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A Palestinian team at HaBaWaBa. The dream of a young coach from East Jerusalem became a reality today on the first day of the U13 tournament, a competition that, along with the U10, takes place in the second week of the event in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy (the U12 tournament endend last Saturday). The team is La Salle Jerusalem Waterpolo, and the coach is Fadi Awisat, 34, a former swimmer who has represented Palestine in several international events and managed to start a waterpolo academy inside the private school of the same name in 2022. In fact, La Salle College of Jerusalem has one of the few pools accessible to Palestinians, a 25×12,5 m pool; Awisat had to fight to take water spaces away from swimming classes. He showed waterpolo to young swimmers who had never seen a game but immediately fell in love with the game. He started from scratch, with volleyballs and building goals out of plastic tubes, because he could not find any in East Jerusalem.
Coach Awisat dà indicazioni durante match d’esordio del La Salle all’HaBaWaBa (foto Giacomello). In alto la squadra all’esterno della piscina olimpica.
Passion and ambition, all of them, was never lacking. Above all, that of coming to HaBaWaBa, the biggest waterpolo festival for kids in the world, and competing with other teams coming from different countries. Also because in Jerusalem and West Bank today, there are no opponents to face. “I brought the kids here because I want to show them what real water polo is – Awisat explains – After they play real games they will tell other kids about it, and then a waterpolo community can be born here too. We are a small seedling, we hope to become a big tree, with many branches”.
A historic step toward that goal was reached today, on an unforgettable day for La Salle, starring in one of the most exciting moments of the entire 2024 HaBaWaBa edition. In the morning, the Palestinian boys played the first real match of their lives against the outstanding players of Vasutas of Budapest, one of the all-girl teams of the tournament: after enormous difficulties at the beginning and breaking the ice with the game, the pool, the rules and the referee, the La Salle players managed to score 2 goals in the final minutes, kicking off the celebrations of the players of the other teams who were watching the match from the stands. At the end of the match, won 18-2 by Vasutas, both teams were congratulated by the French Mulhouse Water Polo, opponents in the afternoon game. A match in which the La Salle kids showed tremendous progress, fighting in a very tight game and losing just 12-9. These results take on even more value after La Salle lost one of its best players, Yazan Ibisan, who was not granted an entry visa by the Italian Consulate in Jerusalem, along with one for his family members.
Uno dei giocatori del La Salle in azione (foto Giacomello).
On Tuesday La Salle will play the third match of the round, against Mestrina (team from Venice), on Thursday they will face the Australians of the Freemantle Barbarians. After Hungarians, French, Italians and Australians, La Salle kids will cross paths with other teams from the 17 countries represented at HaBaWaBa. For them, this is the first interaction of their lives with foreign boys, an opening to the world made possible by sports, while in the occupied territories the tragedy of the Palestinian people continues.
“My boys are very smart, they ask questions about everything and they know everything about what is happening back home – Awisat says – but they just want to live their lives like all the other kids: have fun, go to the beach, play waterpolo and prove that they are real athletes. When they heard we were going to HaBaWaBa they were crazy with joy. Their biggest dream was to score a goal”. Today they succeeded; now the goal is to win a game. Maybe Awisat and his boys don’t realize it, but knowing the world and introducing Jerusalem children to the world is the greatest victory they can achieve.
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