#76 refs done using this method so far.

[shrimpgogurt]

Last post is making me tempted to make a post of the different bodies I draw on ladies tbh. Maybe once I get more refs done.

[notebooknebula]

Private Money & Self-Storage Investing with Scott Meyers and Jay Conner

https://www.jayconner.com/private-money-self-storage-investing-with-scott-meyers-and-jay-conner/

Scott Meyers shares the world of Self-Storage Investing

Scott and his affiliated companies focus on the acquisition, development, and syndicating of self-storage facilities nationwide. He currently owns and operates over 2,200,000 square feet and over 13,000 units nationwide.

His education organization www.SelfStorageInvesting.com provides courses, tools, life events, and mentoring to help others launch self-storage businesses to enjoy a lifestyle, as his saying goes “free from tenant, toilets & trash!”

His various companies are also very mission-focused and funded the construction of 12 houses in Mexico and the Dominican Republic by taking his staff, partners & other associates on their all-expense-paid short-term mission trips.

Timestamps:

0:01 – Get Ready To Be Plugged Into The Money

1:38 – Jay’s New Book: “Where To Get The Money Now”- https://www.JayConner.com/Book

2:58 – Today’s guest: Scott Meyers

5:44 – How Scott Meyers got started in the real estate business

8:31 – Scott Meyers’ very first storage facility

10:15 – Scott Meyers’ lesson learned on his first storage facility deal

11:04 – What is syndication?

13:29 – Does the storage investing business also offer multiple exit strategies?

17:09 – Get connected with Scott Meyers – https://www.SelfStorageInvesting.com

18:34 – How does the pandemic affect the Self-Storage industry?

22:09 – No business strives unless it’s solving a lot of people’s problems

23:10 – Scott Meyers’ recent projects

25:19 – Best way on starting with Self-Storage Investing business

27:43 – Common mistakes that new self-storage investors make

30:17 – Scott Meyers’ parting comments – “It’s when everybody is running out that you should be, not just running in but understanding what it means to be in the real estate business.”

Private Money Academy Conference:

https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now? It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at https://www.JayConner.com/Book

Free Webinar: http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

https://youtu.be/QyeBbDOF4wo

YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner

iTunes:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/private-money-academy-real-estate-investing-jay-conner/id1377723034

Listen to our Podcast:

https://realestateinvestingdeals.mypodcastworld.com/11241/private-money-self-storage-investing-with-scott-meyers-and-jay-conner

Private Money & Self-Storage Investing with Scott Meyers and Jay Conner

Jay Conner:

Stir. And you are still struggling to do your first deal because you don’t have the funding and you can’t find the money for your deals, or are you a wholesaler? And you’ve received some assignment fees, but there’s some deals you want to stay in, but you said probably haven’t been able to stay in the deals because you don’t have the money or the funding, or are you a seasoned real estate investor? And you’ve done a ton of deals, but you’re sick and tired of paying high interest rates and you want to be in control of your business and you just want to get some more cheap money really, really fast. Well, if you answered yes to any of those three questions, don’t go anywhere because I’m getting ready to plug you into the money right now.

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the private money academy podcast. I’m Jay Conner, the private money authority. I’m the host of the show. And I want to welcome you here to the show here on the private money academy podcast. We obviously always talk about private money and getting deals funded, getting money for your deals. But in addition to that, I typically have an amazing guest and expert to join me here on the show. And today is no exception, but before I introduce you to my good friend and expert in this area of self storage, that you’re going to find amazing. I’ve got a free gift for you for just being here on the show. And that is, I just recently released my new book, which is titled where to get the money now, subtitle, how and where to get money for your real estate deals without relying on traditional or hard money lenders.

So here’s the deal folks. I just released this book hit number one on Amazon. And this book was show you. Step-by-step how I went from having no funding from ideals to over $2 million in less than 90 days and how you can get plugged into money as well. We’re not talking about traditional money. We’re not talking about institutional lenders, how to get money very, very fast at super cheap, low interest rates. And I’m glad to send this book to you for free, just cover delivery. You can get the book for free at www dot Jay Conner, J a y C o n n er.com forward slash book. Again, you can get the book, we’ll ship it right out to you@wwwdotjcounterjayconner.com forward slash book. And we’ll get you plugged into the funding for your deals right away. What, as I mentioned, I’ve got an amazing guest and a very, very close personal friend of mine on the show with me today, a little bit about him before I bring him on he and his affiliated companies, they focus in this area on the acquisition, the development and the syndicating of self storage facilities nationwide.

Now, my guests currently owns any operates over check this out 2 million, 200,000, my land’s square feet and over 13,000 units that is gotten nationwide. Well, not only does he do the business, but he also teaches and coaches other real estate investors that want to learn about self storage and how that works. His education company is self storage, investing.com, and it provides courses and tools and live events, coaching, and mentoring to help others launch like you self storage businesses to enjoy the lifestyle. And, you know, as my guest, a good friend is known to say many, many times, get in this business and you’ll be free from tenants free from toilets free from trash. Well, you know, one thing that he and I talk about, and he and I are in a high end mastermind group together, his various companies are also very mission focused. He’s got a heart of gold, he’s got a servant’s heart and he is so far to date. He’s funded the construction of 12 houses, and I’m very, very familiar with this project. 12 houses down in Mexico and the Dominican Republic by taking his staff, his partners, his friends, his business associates on their all expense paid mission trip to do houses for these people. Wow. What a service heart, where that my good friend, Scott Myers, welcome to the podcast.

Scott Meyer:

Hey Jay, it is a good to see you again, my friend, how are you?

Jay Conner:

I am doing fantastic. I know we’ve got a mastermind meeting coming up pretty soon out there in Scottsdale. Are you going to make that one or you don’t know?

Scott Meyer:

I am looking forward to it and I will attend to any, and all of those that will be held in Arizona because now I have a two kiddos that are going to grand canyon university in Phoenix. And so we’re going to be spending a lot of time out in Arizona.

Jay Conner:

Oh, that’s great. Well, Carol joy and I we’ve already got our plane tickets. We’ve got our hotel reservations. So I look forward to seeing you in Scottsdale in just a few short weeks, right around the corner.

Scott Meyer:

Likewise can’t wait. Absolutely.

Jay Conner:

Well, Scott, as I told everybody in the introduction, I mean your expertise, your wheelhouses self storage and self storage facilities, but before we get into that world and your arena, first of all, just tell everybody how you got into real estate.

Scott Meyer:

Yeah. Wow. I think probably like most people out there started with the single family house and I learned from, and many folks on here will this name and a whole lot won’t Carleton sheets, who was one of the grandfathers along with Ron Legrand and some of the others that taught people how to get into real estate. So I followed this program to buy houses, rehab them refund, and some rent them out and then replicate and do that over and over again. So the burn method before it was called the bird method. And so that’s how we got started bought a single family house. This was back in 1993 was the first one that I ever bought. It had an assumable VA mortgage on it, which I don’t think there’s any of those left out there any longer and allowed me to get in and just assume that mortgage with very little experience in the way of even credit history at the time, it was a pretty young guy at the time, as you can tell by my age now and doing the math.

So that’s how it started. And then we moved on to buying up more. We refinanced about two more houses than we need to fix them up refinance and buy more. So we had about 75 in 76 houses and didn’t really have the cashflow and the, the, you know, the freedom that we wanted that Carlton sheets had mentioned in the home study system. So we thought, well, economies of scale will fix this. So we started getting into apartments and buying several complexes around central Indiana, but same thing and just kind of bought us more tenants, toilets, trash headaches, and the business model just wasn’t right for us. We wanted to have time. We wanted the freedom that real estate brings. And so to do that in real estate, that means no tenants, no toilets. So that’s either parking lots or self storage, and you can’t really build a lot of value in, in parking lots.

And then we found, but once I dug into self storage, I realized that, ah, this is, this is a place I need to be. People don’t pay rent. You lock them out and you sell their stuff off and get paid. You turn it around by taking a blower and you blow the unit out with no paint, no carpet, no extensive clean-out or repairs. And once I more, the more I looked into the business, I really saw the light and decided that this is the path I wanted to take. So sold their houses, our apartments, and now we’ve gone just, you know, 100% into self storage made that transition about 2005 to where we are now, today, which is where you mentioned Jay, we, we buy existing facilities. Still. That same model is in place. We also convert industrial buildings, grocery stores, anything that is, can be repurposed into so storage, we’ll buy it and convert it. And then we build from the ground up and we do a lot of this on by partnering and doing joint ventures and then syndicating the private equity, which is where you come in, Jay and you know, all too well, what that looks like and how we can leverage other people’s money and bring them along as limited partners to enjoy in the growth in this incredible business. So I hope that wasn’t longer than what you were looking for, but that’s, that’s my story.

Jay Conner:

No, that was perfect. Well, tell us the story about your very first self storage facility that you got into and, and what lessons did you learn from that first deal?

Scott Meyer:

Yeah, so the F the very first facility that I got into was a, that we were sending out mailers to facility owners, just like we all do in real estate to the asset class that we’re in. And we ran across some business owners and they were getting a business, a divorce. They were partners in a concrete business and things weren’t going so well. And they wanted, they were parting ways. And this facility, they owned together as well. Well, they, as what happens, unfortunately in the worst is the other one, one side wants to hurt the other. And the other one definitely wants to destroy the other one. And so that’s what they were doing. And they were destroying the value of the facility in the meantime. And so what that meant is we were able to get into this a facility for it, was it appraised for $800,000 more than what the selling price was?

And they just had to get out from under the note, because those two had done such a good job of fighting each other, that the bank was about ready to take the facility back. So I partnered, I partnered up with a gentleman. We came in at 50, 50 cash and both on the balance sheet and excuse me, on the loan request and ended up moving forward on this first property, by taking the existing tenants and raising the rates, which they hadn’t been raised in 10 years, we let them manage, well, let me see. We didn’t let her, we freed up her future to pursue other career opportunities and put a kiosk in place because we don’t have to manage these facilities with a person on site. And then we bought the land next door and expanded and built that up and leased that up as well.

So I sold off to my partner eventually. And that leads to, I guess, the second part of your question, Jay, which is what did I learn from this? Well, first of all, I, I understood the power of leveraging and bringing partners in to projects. But I also, the lesson I learned is that I, I really want to be in that manager position. I wanted to have that control rather than 50 50, and it’s not a control issue. It’s just that, you know, once I learned about syndication and moving on to other projects, that I can be the syndicator, the promoter, and the person who is calling the shots, and I can bring in limited partners for sometimes their balance sheets to sign on the loan as well. But mostly for the equity that is, that is required to get into a facility. So that was probably the biggest lesson. And I also learned, sometimes you shouldn’t bring people that are close to you or friends into a business as well. Sometimes it doesn’t always turn out well. Yeah. Yes.

Jay Conner:

I’ve been, I’ve been down that road myself as well. So to make sure everybody understands what you’re talking about, what do you mean by syndication? What’s that look like? And what’s the benefits of it.

Scott Meyer:

Yeah. So in the true sec definition, and I am paraphrasing, anytime you bring two or more people together into a project, and in this instance, a real estate investment where one person is, is active, doing all the heavy lifting, doing all the work, and the other person is bringing money and they’re passive. They don’t have a hand in making decisions or doing any of the project management in a project. Then, then you’ve created a security and then it’s governed by the securities and exchange commission. And so they state that you have to file that, and you have to register with the, depending on the fund or the entity that you set up that has to be registered. So for us, that is a true, so for us, there was one person, as I just mentioned me that I am the promoter. I am the active person on the investment.

Whereas I bring in then a lot of private equity, a lot of limited partners that come into the project. They don’t lend a hand. They’re not involved in the decision making process. And what they’re lending is money into the project. They’re investing into the project with me. And so their role and responsibility is to wire, the funds to close the project. And my responsibility is to do everything else, report back to them, the progress show, the projections and how we are exceeding, hopefully meeting, or if we are underperforming on our projections and then send out to our K ones at the end of the year, because they do become owners of this entity. And they get to participate in the upside as well as in the depreciation as well. So that’s, and I guess a limited sense without getting too far in the weeds, Jay, is, is the definition of a syndication and how we go about approaching the market. Yeah.

Jay Conner:

So, you know, in the world of single family houses, there’s multiple exit strategies. There’s multiple strategies of what someone’s going to do with that property after they invest in it, you know, you can, you can buy a single family house, you can fix it up, you can flip it, you can wholesale houses and, you know, wholesale houses out through other real estate investors. You can buy houses and you can fix them up and you can hold them, you know, for the longterm. So compare self storage to what I just did with single family houses. Are there all these different strategies as to how you can go about the self storage business. And second part of that question is if there are different strategies, how do you decide which one you’re going to do?

Scott Meyer:

Yeah, I’d say property is property. And, you know, in a general sense, and you can do all of the above. You know, we buy them and wholesale them, or sometimes a wholesale without us ever taking ownership or taking deed to the property. You can buy them, you can fix them up, turn around and flip them. You can buy them and turn them around partially, and then sell them off and call it a flip or non you sell them to the next person down the road. That’s going to take it the rest of the way, the way that we do it is typically we’re a longer-term hold three to five years. That gives us time to in an existing facility, really turn it around, raise rates, make the improvements, and reduce the expenses as much as possible to maximize the net operating income and then sell it for maximum dollar, our conversions and development.

You know, those projects take roughly four to five years to either buy a building, say a vacant grocery store and convert it to self storage, and then start from ground zero. And at least it up to 80, 85% occupancy and bring in our limited partners and allow them to have a payday and an exit that is comparable to if they were to invest in any other type of entity, a business over that time, and really focusing on the internal rate of return and the same goes for development. So in terms of an exit strategy, it’s a little more difficult in, in the way that we head into those larger projects with our partners in that we can’t do a 10 31, unless everybody decides to go along with us into the next project, which obviously they’re not going to. So at that point we will sell and that we will take our profits off the table.

And then we will move into the next project for our limited partners. For the most part, they are investing through a retirement vehicle like a self-directed IRA or a solo or a real estate 401k. So they don’t really have those tax consequences at, at, at the exit. We also are looking at in terms of an exit strategy. And I guess to back up a step, you know, Jay, I think you, and hopefully everybody on this call recognizes that you, you should always look at the exit strategy or determine what your exit strategy is before you get into a project. It’s not a good plan to just don’t say, well, there’s a good deal. I’m just going to buy it and figure it out later. You can find yourself, maybe a do not, you know, don’t want her later on down the road, or you sit back and take a look at your empire and you realize what a mess.

I can’t even manage this because I never paid any attention to what I was doing. So every time we hit into a project, you know, we identify if it’s a good deal, are we going to keep it? You know, if we’re going to flip this thing in a year, then we’ve got some, you know, capital short-term capital gains taxes. That’s a consideration. If we own it solely, then we can do a 10 31 into something else on. Do we want to do that three years from now? And I’m saying at any point in time, do we want to do that two or three years from now? Where, what are the interest rates going to be and what our cap rates going to be, and how do we expect the market and the economy? What’s it gonna look like? So we’re, we’re always looking six months a year down the road, five years down the road and anticipating what’s going on with the market, meaning interest rates and our capitalization rates, which is how we value these facilities.

And then overall, does this really fit in our business plan? I suffer like everybody from shiny object itis, and I want to buy them all, you know, if somebody else buys a self-storage facility and develop those one, and I’m going down the road, I was just like, that should have been mine. I should have built that. I should have bought that. And it’s a, it’s a real struggle. But if we get into that, you know, we can paint ourselves into a corner if we get into that situation where we just, you know, every once in a while we have to say no. Yeah, for sure.

Jay Conner:

So just to make sure everybody knows before, anybody’s got to jump off a listing here to the podcast. How can people get in contact with you and your companies, Scott, to learn more about what you do and how you can help them in this area of self storage?

Scott Meyer:

Sure. So we go into self storage, investing.com. That is the mothership, and there’s a links to our other websites that focus on the passive investing side of the business. But self-storage investing.com is really the mothership. And, and this is where we’ve been at this longer than anybody in the business and teaching people the right way to go about investing in self storage. I’m just in hopes that once again, you know, a rising tide raises all ships and so that we want everybody to be as educated as possible to go out into the marketplace before they do this to avoid any mistakes. And then also, you know, that just kind of makes it more difficult for the rest of us, that there are a lot of gunslingers out there that aren’t really doing their due diligence and doing things the right way. So that is our, our main purpose in educating people in the business. Cause it just makes it easier for all of us to conduct business in this incredible niche. Exactly.

Jay Conner:

So if you’re remotely interested folks and connecting them with Scott and his team, that website again is www dot self storage, investing.com, self storage, investing.com. We’re coming out here, hopefully on the other side of COVID and the pandemic and all that stuff. What are you seeing in the self storage industry? I mean, overall nationwide is the industry growing, how has COVID affected self storage?

Scott Meyer:

Yeah. Self storage is on a tear right now. I mean, if you look at the asset classes in real estate, no matter what stat you look at in terms of, you know, which asset class has done well, of course I’m biased, but the stats don’t lie, self storage and industrial are right up at the top. I think data centers may be up there as well. Industrial has done really well with Amazon expanding and, and the supporters of the Amazon and the distribution centers that are now coming down to the smaller market size. And, and as we see, unfortunately, the slow death of retail, the, the industrial side and the industrial sector has benefited greatly and self storage because we are heading into a time where we’re heading into a recession. Again, we also have seen now people come home from work and they had to clear out the dining room, the spare bedroom, the spare of family room, or living room and create a workspace for one of the income earners.

And sometimes too, they also last year during the lockdown, you know, when everybody was sent home from school, the colleges shut down and, and the kids had to put all their stuff into storage again, until they were able to go back. The kids that were in K through 12 came home, and we also had to make room in our homes to do school at home as well. So clearing out more furniture to make all of that happen. And then unfortunately there’s a whole lot of businesses that immediately when, when the lockdown started, it just went under because you know, customers are go figure on the lifeblood of their business. And if they couldn’t do it online, they went under. And so their inventory machinery and furniture, business furniture went into storage. And so, you know, we see this was somewhat of a microcosm of what we see during a recession and self storage really benefits during a recession because businesses downsize and put their things in storage, individuals downsized during a recession, they may have to move in with somebody else, a friend or move back home.

And so their extra stuff goes into storage. And so we, we, we spritz traditionally has always done better. You know, we go up to the right during times people buy more stuff and they store more stuff. That’s the nature of what we do here in this country. And if that’s you on behalf of the industry, I thank you for that mentality in this country. But during a recession, you know, we get the hockey stick effect. And then that’s when banks slow down development slows down of all sorts and then demand for self storage goes up. And so that’s what we saw during the pandemic last year. And 2020 was an absolute banner year for our industry. We have been, we have been contactless and touchless since before it was cool to be contactless and touchless using kiosks to rent a unit, much like a kiosk because self storage, you know, renting a unit is a very low labor intensive transaction that can be done over the internet.

And it can be done by way of a cell phone access to our facility, our software, getting a gate code and even a key fob and access on the phone to access a unit can all be done by way of a smartphone as well. So J we don’t, we don’t celebrate recessions personally, nor my company. We don’t celebrate pandemics for now shakes, but our, our industry, I’m, I’m thankful for the industry that we’re in because we have benefited with a huge wind in our sail, not only during a recession as we’re going to pet into again, but then the pandemic, which kind of accelerated that has really benefited our industry. Well, you know,

Jay Conner:

No business thrives, unless it’s solving a lot of people’s problems. And that’s what, and that’s what you and your company and the industry is doing. I mean, due to the pandemic, you got all this and increased demand for people needing to put their stuff somewhere. And unless your industry comes along and provides a place to put their stuff, then you know, you’re not a, you’re not solving that problem. So it’s what is, so let’s say someone is, and I’ll tell you, it’s the same thing as going on around here. It’s like here in my little area where Carol joy and I live total, total area of only 40,000 people, I know of four brand new self storage facilities that are under construction right now, four of them. And we already got them everywhere. It’s like my lands, people must have a whole, much more stuff. It’s just like, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. How are you? Are you doing new construction these days? Are you still focusing on existing facilities?

Scott Meyer:

Well, a little bit of both, we are, we were really focused on in 2020 on construction. We had some projects already in the pipeline and then also picked up some others from some folks that while we’re just kind of taking the ball the rest the way down the field, some folks that had some stalls due to due to COVID and some funding issues. And so absolutely we’ve been known developing for a number of years. Now, we’ve got the team, we’ve got the experience. We’re in several markets where we know where the demand is, and we just know it’s a business model that we can replicate over and over again, that allows us to look at a market. And, and Jay, if I could, just the reason why we see so many opportunities and why you’re seeing the say, four facilities going up in your town is a lot of folks will think, well, wait, I see these things everywhere.

Isn’t the market saturated. And you know, how can we possibly, you know, have enough demand for this, but, you know, when we go into a market and we’re looking at it in a place that potentially maybe good for developing a self storage facility, there’s a lot of research that goes into that. First of all, our market is really five mile radius. That’s all the further people are going to travel to a self storage facility from their home is about five miles. And so within that five miles, if the facility is the 1, 2, 3, 4 facilities are full, have a waiting list. And the raising rates every three or four months, then we know what equilibrium is in a market. And it’s, you know, anywhere from five and a half to six and a half, you know, five and a half to six and a half square foot per person.

And anytime that we’re below that if there’s only three or four square foot per person, we know that there’s a lot of demand in that market. So that, and rental rates will dictate when we’re going to go in and build. So it’s not a build it and they will come or hope that they will come and just, you know, hope is not a strategy. And we spend millions of dollars on these facilities. And so that is the reason why we’re seeing a lot about construction. And so we absolutely are bullish because of all the factors that I just mentioned that are, that are occurring in the market right now, which is creating a huge surge in demand for storage.

Jay Conner:

If someone is brand new to self storage, and they’re really interested in exploring it and, you know, really want to see if this makes sense for them, what’s the best way for a brand new person to even get started? Where do they start looking?

Scott Meyer:

Well, I think it starts with, with learning so that they know what they are looking for. And so no shameless plug, but we just got a lot of free resources on our website. Again, just to help people, you don’t have to spend a dime on it, just so you know, what you’re looking at and looking for, then begin to seek out if you’re a part of a real estate investor group in your city and there’s people that are in stores and then strike up a conversation. I I’d asked you to ask them to go out to lunch, to pick their brain, but we know that there’s a whole lot of folks that maybe aren’t interested in doing that these days, but if you can strike up a friendship, get into a conversation or even a subgroup, and some of these other real estate investor circles, or online with several meetups around at your area, then that’s the best way to get plugged in and just sit back and be a consumer of the information and to be a student of the industry to know what’s going on.

There’s I was in single family homes for a number of years. I was in commercial real estate being multifamily. And although a lot of that skillset applies and I’m looking at leverage and cap rates and underwriting, it’s a different business. And so to understand the nuances is really key before you take a take that next and first step, and we’ve seen, as you can imagine in our, on the education side of our business, we’ve seen a lot of folks that have taken that first step and they, and they stepped in a lot of do-do and create a lot of mistakes and messes for themselves. And men have come to us to help them unwind it and get out of it or to survive that one, you know, lose the battle, but win the war by understanding what it takes to succeed on the next one.

So, and then temper that with, you know, don’t, don’t analyze too much or, you know, analysis paralysis by analysis and analysis that causes paralysis. You, you, you know, the saying that to spend too much time researching before you do actually pull the trigger. So learn about the business, get some good advisors and mentors around you before, you know, to put some eyeballs on your underwriting and your offers, and obviously the good legal team or, or a, an attorney to look at your contracts before moving forward. Those are probably the best ways to Intuit, to avoid getting into a catastrophe. My

Jay Conner:

Good friend and guest today is Scott Myers, founder of self storage, investing.com. Be sure and check out his website for the free training and resources that he has there. One last question for you, Scott. And that is what are the most common mistakes or some of the most common mistakes that new real estate investors in self storage makes.

Scott Meyer:

Yeah, I’m writing a book on it as we speak, that’s going to be out before long. So I got 101 of them because that’s the title of the book. So I’ll, I’ll focus on how about the overarching one. And that is I think, and perhaps I’m guilty of this, you know, we’ve been teaching and training people how to do this for 16 years. And, you know, we, we, we state that it is a very simple and predictable business model because it’s compared to other businesses. It is, it’s a simpler and predictable business model. You know, we know the numbers, we know the equilibriums and we can go into a, an existing facility or a development project and make our projections and darn near hit our marks and, and beat them almost every time. But so I, I say that I’m, I’m a product of that.

And that is, I think people have heard that enough. And they’ve heard that, you know, this is a simple, less moving parts. You know, you don’t have the rehabs, you know, lock them out. They don’t pay their money and then you just blow it out and you’re done. You move on to the next and all that’s true, but it’s not a hobby. I mean, this is a business and you have to treat it as such and you have to walk the four corners of your business, and you have to understand it before you get in you. As most people know that are in commercial real estate, you make a $10,000 mistake in your underwriting, meaning you miss some expenses by 5,000 and you missed them. You know, they overstated the income for late fees and other things that shouldn’t have been counted. Well, a $10,000 mistake and underwriting is a hundred to $120,000 in value that you would over pay for a facility.

So you need to understand the nuances, how to value them, how to underwrite them before putting offers, in understanding how to analyze the market. And then for gosh sakes, I’m you don’t take your hands off the wheel and assume that this is a mailbox business because no rental businesses, I don’t care who you said listen to, or, or who says it. It’s not, it’s a business and a business needs to be tended. So a long-winded answer to your question, Jay. But the mistake that people make is that they think, and they hear and assume that it is a simple business because it’s simpler than what they were doing before, but it, it means that they have to understand it and they have to tend it. And, and you do have to farm the business once you own it. And constantly be working, looking at ways to grow occupancy, to grow rates and reduce expenses. And that is perpetual, and that is on a regular basis.

Jay Conner:

In other words, folks, don’t start doing this business without joining hips with somebody that knows what they’re doing, right. And of course, Scott Myers is the expert in this arena. Scott final comments and advice.

Scott Meyer:

Final comments change is good to see again, my friend, I can’t wait to, to see each other. I can’t hold that back. And so you always make me smile and I’m looking forward to hopefully getting together and having dinner together as well with you and Carol joy. And maybe we can get that old gray hair gentlemen, to pay our bill next time again, too, that might be nice and fight from that gang. It’s an exciting time to be in a, in real estate. There’s certainly a lot of changes and there’s some potential threats that are out there, but it’s when everybody’s running out that you should be not just running in again and shooting from the hip, but understanding, you know, what it means to be in the real estate asset class and investing the way and where you should be investing. But now it’s absolutely an exciting time to be doing so. So with that, just great to be here. I’m thankful for the industry of the real estate industry and self storage and a happy to help and assist anyone anywhere along the way that we can. And just be kind, just, just choose to be kind how’s that after a long weekend, so far, and it’s only Tuesday, I’ve had some difficult conversations. So how about I leave it with, let’s just choose to be kind to one another.

Jay Conner:

I love it. There you have it. Folks. My good friend and expert in self storage, Scott Meyers, visit him at www dot self storage, investing.com. Well, so glad to have everyone here on the show. I’m Jay Conner, the private money authority wishing you all the best here’s to taking your business to the next level. And we’ll see you right here on the next private money academy podcast.

[junker-town]

Escaping Kakuma

Two teams fought to a nil-nil draw in regulation, dust puffing around their feet like flint smoke as they ran. The shootout begins after Kakuma's 6 p.m. curfew. Four thousand or so fans push in from the sidelines to form a human outline of the penalty box. Every minute past curfew means greater likelihood that there will be repercussions from police.

[SECTION 1a]

Night falls fast in Kenya. Men with sticks swat at children to get back. After the score is tied in the fifth set of penalty kicks — both goals — a fan yells, "They can't see!" As I stand at the edge of the box, the full weight of the crowd leans in behind me.

The best scorer in the league smashes a penalty into the left of the net on the first attempt of sudden death. It should have won the match.

His opponent takes the next kick and sails the ball wide and high into a dark, waning blue. I track its flight but never see it land when suddenly several dozen Congolese refugees run me over. Their team, Atletico, has seemingly beaten the mostly South Sudanese, mostly Dinka squad, known as Legends, to earn the final spot in the 16-team Kakuma Premier League, the elite soccer organization of the world’s third largest refugee camp located in the far reaches of northwest Kenya.

[SECTION 1b]

There is an eruption of noise and people going every which direction except home. I get spun around and spat out of the back of the throng. Atletico has hefted their goalkeeper onto their shoulders, parading him around the field.

Too slowly, I realize that the sounds of cheering have become protests. A cluster of stakeholders in the match — refs, coaches, players, and a few fans who poke their noses in — forms at the penalty spot, their urgency implying that an injustice is about to take place. Legends successfully argues that the match should be decided the old way: with two penalty shots after the initial round of five, as had been done in Kakuma for years, rather than the sudden death method that the KPL adopted last year (and is FIFA standard).

[MODULE "Watch video from inside Kakuma and meet Olivier, Kakuma's best scorer"]

Full-throated arguments and fist fights break out among the crowd. On the next set of kicks, Legends ties the match, enraging an Atletico squad that had celebrated moments ago. The match is called and a crowd that had intently looked on breaks into skirmishes across the pitch. My fixer, Maya, grabs my shoulder and tells me that we have to go. We had allowed ourselves to start having fun and that had been a bad idea.

[SECTION 1c]

[SECTION 2]

You can drive to Kakuma, but you shouldn’t except under the guidance of a trained professional, and not even then.

Kakuma hosts roughly 180,000 people on 12 square miles of terse terrain. It is tucked up high in the upper left nook of Kenya, near the borders of Uganda, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. The closest significant city is Lodwar (population: 49,000), 76 miles away, and the roads between it and the camp have been eaten away leaving teeth-crushing potholes. Turkana children stand on the side of the road with bags of sand. They’ll fill in the gaps when they see you coming, hoping you’ll give them money. The sand is useless, however, and the truth is your driver is long past falling for the ruse. She drives the passenger van as fast as it can go without breaking an axle.

It’s very impressive, but when your neck still hurts a week later, you will have wished she had taken her time. It’s better to fly, if you have that luxury. Almost everyone who lives in Kakuma, at some point, took the road.

[SECTION 2b]

You’ll notice three things when you get there. First, the hills in the distance are big and blue and pretty, and could be between 10 and 100 miles away — the long, flat dirt expanse plays tricks on your depth perception. Second is the heat, which seems to have tangible weight, like a lead vest you can’t take off, keeping your feet to the ground. Third is the flies, which are as stupid as they are oppressive. Within a few days you’ll come to accept them, swatting at them with half the effort and one-tenth of the consciousness you paid the pests when you first arrived.

Kakuma opened in 1991 to accommodate torrents of homeless, unaccompanied minors fleeing war in Sudan. Today, the population is roughly 60 percent South Sudanese, and the rest is made up of people from Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was built to be temporary. Twenty-five years later, Kakuma is a teeming settlement that would be nearly impossible to dismantle.

[SECTION 2c]

Kakuma has people who were born in the camp and never left. It has multiple markets with fine clothing stores, cafes, hair salons, book stores, DVD stores, supermarkets, photo studios, and sporting good stores. You can buy Adidas, Nike, and Puma. You can buy a cell phone and a data card, and connect to the world. You can go grab a Coke, or a beer, or eat at a restaurant. An honest-to-god millionaire lives in the camp. The people here love him.

[SECTION 2d]

And there’s soccer. Like many other places in the world, Kakuma’s community often centers on sports. The camp has 592 registered sports teams — 73 of which are women’s — ranging across soccer, basketball, volleyball, running, boxing, judo, netball, and more. Soccer is by far the most popular, however, as evidenced by the resources poured into the Kakuma Premier League.

The KPL has been a revelation, a league that pits the best players in organized competition for real stakes. The winning club gets 50,000 Kenyan shillings (KES) — roughly $500 — to use however it sees fit, as well as shoes, balls, training cones, goal nets, and two full sets of kits and track suits. Second and third place get 30,000 and 20,000 KES, respectively.

[MODULE "Watch video from inside Kakuma and meet Olivier, Kakuma's best scorer"]

The KPL had been a dream for years. The organizing NGO — the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), which oversees refugee services and recreation in Kakuma — struggled to secure the necessary funding, but its biggest hurdle was the lack of a bus. Roughly five miles separate the two furthest points of Kakuma, which is shaped like a hatchet — a long, skinny stretch of settlements from the main entrance leading into the big, wide blade. Only once the LWF secured a big school bus, so that players never had to walk an hour through withering heat to play away games, did the KPL take off.

[SECTION 2e]

The LWF didn’t have to look for teams. Clubs had already been playing each other in loose competition for years, and some — like Okapi FC, which is primarily Congolese, and Naath FC, which is primarily Nuer people from South Sudan — are nearly as old as Kakuma itself.

The league debuted with 12 teams that played each other twice. Matches became major social events in the camp, with crowds of more than 5,000 people showing up for the best teams. Tom Mboya, an LWF youth officer, worked the hardest to make the KPL a reality, hoping to nurture talented youths so that they don’t have to rely on the lottery of resettlement to places like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

"That's a dream that may not materialize for them," Mboya says. "So we want to use sports and talent as a source of durable solutions for them. Let somebody go to America on the basis of what he can offer to America, or to England. Not on the basis of sympathy."

Kakuma’s refugees face a lot of immediate problems — disease, crime, police oppression, rape, and female genital mutilation. These can lead to severe mental health issues when coupled with the trauma they suffered from the places they left. Some turn to drugs. Then there are two factors which crystallize the unique experience of oppressed, tethered people: idleness and monotony.

[SECTION 2f]

Camps like Kakuma do some things very well. They are safe havens from the immediate dangers of war, they feed hungry people, and they provide access to education and vocational training. But in a bitterly cruel way, this benevolence of the NGOs, western nations, and Kenya also imposes on camp refugees a sense of uselessness. Refugees can obtain the equivalent of a high school diploma in the Kenyan school system, but after that they have nothing to do. Few nations will take them, and employers in Kenya won’t hire them.

[SECTION 2g]

So they are shackled to the dirt, hoping NGOs will pay them to do menial jobs at a fraction of the rate they might pay a Kenyan. Men sit in the markets and maybe watch television, talk to neighbors, or sit and think about the life they wish they were living. Women are confined to their compounds, expected to handle the traditional household duties of cooking, cleaning, and child-raising, plus waiting in line for water, firewood, and food rations. The camp has no gates, and yet it’s nearly impossible to leave.

[SECTION 2i]

"We engage ourselves through sports. Just kind of wasting time," Willy Kwezera, a pastor in Kakuma, tells me. "Because we think a lot. And by thinking a lot, this stress comes in. We have so many problems. So I act like a motivator. Some other people they resort to hanging themselves. Thinking too much, they say, 'No, my life is ended.’"

Anyone you talk to in Kakuma can tell you about missed chances — how close they would be to playing professional soccer with proper training; how soon they were set to resettle in the United States if not for Donald Trump’s travel ban; how they tried to go back to their home countries and found something worse; how they might have been able to see their families again, if only.

What is the effect of all that missed opportunity? Of idleness added up, of failed relocations and deferred repatriations? You can believe and hope for something, and know something else to be true. Like the flies in Kakuma: First you come to accept the nuisance, then you begin swatting at it, even after the flies have gone to sleep.

[SECTION 3]

When I get back to my room following the Atletico-Legends match, I get a message from Samuel Deng Makheer, a coach of another Premier League team.

Deng: "In fact Atletico are supposed to be winners but referee decide poorly."

Me: "The referees said that Legends won?! Why?"

Deng: "No Legend didn’t won, but they to rematch game again which isn’t fair."

The referee, probably wisely, did not declare a winner in the nighttime frenzy of the elimination match. Deng had been rooting for Legends — he is Dinka, too — but his belief in fairness, instilled over 14 years as a soccer coach and primary school teacher, overrides his loyalties.

[SECTION 3a]

I suggest that the referee might have been swayed by the crowd, and Deng agrees.

"Yeah, that’s what I have seen, too," he wrote. "Maybe the office will make their decisions and Atletico can qualify for Kakuma Premier League."

Deng coaches the All-Stars, which was the seventh-place team in the KPL last season and is not, in fact, an all-star team. That the All-Stars were better than anyone, much less five other teams in the league, is a small victory according to Deng.

Whatever money teams have come from the coaches and players themselves. Deng makes 6,000 KES, roughly $60 per month, from teaching, and gives most of it away — 2,500 for his mother and siblings; 2,000 for his aunt, who is paralyzed and has a daughter who is deaf and also paralyzed; 500 for his sister; and 500 for himself. That leaves 500 for the All-Stars, almost all of which goes to drinking water for the sidelines.

"Some teams, they have their brothers from abroad, they help them, and they buy players," he says. "But me, I don't buy players, I just sweet talk them."

Deng came to Kakuma from South Sudan in 1992 when he was one year old, making him as old as the camp itself. He has known many of the players since they were children. Deng started coaching under-10 players when he was 12 years old. The All-Stars’ best player and captain, Beny Thon, now 23, was one of Deng’s favorite players in the camp from a young age. Beny, out of respect for Deng, decided to play with the All-Stars despite material incentives to play elsewhere.

"He liked my coaching style," Deng says. "And when I was given a team, I called him, and I handed him over the captain before he said any word. And that one, he was so happy."

Deng teaches at Malakal Primary School, the same primary school he attended. His classroom has roughly 115 fourth graders sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in front of him and his chalkboard. Other classrooms have students spilling into desks situated outside their doorways.

[SECTION 3b]

[SECTION 3c]

The subject is family pronouns for "he, she, and the little ones." He creates three columns and fills them left to right with the words "Dog," "Bitch," and "Puppy." Below that, he fills in "King" and "Queen," then asks for a volunteer to fill in the blank.

He calls on a student named Antil.

"Prince and princess," Antil says.

"Very good," Deng says. "Let’s clap for Antil." All 100-plus students clap their hands, one time, in unison, and the lesson continues.

Deng is a soft and reticent speaker, but he’s engrossing once he has momentum with him. During his first ever week of teaching, students referred to him as "The teacher who is afraid." After his first lesson he realized that he hadn’t told his students his name.

Deng has actually been back to South Sudan since coming to Kakuma. His father called him home to Jonglei in 2007 to become a cattle herder. Deng hated it — he hated having to interrupt his own education, he hated having to leave soccer behind, and he hated leaving what had been his lifelong home. Less than a year later, his mother gave him a bull to sell and told him to take the money and go back to Kakuma.

"When I reached Kakuma I immediately called him, saying, ‘Father I'm sorry, forgive me, but I need education more than you need me,’" Deng says. "He used to call me and advise me, 'you did this and that, and if you continue doing this I will disown you.'"

Deng’s father, who went blind when an axe fell on his head, eventually forgave Deng for his decision. Deng is the oldest of his mother’s six children, and the third oldest among the eight children from his father’s three wives. When his father realized how much Deng wanted to provide for his family, he gave Deng his blessing.

"I have never given up in life, because I have my mother and I have my father," Deng says, "because if I give up, my siblings, my mother, my father, they can be nowhere, and I have to work harder for them."

He pounds the desk as he says this, and repeats: "I work harder for them."

[SECTION 3d]

Soccer is the one thing Deng does for himself. He likes studying it more than playing. Cristiano Ronaldo became his favorite player when, as a kid, he used to peek his head into the windows of television halls showing soccer matches and watch the then-Manchester United star. The Red Devils became his favorite team then, too. His friends teased Deng when Man U struggled this year: "Manchester United has moved to seventh, and your team, All-Stars, is now seventh, what do you think of that?"

As a coach, he says he’s rough like Jose Mourinho. Formationally, he likes Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3. Deng likes defenders who are flexible, midfielders who can shoot outside the 18’, and the comfort of at least one solid striker on the pitch. He hasn’t had any formal training as a coach.

Even in a place filled with soccer obsessives, Deng stands out. The vast majority of people living in Kakuma don’t have electricity, much less personal televisions, so men often gather in television halls to watch English Premier League games. Most games cost 10 KES for admittance, but big games cost 20.

Sometimes, if there are multiple matches at the same time, supporters will pool their money and bid for the match they want to watch. Once, Deng paid 1,000 KES that were meant for his mother to watch Man U play Arsenal, then told his friends to relax and enjoy the match.

"I lied to her," Deng says. He told her that he spent it to fix up his home, "because if I told her that I paid the game, then it's a big fight."

Simply watching an EPL match in Kakuma can be dangerous. Matches are played well past curfew, sometimes ending at 1 a.m., and the Kenyan police who patrol the camp roads at night are vigilant and aggressive. To return home, Deng will creep alongside the roads, staying hidden behind bushes and fences, and out of clear line of sight. Once, he was caught, beaten, and thrown in a cell until morning without being asked what he was doing out.

"It was not even at night, it was evening at 7 p.m., they were doing their patrolling, and I was injured, I was so tired when I came from the training in my team," Deng says. "So I give them the [6,000 KES] incentive I have, and my siblings stayed for that month without having anything."

[SECTION 3e]

Deng wants to leave Kakuma. He wants to take coaching as far as he can, and earn more money that he can send back to his family. He has done everything he can to put himself in position to succeed should he get his opportunity. Now he waits, as he has for 26 years.

"I doubt, I doubt, I doubt a lot, because I don't know how that chance came," Deng says. "If God, if he is there, my dreams can come true."

Success ought to be a two-part equation: the exact sum of a person's hard work and talent. In practice, this is rarely true, and a third variable comes into play. In Kakuma, good fortune — the generosity of donors, or the hope that a resettlement office in a Western nation considers your application — exerts its fickle will over everyone, more than anything. A clump of 180,000 people, all waiting, like Deng.

"Someone can be born with talent, but the talent can go, just like that, because you cannot take it anywhere," Deng says. "Like me, I have to be a coach in the future, but I don't have anywhere to learn being a coach in my life. I cannot learn. And where will I go with it?

"I have to die with it, in Africa, until the time goes."

[SECTION 4]

The morning after the elimination match between Atletico and Legends, a Wednesday, Shabani Mulinde Olivier, the Atletico scorer who should have been the match’s hero, is, truth be told, not all that upset.

"At least to me, the match ended well," Olivier says. "If the referee had declared a winner, then it would have been a war.

"So I am happy no one got hurt."

Olivier is one of the most popular players in Kakuma. Within the camp, you could call him a celebrity.

Parts of Kakuma are named after faraway places. Okapi and Atletico are based in the southern part of Kakuma 1 — Zone 1, Block 13 — otherwise known as New Canada. There’s another part called California, and another called Dubai. Olivier walks through Kakuma’s largest market, known as Hong Kong, almost every day, and as he does, men on the road call his attention by shouting his nickname: "Cristiano, hey."

[SECTION 4a]

Getting nicknamed after one of the game’s great players is perhaps the ultimate sign of respect for a soccer player in Kakuma. Olivier tells me to ask anyone, that even if they don’t know anything about football, they know who the Cristiano Ronaldo of Kakuma is. People say, "Come here Ronaldo," and he talks with them about the goals he scores, and he says he becomes a happy man, "just like that."

Olivier is seemingly indefatigable. When we speak in his compound, he leans forward and bounces and keeps finding excuses to get up and rush out of the room. He puts on the red-and-white striped jersey that Awer Mabil — a former Kakuma refugee who was relocated to Australia at age 11 and became a professional soccer player — gave him on a visit. He grabs an Okapi flag, with the head of a deer/zebra/giraffe-like animal depicted on it, then gets the trophy he won for being the league’s top scorer last season. Olivier calls himself a singer, street dancer, and funny man when he’s not playing soccer. He is learning how to become a mechanic and wants to open a garage. He almost never stops grinning.

[SECTION 4b]

Yet Olivier had to steady himself before the penalty kick that should have beat Legends in the fast-falling night. "When everyone is relying on you to win, everyone is just praying and watching you, all eyes are on you," Olivier says, through a translator. "I was really tense — looking at the keeper, looking at the ball. And that's the final prayer to God to just allow the ball in. Then after that you can forget so much pressure."

He made sure to address the ball the same way he always does, looming over it before hopping out wide, same as Cristiano Ronaldo.

Scoring goals is Olivier’s favorite thing on Earth. He scored 17 times in 22 games last season while playing for Okapi. Against Virunga FC Last season, a team he calls one of the most feared in the KPL, he netted the game winner late in a 3-3 game. He celebrated the whole week. The community threw two parties for him. Some painted his name around the camp, or gave him money that he used to renovate his compound. He says it was the best moment of his whole life.

"Through football, I came to learn that it gives a smile to anyone and happiness, then it makes people around you love you," Olivier says. "I never thought that I could get so much love from people. That's when I realized happiness exists. Happiness exists in football."

[SECTION 4c]

In 1998, Olivier and his older sister watched his parents get slaughtered in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They were caught up in the escalating days of the deadliest conflict since World War II, he and his siblings betrayed by their faces.

The Hutus — with the backing of Laurent Kabila, the by-force president of the DRC — began killing Banyamulenge people living on the eastern edge of the country, labeling them as Rwandan invaders. Olivier’s mother and father were from separate, non-targeted tribes near the border, but Olivier’s maternal grandmother was among the Banyamulenge, and so the tribe was in their blood.

On August 8, 1998, a charge went out on DRC state radio:

Wherever you see a Rwandan Tutsi, regard him as your enemy. … Open your eyes wide. Those of you who live along the road, jump on the people with long noses, who are tall and slim and want to dominate us ...

Olivier and his family could not hide. When Kabila’s army came to their city of Uvira, he and his siblings had been playing in the house. His mother hid them — he and his older sister outside in the bushes, his younger sister in a small box, and a baby brother who he lost track of in the moment. His parents were still inside when the soldiers entered. Olivier and his older sister were the first people to see them dead.

"They were sleeping in a pool of blood," Olivier says. He is calm. He spares no details as he tells his story. "We were left as orphans."

His sister raised them, but when she became engaged, she ran away with her fiancé, leaving Olivier to take care of his two younger siblings. When the conflict with Rwanda escalated again in 2012, he left town — they had run to Goma by then — with his younger sister. Olivier felt that his younger brother was still too small to come and left him behind. He has not seen or heard from him since.

[SECTION 4d]

Olivier was separated from his younger sister when M23 soldiers — rebels against the DRC government — captured him on their way north, towards Uganda. He doesn’t know what became of her, either. He was the rebels’ captive for four weeks, marching next to scores of other young men who didn’t want to become soldiers in the conflict. They were tied together and forced to work without food or water. A shootout saved them. While he and the others were taking one of their few rests, the rebels were ambushed, and the young men escaped.

They made it to Uganda on swollen legs by eating wild fruits and following the few who knew the terrain. In 2013, he was finally settled in Kakuma by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), where he knew his sister and her now-husband were waiting for him. He played in a proto-form of the Kakuma Premier League in 2013, and led all scorers then, too.

"To me, football is like the first family to me, because that's the only thing that gives me a sense of happiness," Olivier says. "Whenever I get into the field and play, the joy of other people seeing whatever goal you are doing, it's just overwhelming. People see me doing great things, but they don't know how wounded I am inside."

Mental health counseling provided by the Jesuit Refugee Service helped Olivier to fight his dark memories. It quashed the revenge he thought he wanted. He came to realize that there was no external action that could heal the pain of losing his family and that was good in many ways. But then there was the matter of the pain itself, something he has had to face alone, haunted even in his most exalted moments.

"I am not a proud man," Olivier says. "When I play football, yes I bring so much victory and happiness to other people, but at the same time, those people go have their parents whenever they are scoring, or if their team wins.

"The worst thing in my life is seeing other people hugging their parents. They're so happy, and that's always taking me back to when my parents were killed."

Olivier completed his secondary education in the DRC, but stalled in Kakuma when, after speaking mostly French, he had to try to get his Kenyan diploma while being taught in English and Swahili. Sometimes he performs soccer tricks in Hong Kong for money, but he says that, as a man, he’s tired of asking for help.

"He's having a hard life," Buchiza Bya-Mungu Jerome, Okapi’s head coach, says. Jerome understood when Olivier left Okapi to play for Atletico because their coach offered Olivier a compound. Jerome recalls how, last season, players would show up late for practice, and he would tell them to go home. Olivier never would.

[SECTION 4e]

"He used to say, 'OK coach, if I will not enter the field, help me with a ball," Jerome says. "He will even say, 'I want to play with the small children.' He used to take a ball and go play with the small children. That's why I'm saying he is different from others."

Olivier only speaks about his happiness in terms of others — the happiness he observes in teammates, mothers, and young ones in the camp. He hasn’t yet found a way to be happy on his own terms. When he doesn’t feel good, he grabs a ball, goes to the field, and plays. When he’s outside, there is a good chance that someone will recognize him. He can’t sit still, and he can’t be alone.

"I will play, until I get back to the house and I feel very light and OK," Olivier says. "That's why [I’m] socializing with other people. I waste a lot of time before I get home. It's already late. And then I sleep, and another day starts like that."

Olivier can’t keep a grin off his face for long. Next to his head is a poster pinned to a thin wooden wall of barnyard animals and the sounds they make. It’s torn at the bottom. He says he’s had to accept the fact that he’s getting used to life here.

[SECTION 5]

Following the Tuesday meeting between Atletico and Legends, the LWF promptly schedules the rematch for Thursday. As a precaution against the loss of daylight and potential violence, the game is set to start at an earlier time, 4 p.m, and at a neutral location, across from the walled-off UNHCR compound.

Until 1 p.m. that day, the teams didn’t know where the match would take place. They initially believed it would take place Saturday, the same day as the big season opener between the defending champions, Naath FC, and the runners-up, Okapi.

Because of Kakuma’s expanse of sky, the rain clouds seem to lord over the camp even as they gather far away. Before kickoff, there is already commotion. The same ref who worked the first game and gave Legends penalty kicks they didn’t deserve shows up to the rematch promptly, dressed in a red Adelaide FC soccer kit.

There is a short, excited LWF official overseeing the match who stuffs the game ball under his LWF polo such that he looks pregnant. He is trying to calm down Atletico, who are understandably furious from the last match. The brand of Swahili spoken in Kakuma borrows several English words, and the word "corruption" filters out above the arguing.

A light drizzle begins. The referee is standing far away from the fray, but occasionally an Atletico player will break free to point a finger in his stoic face. The LWF official is doing everything he can to keep the attention on himself. Olivier is smiling and addressing his teammates.

"Sawa sawa," he says, a common Swahili phrase that essentially means, "I’m good, you’re good, we’re good." He says: "It’s OK, they’ll change the referee."

Quickly, the sky becomes mottled, the blue gone, and the rain turns steady now. Many of the fans who showed up — maybe a quarter of the original crowd — run and huddle under a wide, flat-topped tree to watch.

Though Kakuma is arid, rain isn’t always welcome here. "The water doesn’t help," Istarline, one of our fixers, tells us. "It doesn’t even last." Sometimes it rains so hard that the Tarach River bed, which runs through the camp like a spine, overflows and washes out dozens of mud huts, melting them, Istarline says, "like chocolate." Sometimes the rain falls far away in the hills, unseen, and the water comes rushing into the camp unexpectedly, wreaking havoc.

[SECTION 5a]

The rain is welcome at the start of the match, tamping down the dust and adding some semblance of control to the ball. After a minute of play an outright downpour begins. After another minute, the conditions are unplayable and the match is whistled. Players on both teams run off the field, straight for cover, and to their bags for extra clothes. I catch Olivier.

"What’s happening?"

"We will play tomorrow now," he says, then he lifts up his foot to show me the bottom of his cleats. They are caked in mud and useless.

"Are you getting frustrated by the delays?"

"Me? No, never," he says. We walk away, and someone calls after him, "Cristiano."

The match is postponed, again, to the following Wednesday. The Thursday after, I receive a text from Olivier saying Atletico lost, 1-0.

[SECTION 6a]

Olivier is Kakuma’s best scorer, but people agree the best soccer player is Okapi’s Okanda Philician. He is densely built and broad, which makes him stand out among Kakuma’s otherwise wiry soccer population. I arrange to talk to him through Jerome on the morning they are set to play Naath FC in the opening match of the 2017 Kakuma Premier League.

We sit in little plastic chairs in front of Jerome’s compound. Jerome is there to translate. Okanda is staring at the dirt. Before we start, Jerome gives him a pep talk.

"I was telling him, 'Be free for every question you will be asked. Give him the answer that you have, and don't fear, because he is a journalist,’" Jerome tells me. "‘These questions will help him maybe to write some books. Either he can go to the radio and publish the answers that you will give him.'"

Okanda makes his imposing figure small. His voice is high and quiet and straining, like he is trying to lift something too heavy. He tells me that, at 21 years old, time is running out for him.

[SECTION 6]

Soccer players age quickly in Kakuma. At 24, Okanda will no longer be eligible for a U23 development program. His only hope, then, would be that his talent is good enough to join a professional team. Jerome says: "If [Okanda] can be selected this year or next year, at least at 22 years, if he can reach a big club — like Manchester, like Real Madrid, like Barcelona, like Dortmund, like PSG from France — he can be very happy."

Beginning the season with a match between Okapi and Naath is like a Week 1 meeting between the Patriots and the Falcons. Last season, the league’s two best teams played a thriller, and it ended in controversy. With six minutes left and Okapi winning 1-0, Naath were on the attack when the referee whistled a foul outside of Okapi’s penalty area. When the whistle blew, however, a Naath player shot the ball at the net, and Okapi’s players, assuming play was dead, let it go in.

The linesman raised his flag signalling a goal. The referee ran to him to conference. Together they decided to count it, shocking everyone, including Naath fans. Okapi refused to continue playing the game, forcing the referee to end it early in a tie. The LWF later reversed the decision and gave the game to Okapi.

Naath, Okapi players like to say, doesn’t actually play soccer. They win by intimidation — by playing rough, injuring players, and by bringing the full force of their large fanbase to every game. Naath is a primarily South Sudanese club, made up of Nuer players.

"Everybody used to say they fear them," Shadrack, Okapi’s left winger, says. "They never accept to be defeated." To beat them, you need to be fast with your touches. "At least one touch, you give the ball to your teammate," Alex, Okapi’s left fullback, says. "You touch and you give, you touch and you give."

[SECTION 6b]

Okanda was discovered by a member of the Okapi community who saw him playing at a reception center as his family was waiting to be settled by the UNHCR. He told Jerome that Okanda could be an asset to the team, so Jerome and two other members of Okapi went to the reception center to scout Okanda in person. Jerome saw a powerful player, one who could facilitate others, and who had a stolid demeanor on the pitch.

Jerome needed to convince Okanda’s mother to let her son live in Kakuma, however. Her and her seven children were selected to be resettled in Kalobeyei, a new UNHCR settlement 18 miles from Kakuma that hadn’t established sports programs yet. Jerome borrowed Okanda for a trial game against Naath, and Okanda commanded the midfield as Okapi won, 1-0. Jerome then canvassed the Okapi community to pool their money, 50 KES at a time, to show Okanda’s mother the support that her son would have.

"The community accepted that, they would assist whatever he can ask for, even if we will not support 100 percent," Jerome says. "We agreed. So, the mother said, 'He is now in your hands. Take him like your son, like your brother, and help him to extend his talent.'"

Corruption pesters Jerome. Though Okapi went 2-0 against Naath last season (after LWF rectified the referee’s mistake), he insists that his team should have won the inaugural season of the KPL and its prize of 50,000 Kenyan shillings. He says that referees were often against his team because the Congolese are a minority in the camp. South Sudanese teams like Naath, he claims, repeatedly receive preferential treatment.

The LWF office doesn’t refute those claims.

"You can't pin it, you can't know someone's heart. But you feel it," Mboya says. "And especially that one, between Okapi and Naath, at the back of my mind I thought nationality came into play in making that decision, because the referee was Sudanese, a South Sudanese."

It is Okanda’s every intention to leave this all behind — these officials, the violence on the dirt pitches, Okapi, Kakuma, his family in Kalobeyei. "He is not happy to be here, he is not happy to be in Kakuma," Jerome says. "He wants to benefit more. He wants to benefit more than what he is benefiting here, and go outside."

[SECTION 6c]

Mboya calls the match between Atletico and Legends "not quite medium" sized compared to the full-bore crowd he expects for the season opener. To head off clashes, the LWF will employ maximum security for Okapi-Naath FC. There will be 20-30 members of Kakuma’s civilian protection group, as well as LWF officials and armed Kenyan police.

The LWF has planned a festival around the match — food, dancers, participants from the Kakuma’s Got Talent competition for entertainment. It is worried less about the players than the latent animosity that may be infecting the crowd. The LWF has selected "Peaceful Coexistence" as the theme of the match.

Okanda looks antsy. His expression doesn’t change but his knee is jiggling, up and down, in a chair that is too small. I’m not sure if I ever got to know what he is thinking. Kickoff is approaching.

"For me, football is my star," Okanda says, via Jerome. "It is a must for me to take it with two hands."

[SECTION 7]

For the 4:30 game, Okapi meets at 1 p.m. to eat together in New Canada. They make ugali, a dish of maize and sorghum mixed together to form a doughy, starchy substance that sits in your stomach for hours.

The players chat idly, building useful nervous energy. For as much as they like to proclaim it, no matter how often they say that it’d be the only outcome that is fair and just, victory over the Nuer boys is not guaranteed. For two hours they stand up and sit down, again and again.

At 3:30 they gather in the midst of Hong Kong market, waiting for a critical mass of fans and well-wishers to join. Fans orbit the team with Okapi flags and vuvuzelas, acting as hype men.

As Okapi FC walks towards the pitch, they sing. More fans. There are at least three vuvuzelas now, contradicting each other. The team takes a left fork and passes a butcher shop with skinned goat hanging in the window on which the flies stop and watch.

[SECTION 7a]

The procession leaves the camp and goes out past Kakuma’s de facto welcome sign, a cartoon depiction of a toddler pooping on the ground, and words warning, "This is a no open defecation area." At the pitch, three big, white tents line the far sideline to shade the VIPs. There are banners around the pitch like the ads you’d see around an EPL game, except these show messages about HIV awareness and stemming gender-based violence.

[MODULE "Watch video from inside Kakuma and meet Olivier, Kakuma's best scorer"]

Okapi line up on their goal line and skip together in rhythm to the edge of the penalty box, clapping their hands on their knees. As they do a stretch circle, Naath FC streams onto the pitch, their contingent even bigger and louder. Okapi players and fans collapse around their captain, take a knee, and listen to his exhortation.

[SECTION 7b]

The crowd swells quickly to an imposing size just before kickoff, 20 or 30 people deep around the entire pitch — the LWF estimated the crowd at 15,000 people. It’s unclear how they will be kept at bay during the match, and in truth, they can’t — Okapi loses possession in its own territory and Naath scores first, sending fans rushing onto the field. Several people do cartwheels, and hug players. One man rips off his shirt and sits cross-legged in the dirt, apparently finding peace as thousands of people rush past.

The sky is bright blue, the clouds deep and geographic. The crowd is in constant conversation. The announcers, Ali and Allan, give And1-style running commentary throughout the match. The mothers of Okapi players sit and stand next to me in colorful pagnes, smiling. In front of them, Jerome is running back and forth between the same two ends of a 20-foot stretch of sideline, upset at how the match is unfolding.

[SECTION 7c]

Okapi is playing like he’d feared: They’re slow with the ball, allowing Naath players to get their bodies into them. The referee never sees, or never calls, the hard elbows that fly as players wait for 50/50 balls to land. A Naath player tries to sell contact with Okapi’s striker, No. 6, who wags his finger in his opponent’s face when the referee doesn’t blow his whistle.

[SECTION 7e]

Okapi is fortunate that Naath can’t generate a surge, either. The goalkeepers remain relatively untested, until Naath makes a mistake similar to Okapi’s, turning over possession on its end and letting the ball leak into the net. Okapi’s celebration rivals Naath’s. One of the mothers runs onto the field swinging a green plastic chair like Petey Pablo swings a shirt.

At halftime, Jerome tells me Okapi will win. The late goal was a strong motivator, and he will change Okapi’s formation from a 4-3-3 to a 4-2-4 to put Naath on their heels. Fans join in both teams’ pep talks. The start of the second half is delayed while the referees, civilian security, and LWF try to calm the crowd, which began pelting Okapi’s goalkeeper with rocks.

[SECTION 7f]

Okapi’s shift pays off quickly. They pin the ball in Naath’s half of the field for most of the half. Okanda now plays an even more pivotal role with more space around him in midfield. Okapi is finally playing the fast, precise soccer it promised. Naath’s goalkeeper begins to shake. Okapi scores with 20 minutes remaining, and nearly scores again soon after when the keeper dribbles the ball dangerously in front of his own net. Satellite celebrations begin among Okapi fans around the pitch when he is pulled.

Naath press, projecting their desperation. They need help.

Okanda gets hammered to the ground just outside Naath’s penalty area, and the referee doesn’t blow the whistle (Naath fans would say he fell and writhed in the dirt entirely of his own accord). He has to go off the field for a medical check. He comes back at the next opportunity with dirt smeared on the back of his jersey, but Jerome is not happy. He yells at referees for letting the game get too physical, and at security for letting Naath fans encroach the sidelines.

[SECTION 7d]

Okapi fans begin pleading with the ref: "Time, time, time!" The team becomes defensive allowing Naath, again, to dictate the match, seemingly praying with their fans for the end at last. A slide tackle deep in Okapi’s territory sends the ball stumbling free in front of the net, but no one can touch it in. Jerome looks back at me, relieved, as if he had escaped.

[SECTION 7g]

In the 93rd minute, Naath dribbles the ball into a mob near the right post of the Okapi net, and the ball slips out and over the goal line. Naath fans grab fistfuls of dirt and throw them in the air, obscuring the field and the now thousands of people on it. The mountains, faraway, disappear. Okapi and Atletico tie, 2-2.

[SECTION 7h]

Jerome and Naath’s head coach shout at each other. Jerome immediately alleges corruption. Both sides — players, coaches, and fans — empty a complete spectrum of emotions at once, bursting as if too big for their clothes. I get caught in the middle of a fist fight.

"I’m not happy. I'm not angry for the result," Jerome tells me. He is breathing heavily, visibly upset, unsure of what to say or feel or do next. "There is win, there is draw, and sometimes you can lose. So any of them you have to accept, and you have to know that it can happen."

[SECTION 8]

Gabriel Beny Thon is one of the few players, like Okanda and Olivier, who is good enough to be a target in the Kakuma Premier League’s informal free agency. He has never played for a crowd like the one that turned out for Okapi-Naath, however. He has been offered small stipends and better housing to play for other teams, but he chooses to stay with Deng’s cash-strapped All-Stars. He’s the team’s captain, Deng’s proud co-pilot, and he’s one of the select who has a nickname.

Beny also goes by "Dinho." As in Ronaldinho. As in one of the most technically impressive footballers ever. That’s important to him.

"Those fans they are watching the kids, saying, 'You know, when you play football, there's player which is your role model, you follow,’" Beny says. "You look when people play Champions League. You say I'm Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, there's a role model you follow. And fans love every single player."

Beny, roughly 23, has made a tidy life in Kakuma. He lives in a compound he likes. It has stone walls and a metal roof. He has just one roommate, two mattresses between them — one on a frame, the other on the dirt — and a desk that they split. Two bibles and four engineering books rest on top of it. Beny’s compound is one in a short row of four compounds occupied by young South Sudanese men like him.

[SECTION 8b]

Few in Kakuma love soccer enough to tailor their skills the way Beny has. The sand is hot and hard, with no grass or moisture to give the game the normal physics of other places. In play, the ball changes ends of the pitch quickly, careening back and forth, and skies high when it bounces. In this environment, if one were to willingly stylize his game around any soccer god, Ronaldinho — with his superior control and endless tricks — might be the worst choice. Soccer as it is played in Kakuma allows almost no room for nuance.

Beny’s loyalty to what is, for now, a middle-of-the-pack KPL team is surprising given his potential. Deng wooed him by appealing to Beny’s ever-consciousness of legacy. Beny speaks in low, staccato epigrams. "You don’t play for the fans, you play for the flesh," he says, reminding me that playing soccer is a personal endeavor, "because what you are doing, people are watching you play around the world, and you might not know."

Beny went to South Sudan in 2011 in hopes of sparking his soccer career. He thought he might compete for a spot on the national team. He bounced around to several clubs but says he never felt a connection anywhere he went. He felt like an outsider, "no friendships," and went back to Kakuma, deciding that it would be a better place to struggle.

That was the first and last time Beny has been to South Sudan.

Beny learned soccer in Kakuma. "That's the only talent I have," he says, and he has accepted the truth that his potential will never be fully realized.

"When I used to play football, I knew I was going somewhere. But at last I came to realize I'm not going anywhere," Beny says, matter of factly. "I come to accept and say, 'OK, there is nothing I can do. No matter. Maybe God never meant for me to play football. Maybe I was meant to do other things.’

[SECTION 8c]

"Football is a game about losing and winning," he says. "It's a game about rectifying your own mistakes."

Beny’s prowess has cultivated a following. That’s perhaps the biggest privilege he has as a soccer star in Kakuma: the ability to meet so many people, and to know he has made them happy. His favorite moment from his first season with the All-Stars was when they beat Okapi, 4-2. The result was vacated because the All-Stars played their suspended goalkeeper — Beny calls that game the beginning of the All-Stars’ downturn — "but it was a nice day, you know?"

Children talk to him. "They all start saying, ‘you see that guy there, that’s the guy they call Dinho.’" Beny listens. He wants them to play soccer too, to keep the teams full and increase the quality of play in Kakuma until a point when the rest of the world has to notice. Some of those kids have started nicknaming themselves "Beny Thon."

[SECTION 8d]

That, Beny says, makes him happy in the face of everything he wishes would have gone right in his life. While Deng and others may hope that the KPL serves as a flare to the outside world, Beny accepts his role as a bright star that can only be seen in this darkened part of the world.

"I believe when you struggle that's when you get something. And when you are struggling, you have to struggle with a clean heart," Beny says. "You know life here is not easy, but I'm struggling and you see me here. I'm happy, but I live inside a lie.

"I have to accept the fact I'm happy."

[SECTION 9]