Refugee teenagers find strength on soccer field
Brotherhood forms as youngsters deal with new surroundings, fight off gangs
HOUSTON – The boys in royal blue huddle in the middle of a soccer field, arms locked, heads bowed, their lucky hot pink socks a sharp contrast to the browning grass and storm-threatening sky striated with slate and gray.
In a few minutes, the reVision Football Club would play its final match of the fall season.
If it won, it would qualify for a state soccer cup for the first time by beating last year’s champions.
The boys would defy the odds, as they have been doing all their lives.
Most of the teenage players were born in refugee camps in Africa and arrived in this country with nothing, save a few phrases in English – “Hello” “How are you?” “Where is the food?” – and the yearning for a better life.
Here, they encountered a different kind of struggle: New languages and unfamiliar cultures, classrooms where they are bullied for their accent and skin color, hardscrabble apartment complexes where street gangs fish for fresh recruits – and now, a president who has made it clear that some refugees are no longer welcomed.
From Africa to America, they have found ways to keep playing soccer.
In the beautiful game, they discovered strength and self-confidence. On this team, which came together almost by accident, they forged a brotherhood.
Iluta Shabani, who came to this country three years ago and dreams of playing pro soccer, heard about the games from a friend passing by on a bicycle.
Iluta grew up in the vast Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania where he used plastic bottles and wadded bags as makeshift balls. The 17-year-old followed his friend to the church campus, running behind him for more than two miles.
Erick Musambya found out about the St. Luke’s field from a cousin. At first, he was afraid to go. His parents, who are from Congo and feared that America was like the violent, gun-toting images they had seen in movies, kept their children safely inside. But soon, he became a regular.
So did Amani Godfrey, who left Tanzania when he was 3. In Houston, where he was raised, he had always played soccer with his family.
These were the kids Charles Rotramel, who runs reVision, a nonprofit that works with youth involved in the juvenile justice system, had hoped to draw when he turned the swatch of grass behind St. Luke’s into a soccer pitch.
Most were refugees from Africa, with lives that had been filled with chaos and trauma, with stories of parents who escaped civil strife in their homelands and fathers killed in unrest.
They didn’t quite fit in with Spanishspeaking Latino classmates or Englishspeaking African-American peers.
They were looking for a place to belong, making them ripe targets for gangs such as the Southwest Cholos and MS-13 that plague the southwest Houston neighborhood.
When some players were forced out of their homes during Hurricane Harvey, Rotramel and reVision provided supplies and shopping trips; their teammates helped with moving and moral support.
When Erick’s mother moved to Kansas City last year without warning and Amani’s family relocated to a neighborhood on the northside of Houston, Iluta’s family took in both of the teenagers.
They reminisce about what they left behind: playing soccer in bare feet, hunting birds with slingshots, the friends still in refugee camps. They incorporate African music and choreography into weekly hip-hop dance sessions.
They teach Swahili to the three Latino players and absorb some Spanish in return.
“They are like my brothers,” Iluta said. “When I don’t have something, they give it to me. When they don’t have, I give it to them.”