Ian Simpson quickly drew the attention of the village kids. Bouncing a soccer ball down the airstrip near their huts did the trick.
After careful consideration, Simpson eventually gave the ball to a boy who was carrying a bundle of firewood on his head. The boy immediately started to play with his new prize and never did take the wood down from its perch.
In the weeks that followed, Simpson gave away four more soccer balls, as well as some whistles, a pump and inflation needles. In the village of Falea, located in Africa's Republic of Mali, he didn't just leave behind sporting equipment. He left behind a whole lot of smiles.
"It was pretty cool," Simpson said. "It was a neat opportunity to be there. Not one day went by that I didn't go for my walk, whether I was taking a soccer ball with me or not, and shake my head and go, 'Oh my God, I'm in Africa.' And that was part of the motivation in the first place for taking something with me. It's such a simple little thing to do -- to take something, and to try to think of what you can take that will benefit the most people. It was neat to zero in on the soccer balls because it worked so well. It opened up a realm of contact that otherwise wouldn't have happened. After the first ball went out, the kids were a lot more attentive to who was walking up and down the runway."
Simpson is a 54-year-old Prince George resident who was recently in Mali, on assignment for mineral exploration company Rockgate Capital. Before his Oct. 4 departure from Prince George, he decided he should bring some soccer equipment with him. He knew taking inflated balls all that distance would be too problematic so he started looking around for ones that were still flat. When he had no luck in his search, he contacted the Prince George Youth Soccer Association to see if they could help out.
They could, and they did.
The PGYSA gave Simpson five balls, sans air, and also provided him with the whistles, pump and inflation needles.
Simpson, a first-aid attendant and core sample recorder for Vancouver-based Rockgate, disbursed the soccer goodies over the course of an eight-week stay in Falea, where Rockgate has an exploration camp.
The runway became his avenue for spreading joy.
"After I settled in, I started going for walks," he said. "You're always a little apprehensive because this is an area with cobras and vipers and we are admonished heavily to stay on open paths. So our walking area for camp was our runway, which is a mile long. When you walk up the runway, there is the village on one side and a few clusters of family huts on the other side, which is the side we're on. As a consequence, there's quite a bit of life going on, back and forth across the runway."
The second ball ended up in the hands of three siblings -- two boys and a girl. A family of five -- all members riding a single bike -- received the third ball and Simpson gave the last two, as well as the pump and needles, to a large group of school kids.
Simpson, who arrived home on Dec. 16, is thankful to the PGYSA for offering up the supplies.
"PGYSA on this was awesome," said Simpson, whose 13-year-old son Ryley is a player in the association. "When they gave (the balls) to me, that was most unexpected. They said, 'All we ask is, bring us pictures of where they go.'"
The PGYSA balls were originally donated by Telus, as part of a provincial program. On his trip home, Simpson stopped by the Telus head office in Vancouver and the company offered up more fun stuff for his next stay in Africa. He'll be back in Mali on Jan. 15.
"Telus gave me 15 more balls and a box of stuffed animals," Simpson said. "Now here's the real hoot -- the stuffed animals are from their current ad campaign, which means it's hippos and lions. So I'm taking hippos and lions to Africa. And this is actually an area where they're indigenous."
