I'm not a sports fan, by any stretch of the imagination. But for some reason, football (not American football, but what the rest of the world calls football, aka soccer) does get me excited. Perhaps it's because I grew up in Spain and that's what we played there. Perhaps it's because I was able to attend at least one of the 1982 world cup matches in person in Madrid as a child. Perhaps it's because the teams are made of up nations, not states or schools. Perhaps it's because it's one of those world-unifying things; a sport that most of the planet can get behind. Whatever it is, the FIFA World Cup is about to begin, and I remembered a few photos I shot in Kenya in 2007 while visiting the Pokot tribe, shooting for a humanitarian organization, and decided to revisit these in honor of the Cup about to begin.

Here's are kids who have virtually nothing, living in an orphanage, mostly playing with bottle caps and scraps of wood and old tires (no joke). But they also had a football. A very loved, very used football.

Who are you rooting for this Cup? I'm equally rooting for USA and Spain. For the opening match, I'll root for Croatia since my wife is Slovenian and her family emigrated from Croatia a few generations ago. Seems like a good reason to me!