A Weekend of Soccer

So on Saturday, the girls had a soccer match. After all it is the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy, and I was excited to see the girls play. The girls were in the quarter finals of some on-going tournament of all the Nairobi schools. KGSA is the only private school in the tournament, and doing really well. We killed the other team four-nil. Some of the girls on the other team were clearly frustrated, two getting yellow cards for deliberate fouls and unsportsmanlike conduct. But despite their bad sportsmanship, I felt pretty bad for the other team. They just looked out of control and helpless, and our girls clearly had some technical skill. I’m not surprised knowing how seriously our coaching staff takes the game, the school and the girls. Head coach Moha showed up in a bright white suit and tie, spot-able from anywhere on the fields.

They traveled all the way from Kibera to some fields just down the street from my home in Kariakor. The fields were part of Starehe Boys’ School, one of the best public schools for boys in Nairobi. It was so silly and cute to see all these boys in their flashy suits with Starehe emblems watching girls play futbol and even flirting with them awkwardly after the game. It was a subtle reminder that these girls are in high school. Seeing them only in class and with all the differences between their education and mine, I forget they are going through some of the same cute innocent high school drama and excitement that I did.

KGSA even made a point to bring all of Class 1 and 2 (freshman and sophomores) to cheer on the team, on a Saturday when girls could have been doing other things. Principal Teca was telling me as he was distributing snacks and watching the girls socialize with students from other schools, “They don’t get out much like this, outings like these are really special.” True, that. School here is more than a full time job and relaxing doesn’t seem to be part of the job description. While technically school is only M-F 8am-4pm, and technically school closes for holidays from time to time, you’ll find these girls here at 6:30am, on Saturdays, even Sundays and often during holidays. And I’m not talking about just a few crazy over-achievers, I’m talking about all of them. These girls practically live in their uniforms. I was happy to just relax with them on the sideline and see some of the girls I used to teach math to rip up the soccer field. They were incredibly impressive.

But of course, some other teams played soccer this weekend and that damn octopus got it right again. I was rooting for the Netherlands but not too disappointed when Spain won. I thought about getting out and going to a club to watch the craziness of Nairobi sports fans, but decided against it. I was in a club for half of the Argentina/Germany game and it was loud but a little less than exciting. Maybe I just chose the wrong bar… During Ghana’s last game, an altercation broke out in a Nairobi club. After “taking it outside” one of the two men taunted the other, no kidding, chasing him around blowing a vuvuzela (the South African noisemakers they have at the game) in his face. Then the taunted one stabbed the vuvuzela man, who died on the way to the hospital. The other man was then followed to his home and lynched by other men from the bar. Morbidly disgusting, huh?

So I wasn’t too disappointed to stay at home and watch it with the biggest world cup fan I know, my dearest host mom, Monica. She has watched at least a half of every game and keeps track of the score results and some statistics on this little bracket sheet she has. I made some guacamole and bought Pringles (the closest thing I could find to tortilla chips) to make an event out of it. Chippa slept through the whole game claiming he knew Spain would win, and Mom at least pretended to like the guacamole and was a great game-watching partner. So I wouldn’t have imagined it any other way.