The gas station outside Dikwa was the last place in the world to play. But Djibrine played. That seven-year-old boy had made a soccer ball out of plastic tied with strings and was kicking that irregular ball back and forth. While playing, Djibrine smiled and it seemed impossible: Dikwa, in northeastern Nigeria, was so deep in the territory of the jihadist group Boko Haram that the city was too unsafe to travel by land and could only be reached by helicopter. As soon as I got off the plane, with the blades still spinning above my head, a guy dressed in camouflage with an AK47 on his shoulder hurriedly insisted: “You have two hours and we’re leaving.”
No more time was needed to realize the horror. At that service station, two hundred people were lying on the ground, most of them women and girls, exhausted and dying of hunger and fear. They had all arrived there after being kidnapped by extremists. After listening to the story of those women, I observed that little boy kicking a deformed ball. In the midst of that gale of pain and gazes emptied by fear, Djibrine laughed for a few moments thanks to football and it was a miracle.
A few days ago I was chatting with photographer and friend Kim Manresa about the incomparable power of the ball. Kim, who has traveled all over the world with a camera on her shoulder, carries out different projects because her photos have truth: she has always cared less about her photos than about the people in front of her lens. The latest slow-burn work in which he is involved speaks of that spherical happiness that traps children like Djibrine and is called Goal to inequality where he explains how a ball can be a tool of integration and a weapon against inequality. It turns out that he is also generous: these days his photos decorate the walls of the Medina, the artists’ neighborhood of Dakar, in a popular exhibition that has the support of the FC Barcelona Foundation and the Senegalese organization Xeex Pollution. In addition, local artist Xu has painted over some of the photos to provide his insight into football’s ability to generate dreams.
Some of these images can be seen in April at the Palau Robert, as part of the club’s 125th anniversary, but there will not only be photos. Kim, who travels with a bag of Blaugrana kits and balls, has dedicated himself to giving them to kids in exchange for his balls made of riveted fabric or his shirts made of resewn rags. Those half-torn balls and shirts will also be exhibited in Barcelona because they have truth: they explain that football matters because, from a working-class neighborhood in Dakar to a Nigerian city under siege, a ball is a small refuge of happiness.
#refuge #happiness #Xavier #Aldekoa
