Folks in Eastlands, Nairobi, may have finally found a way to endear Americans to soccer. All it took was adding beer.
Rather than beer league softball, the Wazee Pamoja group has fashioned a sort of beer league soccer for charity, The Standard reports. Waitresses rove the sidelines serving any substitute whose bottle’s run dry, while men casually roam the field before sprinting to the touchline for a second stout.
"Our motto is, ‘Relinquish one beer to help others,’" Jonah Chitira, the physiotherapist for one of the four teams in the league, told The Standard. “That way we manage to raise charity funds."
Each team represents an area bar, and Chitira doesn’t see much action, as games move at a friendly pace with the goal of helping the community taking precedent over heated competition. Unlike your local softball league, most of the men are former international players, so their will to win has been spent on bigger stages.
The league, started in 2007 by Onyino Mukobe, has 107 members who pay between 200 and 300 Kenyan shillings ($2.51-$3.76) per month. The money has been used on multiple projects to enrich the community, including a donation of 25 bales of maize flour for hunger and a recent fundraiser of 50,000 Kenyan shillings ($620.60) for 12 patients at Pumwani Maternity Hospital.
"Our plan this season is to visit a children’s home within Eastlands and Mji wa Wazee in Kasarani," Chitira said. "Once you are our member, you can’t get stranded with a problem. We help each other out."
