garbage soccer

this past saturday we had an event for work, and there was a futbol game as part of the event. it was some of our grassroot soccer coaches vs lusaka police. we decided to invite the police to play in the game so they could understand what grassroot soccer is about. with the election going on this year, the police put stops to lots of rallies going on, and we didn't want them thinking our events were rallies for the election. so more than anything, it was to get them on our good side.

however, the morning of the event there were torrential downpours, and the field where the game was being hosted was barely able to be called a field. it was basically a big dirt field with trash and sewage all over it. so, with the rains, it made it even better haha. there were standing puddles of mud 6 inches deep all over the field. one quarter of the field was covered in black sewage. i never fully ventured over there, but some of the guys who played said it was foul. one of our coaches, who grew up playing on garbage covered dirt fields, got tackled and went face first into the sludge. he sat there for a minute wiping the nastiness off his face until one of his teammates came over to see if he was ok. his only response was, "disgusting." if he says it's disgusting, then you know it must be pretty bad hah.

the game ended up a 1-1 tie, which was probably good we didn't beat the police to keep them in our good graces.

the rest of the event went on, even with the rains. we had a big tent set up, so whenever the rains started, everyone just huddled under the tents to stay dry. at times though it got pretty chaotic bc so many people were pushing and trying to escape the rain. i somehow got put in charge of "cloud control" (crowd control), and let me tell you, this cloud was out of control.

also, it was very difficult to control the cloud during the futbol match. the area we were set up in was limited, so the tent with the music was right on the sidelines of the futbol field. kids were constantly running onto the field to play and dance and i constantly had to keep pulling them back. it was funny, if i asked them to move back, they looked at me like i was speaking a foreign language. but if i drew a line in the dirt and told them not to cross it, they immediately got it. that made things a bit easier.

as the game was going on, a little 3 year old girl ran onto the field and almost got bulldozed by one of the players. luckily, the player somewhat dodged her as i grabbed her arm and ripped her off the field. i seriously thought she was going to get run over though.

even with the rains and tough cloud control, the event went really well! we had drama groups come and perform, a couple really big zambian artists come perform, the futbol match, and hiv testing set up for the local community.

at the end of the event, when it was time to take down all the tents and dissemble everything, of course it started pouring down rain again. but, we were so ready to be done for the day, that a group of us just sucked it up and got soaked. it was kinda fun. in the end it turned into a big wrestling, mud fight. easy to do since the field now looked like a lake by this point....just with trash floating everywhere.