Senior Nate Lippincott woke up to a buzz from his alarm. It was 10 a.m. in Cape Town, South Africa. Lippincott moseyed over to senior Chase McCann’s room to make sure he was awake as well.

“It was nice when we woke up at 10,” Lippincott said. “That means we had a slow morning. It gave us plenty of time to get ready for the afternoon.”

While Lippincott got ready for the day, McCann would cook breakfast for the two of them: Bacon, eggs, and oatmeal.

“Chase was a surprisingly good cook,” Lippincott said. “Chase would always cook and then I would be in charge of the dishes.”

As Lippincott did the dishes, McCann would go get ready for the day. Athletic shorts and a t-shirt were the dress code for Lippincott and McCann in order to allow them to help coach soccer teams in Cape Town. They coached 9 to 15-year-olds throughout the year.  Once McCann was dressed and ready to go, they hung out and talked until 12:00 p.m., when it was time to go.

Lippincott and McCann’s mentor, John Chau drove them in his Toyota truck to a wood workshop near Ubuntu Academy. Here they took discarded wooden crates and recycled the wood to make furniture and other accessories.

“I love economics, so it was cool to see a micro-business in action,” Lippincott said. “They were practically self-sustainable, and it felt good to contribute to an effort that helped people rise from poverty.”

At 2 p.m., Chau picked up Lippincott and McCann and drove them to the Ubuntu office, where they would help out with office work for an hour.

“It [working at the office] was the most boring part of the day,” Lippincott said. “But it was also the only time we got to rest in the afternoon.”

Once their hour of rest was up, Lippincott and McCann walked over to the soccer fields to start their coaching for the day. The first program they helped coach was called Football Forward. Football Forward was a program geared towards players who were not 13-years-old and could not play for the Academy yet.

“Coaching the little kids was the hardest,” Lippincott said. “Chase and I had our own group to coach, and keeping their attention was a challenge. They run everywhere.”

By 5 p.m., Football Forward was over and Lippincott was ready to coach the older kids who listened to him and McCann better.

Ubuntu Academy has two teams; there is the 13-year-old team and the 15-year-old team. The kids are older and bigger than the Football Forward kids, so Lippincott and McCann were able to play some of the drills with the players.

“A lot of the kids we played with were better ball handlers than us,” Lippincott said. “But we still were older than them, and were able to physically out-play them.”

The Academy practice lasted for three hours, until 8 p.m. At 8 p.m., Chau picked up Lippincott and McCann to take them back to their apartment for the night. They were done coaching for the day.

“It was tiring to do it everyday, but I was coaching a sport that I love,” Lippincott said.

Once they arrived at their apartment, Lippincott showered. While he was showering, McCann prepared the dinner. Chicken on noodles, with a side of  potatoes, carrots and beans, all of which came from the local market. McCann was able to time the preparation so that the food would be ready right as Lippincott finished his shower.

As they ate together, they talked about the day: match scores, players who preformed well and things they think would make the team better. Once they finished dinner, Lippincott would assume his role as dish washer as McCann went to shower.

Lippincott and McCann end the day talking to their host family, Clint and Haley. They were from California.

“It was nice to sit down and relax after a long day,” Lippincott said.

Around midnight, Lippincott and McCann would make their way to their beds to get a good rest for the next day of coaching soccer in South Africa.