. And he's been successful. He is like one of those seven wonders of the ancient world, the famous Colossus of Rhodes, a gigantic statue so tall that by some accounts, ships could sail right between its legs to reach harbor. You can't tune into the news without hearing about this  cynical charlatan -- I forget his name.

The New Colossus

Poetess Emma Lazarus

There's a much better colossus, much more highly regarded, and she is not immune to this cancer. She is rife with it. Emma Lazarus, a poet, told us everything we needed to know about her in a sonnet written 132 years ago and today, more relevant than ever.

One test to determine whether you have this cancer would be to read this poem aloud, slowly. If you can do that without having a catch in your throat, you might be cancer free -- but don't count on it.

The new colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. 

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Cancer agape

Can you feel the cancer, Wilson? The name for this cancer is Love. And we're never going to eradicate it. Just when you think it's gone, it shows up again.

This isn't about the love that makes you all giddy or makes you want to get laid. I'm not even talking about the love that makes you want to kiss a baby or hug a puppy. I'm talking about a pervasive, subtle below-the-radar force that lurks unseen, but which makes its presence known in the quietest of moments, or the most unexpected of ways. This is not eros. The ancient Greeks called it agape.

It was agape that caused the woman  pushing her grocery cart  to  pick up and hand me the debit card that fell from my wallet.

It's agape that causes you to reach  out to catch someone who is thrown off balance when the subway jerks forward.

The American World War II sergeant I read about a couple weeks ago had agape. His entire unit  followed his direction to declare that they were all Jews, rather than let an SS officer separate out the real Jews, who were their comrades.

My friend Melanie has agape, She is a retired Air Force physician's assistant, who flew to Ecuador last year to help employees from the Mayo clinic who volunteer their time to perform surgery on children with deformities. She invited me along, and that's why there are at least 10 One World Futbols in Ecuador.

Melanie Wood is one of those afflicted with cancer agape. She flew to Ecuador to assist in surgeries for children with deformities. This child underwent her second operation for a club foot. Mayo Clinic employees, who also are afflicted with this incurable cancer, volunteered to perform the surgery.

Cancer agape has infected my childhood friend,  Jay, who flies to Cambodia twice a year on his dime to make small, interest-free loans to Cambodian fishing villages so that they can develop the capital to manage their fisheries and farms.

The emergence of  the Team Wilson's anthem

Other carriers include those University of Washington anthropology students who connected with Rome's Baobab refugee center as a result of Team Wilson's effort to distribute futbols. They took to it like a duck to water, cooking meals for the residents of the center  before and after it was raided by Italian police agencies, who removed, and perhaps repatriated about two dozen of the residents.

One night, when those young people were preparing dinner,  music was playing from a cell phone. When the tune,  "Lean on Me," came on, Meraf, a student of Ethiopian descent,  broke into song.  It seemed fitting for the work they were about -- and so touching. It became a moment of clarity -- Lean on Me became the anthem for Team Wilson, because if there's one thing you can count on, it's a One World Futbol.

Meraf, a UW Anthropology student and veggie chopper in the kitchen at Baobab refugee center in Rome, sings and pantomimes the hit song, Lean on Me, inspiring the Team Wilson anthem.

Others blessed with this cancer include the Eyes to Burma charity in Ashland Oregon. Those folks supports a retired photographer, who is afflicted with the desire to make life more bearable for a group of Burmese refugees living on a garbage dump on the border of Thailand.

Inflicted, as well, are the contingent of Catholics from St. John Vianney Parish in Kirkland who fly to Tijuana every year to build at least one home for a family in need of dignified housing.

Last May the team from St. John Vianney flew to Tijuana for the pleasure of performing tasks such as chopping and digging up tons of wet clay to lay the foundation for a home they built to give a local family dignified housing.  Wilson, in the foreground, went along for the ride.

Jahnigen, right, and the
musician, Sting, who provided

 the research and development 

funds for the One World Futbol.

And let's not forget One World Play Project itself, which rose from an idea one man dreamed up  after he watched a documentary that featured children in Darfur playing with soccer balls made of trash. That man, Tim  Jahnigen of Berkeley, California, invented a ball as resilient as children. The ball remembers its shape and sustains hundreds of punctures without deflating. It's a ball that complements the potential of children by extending to them the therapeutic power of play in the world's most popular sport. He didn't succeed on his own. He had help from others  who are similarly afflicted. Click on this photo, for a video of his story.


And once you get an idea like this, it has a way of spreading and growing. One World Play Project has already sprouted the seeds of diversification. Check out the photo below. No, click on it. One World Play Project has partnered with organizations to start raising funds for jump ropes.

Yes! Why limit the love to soccer balls? These young people are "jumping" rope! They live in Kibera, Kenya, one of the largest slums in Africa. One World Play Project reports that, in Kibera, one million people live on 632 acres of land. That's less than one square mile. 

Dogs, cetaceans and trees

We don't own this cancer. It can cross species. People love their dogs; the dogs protect their masters. People go ga-ga when a whale eye-hops next to their boat and nudges up its calf for a better view. And they crowd a beach to help a whale re-enter the sea. Likewise, there are stories of dolphins who rescue drowning sailors or surround swimmers to keep sharks at bay.

I have even seen this in the eyes of a First Nations weaver, who, when she didn't know I was watching, quietly, reverently and gratefully thanked the cedar which had yielded up a strip of its bark for her baskets.

Agape springs eternal

There were setbacks in Rome. The Paris terrorist attacks put everyone on edge, and that may have been the reason behind the raid on Baobab. And after we returned home, Ann Anagnost, the University of Washington anthropology professor who hosted my visit, reported that Baobab had been shut down permanently. A brief news report said something about it being returned to its owner through a court action. Supporters and volunteers haven't given up; they are looking for a new location.

But the agape just sprang up someplace else. When Team Wilson showed up at the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center, a New York transplant by the name of Daniela Morales immediately saw the benefit of the futbol and led a group of refugees to a local park to try it out. That connection resulted in a referral to a third  refugee organization, and from there to Liberi Nantes, Italy's first soccer team for refugees.

After returning home, Team Wilson e-mailed Liberi Nantes and shared the One World Futbol story, along with the images below, including the one of the Pope meeting one of your cousins. Well, who can say no to the Pope? Liberi Nantes wrote back to say, Yes! Send the futbols!  Through Team Wilson's campaign, One World Play Project covers the shipping cost from their distribution center in Germany.

And yes, in the center photo, that is the Pope!

Pipeline expanded?

The connection with Liberi Nantes will improve the opportunity for Team Wilson donors to get a better sense for how their gifts are benefiting others. Also, what's especially good about that latest development is that this may expand the inroads One World Play Project has already made in Italy, at a time when One World Play Project is trying to find ways to supply refugees in Europe. So, in a tiny way, we may have uncovered a new pathway for the project. When our supply of footballs has been exhausted, there's a good chance that  One World Play Project will be able to step in.

A slogan emerges

 The world is a big place. Fewer than two million One World Futbols have been distributed so far, and that's not even a gleam on the drop in an enormous bucket of need. It's easy for One World Futbols to drop into the void and disappear from sight. However, I would  not be surprised to learn that a trickle of these, one-by-one, is making its way out of Rome and across Western Europe, packed off by refugees in search of a new home. And they aren't the sort of thing that stays hidden.

Readers, if you should see a One World Futbol in your travels, you'll know there's only one way that ball got to where it was -- some unknown someone, like you, a carrier of cancer agape, bought that ball for an individual they didn't know and whom they would never meet, just because they wanted that stranger to be happy. Somebody loved a stranger.

And that's Team Wilson's slogan from now on -- Somebody loved a stranger.

Love,
Robert,
and Blue

For those who want to give again, or share the love with others, some more links:

Carolina for Kibera Kenya

Street soccer Mexico: 

The Iztapalapa neighborhood in Mexico City, Mexico, is considered one of the most dangerous in the country’s capital. Due to the high level of criminal activity there, street youth are constantly challenged by exposure to drugs and gang violence.

Street Soccer Mexico works to keep youth away from the negative influences of street life by providing opportunities for play and learning. For the past two years, Street Soccer Mexico has run a soccer league, which uses One World Futbols, in Iztapalapa to do just that and help the youth develop healthy habits to pursue a better life. Now, the organization is looking to add another play-based program for the youth, a screen-printing workshop that will teach the youth art and business skills.

Fairplay for All, Philippines

Payatas is one of the poorest and largest slums in the Philippines and home to an estimated 500,000 people and the largest dumpsite in the country. Children in Payatas very rarely attend school or drop out to work to help their families meet basic needs. They often take up jobs as jumpers or trash sorters.

Jumpers climb garbage trucks as the trucks enter the dumpsite, pick the best trash off the top and then throw that trash to other children waiting below. Throughout the process, the trucks don’t stop moving, and many jumpers have been seriously injured as they get caught under the trucks while climbing up and down. Trash sorters help their families sort through bags of trash to wash and resell what they can to recyclers.

My "Dear John" letter to Wilson

Dear Wilson,

This is a hard letter to write, particularly after all we've been through together -- traveling the world,  climbing hills and mountains, sharing the same condo -- I've never had a relationship quite like this  one.

But the time has come for me to move on. Well, sort of. I mean, I'm not really moving on, because you will always have a place in my heart. But at this point, it's not the major place.

I've found someone else.

This may be difficult for you to bear, up there on cold, blowy and snowy Mount Adams, alone. You may feel forgotten. But you're not. Really. I think of you often, and I tell your story every time I tell folks about One World Futbols.

Was it the Trevi Fountain?

But two weeks in Rome changed everything. I had 24 futbols to distribute, most going to the Baobab refugee center. But as I cast my eyes over them, one caught my attention. I don't know why it happened. Maybe it was because of all those coins I threw in the Trevi Fountain. But for whatever reason, as they say, the rest is history. Better that you know right away. Anything else would be deception, and we've gone too far together for that.

Blue, the new One World Futbol in my life, wasted no time getting comfortable in my condo. They snuggles into a heritage mahogany rocker with  my son's  toddler OshKosh Overalls (stuffed and pillowized) and his Teddy Bear (which is wearing my Cub Scout scarf. That's an Amish pillow behind them.

I want to tell you about the new futbol in my life.  You'd like them. Their name is "Blue."

Oh, you'll remember that "they" is the new third person non specific singular word that keeps us from being sexually discriminatory in language. When I talked about you, I used "they." It took some getting used to, but I get it right most of the time. Same thing for Blue.

 So Blue is my new traveling companion, housemate and goodwill ambassador for One World Futbols. They likes the same see-through net tether that you felt so comfortable in. It's almost like having you here, only it's Blue, instead. Sometimes when I wake up in bed and feel Blue, it gives me a start because I think you've come back down off the mountain. Being with Blue is like having you here. Uh, that's a compliment.

Not a case of promiscuity

There will never be another Wilson. You should know that. And you should know that I will always have a place in my heart for you, even with my new companion.

You see, people sometimes think male hominids are promiscuous. But that's not quite true. A man can love more than one One World Futbol at a time. He just can't address the needs of more than one at a time, which helps to explain monofutbolamy -- the "one man, one futbol" relationships which seem to be the norm. So I'm committed to Blue.

I think it's because I'm human that I'm trying to be gentle here, because I naturally empathize with you, even though you're a ball. I think a psychologist would call that "projection," or something like that. The reality is that you don't have a heart to break and you can get punctured 1000 times and not deflate. You'll be fine.

And just to be clear, you'll always be a part of me. As my sainted wife used to say, relationships don't end, they just change. I'll still be writing to you as more and more balls get distributed. But now it will be me and Blue writing. Oh, by the way, Blue isn't jealous. They loves you too -- uh, as a cousin.

Love,
Robert
And Blue