BarcelonaThe runway of an old airfield in Gulu, in northern Uganda, is almost the only area to go in skate in the African country. The roads, despite being paved, are full of cars and the rest is houses and sand. Urban planning in many African cities is quite precarious and the slums – uncontrolled population settlements – cause a lack of services and public spaces. Mubiru Jackson, Jack, is one of the pioneers in skating in the African country. And he was doing it in Gulu.
In the 90’s I had seen Tony Hawk with his skate on television and imitated him while the rest of his compatriots were unaware of the existence of this sport. Jack was skating with his friends Sheal Swart and Brian Lye when they had the idea to build the first ramp in the Kitintale neighborhood of Kampala, the country’s capital. “I was very young, we didn’t have money to buy materials. But my late mother gave me her land and we finally got it”, he explains in a conversation from his country of origin. The area was full of trees and sugarcane. An unsafe neighborhood that would end up being transformed.
The German foundation Skate Aid, which empowers young people in unfavorable situations through skateboarding, became interested in the cause in Uganda and the paths of Jack and Hugo Moreno would end up crossing. Moreno was a Skate Aid volunteer and when Jack showed him what they were doing, he was convinced they would find a way to grow it.
More than 8,000 kilometers from Kitintale, Marc Lozano pushes his skateboard through Barcelona’s iconic Plaça des Països Catalans. It is a member of Snt4ever, the association of skaters from the neighborhood of Sants. The deterioration of the area makes it increasingly difficult to skate there. While its owners (Adif and Barcelona City Council) do not agree to reform it, they apply the DIY culture (do it yourself) and make the new ramps for skating. The same thing they would put into practice in Uganda.
The work of Marc and his colleagues in Sants reached the ears of Hugo Moreno in the most curious way. Hugo visited a physiotherapist who happened to be part of Snt4ever and put him in touch with Marc. Thus, they met and reached an agreement: to replicate the ramps of Sants in Kitintale. His friends Àlex Amor and Michele Pace joined the project and together they traveled to Africa with two large suitcases of 25 kilos each full of knee pads and material to build ramps. “We were carrying the material because of corruption issues. Otherwise, they would have kept it. We stopped in Turkey and then it took eight hours to arrive. We were very loaded,” recalls Lozano.
When someone arrives in Uganda they say white man. It means “who always leaves”. Because in the country they are used to organizations and foundations going there and not staying there. “The boys were surprised at how we skated, they saw things that until now they had only seen on the internet”, adds Marc. Interestingly, it was also the other way around: the Ugandan children skated their precarious ramps with the greatest ease in the world while Marc and his group barely managed.
Amor, Pace and Lozano started with their commitment, but the constructions would end up being a little different from those in Plaça de Sants. Using granite to build the ramps was so expensive that they would have been left unable to build anything else. Instead, they opted for concrete pieces. Red and green parking lot paint stained each tile as thestreet art on the walls the work culminated. The black cat, symbol of skaters de Sants, painted on one of his buildings, would leave a mark on his time in Uganda.
The bright colors enticed the boys, who approached the area and grabbed the skateboard. The grateful smile as he put on a helmet and knee pads was proof that it worked. What attracted the most attention were the girls: “The area was filled with girls. Culturally, in Uganda, women stay at home, but these girls even skated with babies on their backs,” Marc narrates. . Despite the predominance of men in sport, the fact that theskate not knowing much decreases the resistance on the part of families.
Skating is a haven for the younger ones
The magnetism emanating from the skating space allowed many of the boys to discover a library a few meters away. “In Uganda, public school is free and private school is even more expensive,” explains Lozano. Many, therefore, do not go there, but with the excuse ofskate, or when they got tired of it, they enjoyed the pleasure of reading. “They read with all the protections on, they’ve never had a library close by,” continues Hugo. Skating and reading. Two healthy alternatives in a country full of conflicts.
But you don’t have to go to Uganda to find other children who make skateboarding their refuge. In Carrer del Crom de l’Hospitalet de Llobregat are hidden the 1,400 square meters of theskate park, the only indoor skateboarding center in Catalonia. one bowl giant, a wave of surfskate and a skating museum so as not to lose the roots of the sport. Nothing to do with what you might find outside, no broken beer bottles or bikes that can be stolen while people are skating.
The boys put on so much protection that they look like robots with mechanical movements or riot police. So they know that if they fall, they won’t get hurt. Skating allows them to fit together, unlike other sports. “We create a society of frustrated people because we are used to being the first in everything. Young people do not feel well, parents tell us that it affects their self-esteem”, reflects Gastón Mendivil, user of the site. In this center there is only one rule: there are no prizes, the important thing is to skate while the music plays in the background.
L’skate it has already become institutionalized after becoming an Olympic discipline. Despite this, in this venue the only important thing is to feel the movement and not lose the smile. “It becomes a way to feel free, to break the mold,” Gastón concludes. Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away, Jack continues to transform Uganda: “Push theskate it is peace and unity. It connects people.”
2023-07-28 15:57:11
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