Curry

Posted: August 9th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »

From Rick Reilly is my second-favorite columnist for ESPN.   He snagged NBA hoops star Steph Curry to hand out mosquito nets in Africa, as part of a charity Reilly organized.

(Curry would) meet a woman named Nabwamima, who’s had four miscarriages due to malaria. “God bless you, Coory,” she said.

He’d meet a 25-year-old woman named Machozi, whose name means “tear” and who’s had malaria 20 times already. Her 6-month-old boy on her back is bloated and rust-colored from having it three times in the last three months.

He’d meet albino kids who had to flee their villages when chopping off albino limbs and grinding the bones into a “magic” dust suddenly became witch-doctor-approved good luck in 2009.

“This is exhausting,” he said during one break. “Emotionally. You know?”

We know.

And this:

(Curry) tried to teach their two basketball teams to play. He’d holler “give and go!” and “backdoor!” and other instructions they’d never heard of. It wasn’t exactly the D League. One kid kissed the ball just before he shot it. The big, 6-foot-5 guy only cherry-picked. The camp’s best shooter, Gerrard Mubake, lost to Curry in a 3-point shooting contest, and then left me this note to give to Curry:

“don’t let me in this camp. will die. here peaple killed peaple. back in 1996 my father and my mum died in the war, so i’m left alone. i want to be in your two hands.”

“I don’t know what to say to him,” Curry says.

The charity doesn’t try to solve deadly refugee camps.  It tries to stop malaria.

You can donate here.  Ten bucks for a net.  If you do one, I’ll do one, just email me.