Special Olympics athletes here to meet the challenge

Two things Tsitsi Bongani Maponda loves about her homeland of Zimbabwe are the capital city, Harare, and Victoria Falls, the waterfall on the Zambezi River classified as the greatest sheet of falling water in the world on the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage List.

But Maponda, a golfer participating in the Special Olympics World Games that open Saturday, also loves things produced here in Burbank — she said she watches Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants” “all the time” — which made her stay as part of the two groups of delegates the city is hosting this week a special opportunity.

“I loved the part when we met the Nickelodeon guys,” she said, adding that the artists drew a cartoon version of her standing beside SpongeBob SquarePants during a barbecue at Burbank Water and Power’s EcoCampus on Wednesday night.

The Host Town program, a part of the games since 1995, is a way to extend hospitality to the athletes and other delegates and to help them relax, Special Olympics officials have said. Burbank hosted delegates from Zimbabwe and Botswana, neighboring countries in southern Africa.

Maponda said that she and her fellow delegates “feel the love” of the host town as they’re greeted with smiling faces and waves wherever they go.

Viola Musariri, head of the Zimbabwe delegation, said the reception in Burbank has been “awesome” for her 22-member delegation, which arrived Tuesday after a long series of flights from Johannesburg to Frankfurt to Los Angeles.

For some, it’s their first time traveling outside Zimbabwe, which can be especially intimidating for people with special needs, Musariri said.

“It’s a big move from what they are used to,” Musariri said, “It’s life-changing.”

She said the Zimbabwe athletes have faced many challenges to participate in Special Olympics. One young woman had been found abandoned along a railroad line as a child. Another was orphaned at a young age and had been raised in a church orphanage. The parents of a third were hesitant to let him leave the country to participate in the games.

It wasn’t easy getting to Burbank either, Musariri said. With no government funding, the delegation spent a year raising funds to afford airfare, she said. In the end, they raised enough from churches, businesses and others to fly the golf and track and field athletes, but not the soccer team, which stayed behind.

Similarly, in Burbank, many organizations and volunteers came together to welcome the delegations, including the YMCA, where athletes worked out in the cardio and strength-training rooms, played soccer in the gym and swam laps in the pool.

Before the athletes’ final workout Thursday, JC Holt, chief executive of the Y, wished the athletes well in the games.

“You have been a blessing to us,” he said before they gathered in the gym for a group photo with Y staff and volunteers.

Keletso Sanoto, one of the volleyball players for the Botswana delegation, said after the group photo that she’s looking forward to competing, but she’s also excited about “having fun and meeting a lot of different people.” Sanoto said one of her favorite parts of the host-town experience was climbing on a fire truck during a visit to the Burbank Fire Department.

Sanoto is one of several members of the Botswana delegation — along with the entire women’s volleyball team and men’s soccer team — who got involved with Special Olympics while taking part in a pilot program at Gaborone Technical College.

The program is training 24 students with intellectual disabilities the skills to live independently and to work in either the retail and hospitality industries, with a focus on entrepreneurship, said Arabang Mphinyane, a coach for the volleyball team. Mphinyane said she introduced Special Olympics at the school as a way to encourage exercise.

Both Mphinyane and Sanoto said they were thankful for the welcome they received in Burbank, including the many meals they’ve shared with local organizations. Sanoto said she also appreciated the chance to workout at the Y — it was helping her keep the weight off from “so much food.”

Musariri said one of her athletes told her of the welcome, “I know back home I’m not a celebrity, but here I feel like one.”

She added that she’s noticed a change in her athletes since their arrival — they’ve relaxed and, on Thursday morning, they even began singing on the bus, then broke into a chant when they entered the gym to train.

“Yes, now we have arrived,” she recalled thinking at the time. “Now, I can relax as well.”