That was the cheer of our 5 person soccer team - consisting of a 4 10-12 year olds and me - as we lined up to play another group of neighborhood kids (also called Manchester United) at the Gonder "stadium", an 80m rocky dirt field. not your ideal field but you'd never tell based on the kids' enthusiasm, which was evident from the destruction of the brand-new soccer ball we'd given them less than 24 hours earlier.
as a foreigner (read: relatively wealthy person) in ethiopia, requests of all kinds are received. we'd gotten to be friendly with a few kids, bantering in english and amharic about the USA, football, world capitals, etc. when they asked us for a football, we were a bit skeptical as scams abound (e.g. we buy football, kids return football to store and split profits with store owner). but we had good vibes from these kids and, worst case, we'd be out $5 - the price of the cheapest soccer ball.
when we gave the ball to stephen, a diminutive fella with big eyes and curly hair, his eyes lit up, he said thank you and exchanged a meaningful hand shake and bow before sprinting home.
a day later, as we walked out of the ethiopian airlines office, stephen and his friends found us (they always seemed to know where we were) to offer their thanks, give us high 5s and insist that i play football with them. right now. as we walked to the stadium, other kids joined our crew, but our friends were quite protective, not allowing the other boys to talk to us or have any chocolates cath was handing out.
now on the pitch, a few things became obvious: 1) the kids had stacked our team 2) the kids were all much better than me and played a very physical brand of soccer 3) the combination of high altitude (7200ft) and being out of shape meant i would quickly need a sub 4) my nike running shoes were ill-suited to the surface but a vast improvement over the croc-like plastic sandals worn by the kids.
i felt like a kid as we ran around and i tried not to embarrass myself. i eventually planted myself on D where less skill and movement was required. meanwhile, on the sidelines, a few dozen younger neighborhood kids swarmed cath and begged her to take their picture.
after 15 minutes, we called the game on account of me nearly passing out. our team won 3-0, no thanks to the farangi. afterwards, we lined up for team photos, styled after their favorite english premier league teams. since, as i mentioned, the ball was practically falling apart, we told the kids we'd get them a proper ball. as we walked back into town, word had spread of our exploits. people - young and old - gave us thumbs up and said "good game!"
after we bought them a ball with an arsenal logo (unfortunately, no Man U balls were available), the kids gave us elaborate handshakes, said "we love you" and "we will miss you" and promised to visit DC when they grew up. all in all, a great experience and well worth the sore hamstrings i've had the past few days.
No comments:
Post a Comment