Sweet, sweet victory - in big ways and little
*****
The football tournament is over - and was absolutely successful.
The day started off early - 3 AM for me - and quite unnecessarily as the bus was two hours late and didn’t get there until 7:30. This moved our final game back to the afternoon instead of the morning, which, in turn, made our entire trip hours longer than it needed to be.
In a word: frustrating. In a feeling: bleh. It wasn’t unexpected. Nothing ever goes to plan.
But in the end, it worked out fine because my friend’s people had to travel to pick up a referee who was A) not from that village and B) not from either groups’ tribe (the Mamprusis & Dagombas) so that we could ensure impartiality - thus staving off any possible violence, which happens a lot at big turn-outs like this. The host team also didn’t have jersies, so they were waiting until the afternoon tro came to deliver them. Oh, Ghana. :)
The whole team (and a number of supporters - with drums and whistles and flags a flyin’) traveled to my friend Lizzy’s site to play against her team - which has been doing the same rounds of education and games as I’ve been doing. It was sort of a culmination of both sides - the game itself was the final for the tournament and the education was a round-up to everything we’d been doing so far.
We had a nurse come in and talk about all of the birth control methods they had available at local clinics, how much they cost, their methods of use, misconceptions people have about birth control, etc. There were a LOT of questions asked - and answered - which was great. My counterpart even stood up and helped - unprompted - with a female condom demonstration. You have no idea how happy that makes me - to see the people I’ve been working with start to take action and initiative during events like these. That’s the end goal - to educate people who can be used as resources when we leave.
After that, we chilled out for a few hours (it was 115 in the shade that day - who knew there were weather forecasts available? Not me!) and then started the game. There was a great turnout - about 1,000 people. I’ll spare the suspense and say that my team won 1-0 on a beautiful goal in about the 17th minute. I have no idea, though.
Lizzy’s counterpart, Old Boy, was supposed to be keeping time, but he didn’t have a watch. Every now and then he’d ask me what time it was, but I didn’t take that to mean that he’d transferred time-keeping responsibilities on to me. That bit of information was not passed along. Needless to say, I found out when the second half had gone on for 55 minutes. The coach on my team came up to me complaining that the game had gone on too long - and that it was a one-goal game, it needed to end. I was like “I’m not the time-keeper!” which was when, of course, I found out that I was the time-keeper.
Gotta love it. I painted a clay pot into a trophy with the tournament name on it and first place winner. The hope is that we’ll do the event next year and the trophy can continue on as the prize. The guys loved it. The host town was amazing - everyone was so happy. Drums were blasting, people were dancing and shouting and singing. This village is very isolated - no one ever comes out that far to play football against them. There’s a 30K stretch of nothing and then, when you reach that town, that’s it. It’s the end of the road. They play against one another sometimes (the town is large - about 20,000 people), but never against an outside village. Even with the loss, it was a fun day for all.
So we rode off into the sunset, drummers on top, pounding away, the driver and the mate with whistles in their mouths, the team inside singing along and me with an exhausted, yet satisfied smile on my face.
The football tournament is over - and was absolutely successful.
The day started off early - 3 AM for me - and quite unnecessarily as the bus was two hours late and didn’t get there until 7:30. This moved our final game back to the afternoon instead of the morning, which, in turn, made our entire trip hours longer than it needed to be.
In a word: frustrating. In a feeling: bleh. It wasn’t unexpected. Nothing ever goes to plan.
But in the end, it worked out fine because my friend’s people had to travel to pick up a referee who was A) not from that village and B) not from either groups’ tribe (the Mamprusis & Dagombas) so that we could ensure impartiality - thus staving off any possible violence, which happens a lot at big turn-outs like this. The host team also didn’t have jersies, so they were waiting until the afternoon tro came to deliver them. Oh, Ghana. :)
The whole team (and a number of supporters - with drums and whistles and flags a flyin’) traveled to my friend Lizzy’s site to play against her team - which has been doing the same rounds of education and games as I’ve been doing. It was sort of a culmination of both sides - the game itself was the final for the tournament and the education was a round-up to everything we’d been doing so far.
We had a nurse come in and talk about all of the birth control methods they had available at local clinics, how much they cost, their methods of use, misconceptions people have about birth control, etc. There were a LOT of questions asked - and answered - which was great. My counterpart even stood up and helped - unprompted - with a female condom demonstration. You have no idea how happy that makes me - to see the people I’ve been working with start to take action and initiative during events like these. That’s the end goal - to educate people who can be used as resources when we leave.
After that, we chilled out for a few hours (it was 115 in the shade that day - who knew there were weather forecasts available? Not me!) and then started the game. There was a great turnout - about 1,000 people. I’ll spare the suspense and say that my team won 1-0 on a beautiful goal in about the 17th minute. I have no idea, though.
Lizzy’s counterpart, Old Boy, was supposed to be keeping time, but he didn’t have a watch. Every now and then he’d ask me what time it was, but I didn’t take that to mean that he’d transferred time-keeping responsibilities on to me. That bit of information was not passed along. Needless to say, I found out when the second half had gone on for 55 minutes. The coach on my team came up to me complaining that the game had gone on too long - and that it was a one-goal game, it needed to end. I was like “I’m not the time-keeper!” which was when, of course, I found out that I was the time-keeper.
Gotta love it. I painted a clay pot into a trophy with the tournament name on it and first place winner. The hope is that we’ll do the event next year and the trophy can continue on as the prize. The guys loved it. The host town was amazing - everyone was so happy. Drums were blasting, people were dancing and shouting and singing. This village is very isolated - no one ever comes out that far to play football against them. There’s a 30K stretch of nothing and then, when you reach that town, that’s it. It’s the end of the road. They play against one another sometimes (the town is large - about 20,000 people), but never against an outside village. Even with the loss, it was a fun day for all.
So we rode off into the sunset, drummers on top, pounding away, the driver and the mate with whistles in their mouths, the team inside singing along and me with an exhausted, yet satisfied smile on my face.