The delights of football

You’ve just gotta love football.

Sorry mum, one day, when the legs don’t work any more I’ll get round to the sewing, but seriously. Plonk me in China, or the middle of the Amazon, or with the Inuit and I reckon I could probably raise a few laughs and conquer the old language barrier – on the condition I had a football.

Work last week was S L O W. Nothing happened, I was getting bored of reading Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, and had read enough about ways to tackle HIV propagation to make me sign up for a lifetime’s subscription to prozac. So when the dashing mayor of my district invited me to the weekly sports afternoon on Wednesday I asked...

a) was there football
b) as a female could I play
c) could I wear shorts

the answer was positive to all three! And if I ever needed a better way to network in a small community this was how to do it. Be white. Be a female. Play football. Hold my own on the pitch. I hesitate over saying pitch because it was part sand, part grass clump, part ditch, part cowpat. And that was for the first half hour. Then the rainy season started and it absolutely bucketed down for about an hour and a half (MENTAL NOTE; never wear white in a conservative country when the rainy season could hit at any time – especially if people stare at you enough as it is!). A few mere men ran for cover, I stayed, and avoided the lake in the middle of the pitch for the most part since I was playing in the knee high forest out on the right wing. Still, it didn’t suit the skilful nature of my team – we were easily 2-0 at this point, but they brought one back.

I’m still smarting actually from the fact that ironically with just a few minutes to go the aforementioned dashing mayor happened to score the equalizing penalty. Hmmm... What could the keeper do? More than his feet were on the line!

Next day I wander on down to the stadium again. Delight of all delights, there is a women’s team in the area (despite the fact I’m in a rural district, and the poorest province of the whole of Rwanda), and not only that, but they are currently in the semi-final of the national Rwandan cup and (since they are mostly students) have already won the secondary school national cup. I still have to admit that I thought they would consist of a few lethargic teens without much skill but making up for it with a bit of clout. I had images of big Tommy from Dover Park primary school, aged 8 booting the ball as hard as he could...and therefore being the best player. I had images of swarms of bees around honey. So I too turned up late, nonchalantly strolling on down, trying to converse in the international language of shrugging with the group of kids that tag along wherever I go and who have become a bit of a permanent feature. Time to pull up my socks though, as 24 young fit students were stretching in a circle, with their manager surveying and their coach giving a team talk. All had boots, except one, but you wouldn’t have said she was playing in bare feet the way she was running around.

And they had skill! Little turns, back heels, knock-ons...and they had the clout too. You can’t go in half hearted in a tackle here. Oh, and they love defensive footie –Ann Harvo, you’ll understand when I say that much as I love the old defensive playing it around the back, this actually scares me. Little one-twos with the keeper, and the back-heels around the box!

Anyway, I could go on, but I’m aware mum is still wishing I had the knitting needles out...

What’s best about that is the fact that for a couple of hours I don’t need to be able to speak Kinyrwanda and yet I’m socializing, these girls are great, they find any attempt to speak the language absolutely hilarious, they include me, they think it’s amazing that any white person would actually want to get involved. And it’s all down to footie!

The pitch is near my house down a dodgy dust track, and sometimes there’s a passing mini-truck which the girls get to stop, and then we all climb on the back, yes, all 24 of us. Precarious, and seeing as I’m the first off I sit at the back and enjoy the least comfortable ride possible, whilst my hand is held on to by some of the girls so I don’t actually fall out. Nice. But it does create a scene and everyone in my area now knows that the muzungu who plays footie is their very own novelty-factor neighbour...