The Football Match

Hello again!

Well, last Saturday - on my first weekend in my new accomodation within the campus of the partner organisation I'm now working with - I was invited out by a colleague to see a bit of local football. Not just any old football now, but the semi-finals of the President Bingu wa Mutharika cup, between Lilongwe Silver Strikers and Blantyre Escom! Not that that meant a whole lot to me, I'm not normally remotely interested in football :-) But nonetheless, I thought, why not? It would be interesting to see a local game, and maybe get a bit more accustomed to the city centre while I was at it.

I actually really enjoyed it! I had been unsure about coming - this was the day after my sickness on the field trip in my last post, and I was still feeling decidedly un-kosher!! But I put on my sunhat and a pair of sunglasses and braved the Lilongwe heat anyway. We were not sitting in the VIP stands - though tickets were about the equivalent of 5 euro each and I could easily have afforded it, LOL!! But no, we were in the normal open-air seating, and I tell you now I couldn't have stood out more like a sore thumb if I was 8 feet tall and green with purple spots. I was a bit self-conscious at first, but I soon eased into it - apart from everyone being eager to know which team the azungu was here to support - *pffftttt!!!* - I didn't really wan't to say "I don't give a monkeys", so I decided I was supporting the local Silver Strikers.

They lost though... LOL! I probably cursed them with my support, poor things. It was a good match, though, from what I gathered in my extremely limited knowledge of football stuff, offside rule and whatnot.

What I found really funny at first, though, was the cheerleaders. That's what I dubbed them anyway!! Apparently, these gangs of about 20 or 30 men, one for either team, are paid to walk around the innermost ring around the pitch, chanting slogans for their team - most of which is entirely ad-lib - and waving the team scarves, etc. Generally to get the crowd going. You get the idea. They were very entertaining! Basically, the regular seating was just like ring upon ring of giant stone steps that people sat on, and this innermost ring was slightly cordoned off from the rest of the rings.

To get to the bathrooms, however, you had to walk around the pitch in precisely this innermost ring, and therein lay my problem halfway through the game. I'm currently drinking a ferocious amount of water to prevent dehydration - I'm aiming for 3 litres a day - and as the Frenchman once said in the Matrix Reloaded, "cause and effect, my love - I drank too much wine, now I must take a pees". Well, I really needed a "pees" halway through, and myself and my colleague had rather unfortunately positioned ourself precisely adjacent to the toilets. I was going to have to walk through the cheerleaders...

My colleague insisted on escorting me as far as the bathroom. I thought, at first, that this was probably unnecessary as I was pretty confident I'd manage to find my way to the giant sign marked "TOILET" all by myself. Ah, Grace, silly silly Grace...

Well, it rather quickly transpired that his presence was extremely useful! I eventually had to pass through this gang of locals, whereupon they instantly took up the booming chant in Chichewa - "the azungu has joined us! Look, the azungu supports our team!!" etc, etc - something along those lines, and crowding around me and stuff. Well - apart from being more absolutely MORTIFIED than I ever recall being in my adult life, I was also more than a little intimidated, not to mention ticked off, at this massive gang of guys who basically wouldn't get the hell out of the way and let me pee! My poor, beleagured colleague more or less had to bulldoze my way out of the group, up the steps, and take me around the stadium on the outside, to use the bathrooms of the VIP area.

I was ticked off, but hey... I got to pee! plus I got to use the "VIP" toilets without paying, which they let me do for free, more or less solely because I was white (well, there was no chance of me sneaking into the seating unnoticed, LOL!!!). So, drama was over, and my colleague was very good about it. I think he was probably just embarassed for me, though it wasn't really necessary - I don't think anybody meant to be intimidating, it was just a tad annoying...

Anyway, all's well that ends well. And as we all know, all is fair in love and football.