An interesting debut

On Sunday I played in my first match for the Nyahuka Hotspurs, the local club soccer team. I was excited to play both because I love the game and because I would be experiencing something new, meeting new people, and getting out in the community in a different way. We drove to the match with the whole team in a big flatbed truck, right out to the border where we reached the primary school where we would be playing.

At the school, there were signs all over the place that were a bit shocking, at least for an American, to see at a primary school. “Say no to gifts for sex.” “Avoid sugar daddies.” And so on.  I’ve seen similar signs on billboards in Kampala, but it’s sobering to remember that those are messages that need to be heard by primary school children in this place. Those are realities faced by children here, dangers they face, and choices they may have to make. It was saddening, but there were a lot of important messages and it’s good that these things aren’t being ignored.

As we warmed up for the match, it was clear that the muzungu player was going to be a main attraction. Kids crowded around me as I warmed up and stretched, some of the braver ones sneaking up behind me to touch my shirt or my cleats. I can just picture these kids running back to their friends shouting, “I touched the muzungu! I dare you to try!” The place we were playing is out there, the sort of place where white people have probably seldom been seen, even with World Harvest having been here for 20 years. Neither of the two players whom I know where there, so I felt pretty alone as I tried to learn teammates names. I started at striker – a rather humorous idea if you’ve ever played soccer with me - and I quickly learned that this was going to be a pretty different game than any I’d played before.

For one thing, the field was spectacularly bumpy and uneven, and when coupled with people who play pretty disorganized ball to begin with, the style of play was pretty frustrating. But that wasn’t the hard part. In the first few minutes, I jumped for a header, and as I went up, an opponent just wound up and kicked me in the back of the legs, his foot never coming within 6 feet of the ball, and sending me sprawling. The referee never batted an eye. Minutes later I got someone’s cleats right in the chest, again with no response from the referee. Soon, it was every minute or so one of their players was making a tackle that would probably get him thrown out of any game in the States or in Europe, none of which were ever called. It culminated when they had a corner kick which led to a scramble in front of goal, with players on the ground, everyone kicking wildly. Their chief violence-doer proceeded to begin stomping on one of our players (in cleats, mind you) and punching him in the head, before some of our players were able to pull him away. The referee’s reaction? To ignore it. I suppose that he did give us a free kick, but he took no action against the offending player. I was pretty stunned and it made me think, do I really want to subject myself to this sort of danger on a regular basis? In college soccer, we all constantly risked injury for the team, but I don’t care about this team enough to do that. Plus, in college I could also know that the ref would protect me to some extent.

As the game went on, I continued getting kicked, sometimes more blatantly than others, and several times my temper flared and I went after the offending player on the next play. My coach and teammates were adamant that I be careful to avoid injury (what does that mean?), I think both because they felt that way about all of their players, but also because they didn’t want to muzungu to get hurt. I still have lumps and bruises all over my legs.

After the game I was talking to some teammates about the violence and they were also upset about it, but the general consensus was that “this is the village.” That’s just how it goes here. What do you expect when you come to the village? That’s one of the things that struck me – even when the events happened, there wasn’t much of a response. It seemed like that sort of behavior was simply to be expected and was relatively accepted. There were a lot of comments like “That is just their way.”

Now, growing up playing club soccer in north Jersey, I’ve seen my fair share of violence at soccer games (often between parents), but those incidents generally ended with red cards and police involvement, so there was a sense that, amid the chaos and violence, there was an overarching order. There was a background of rules, order, control, and safety. But none of that existed on Sunday. There was no one to provide safety or to enforce rules. And the fact that these rules weren’t in place, or weren’t enforced, led to the feeling that the violence wasn’t even considered a bad thing.

I got the feeling that outbursts of anger are a part of the culture and as such they are generally accepted. Jennifer told me that in Lubwisi, you say of an angry person that “anger has taken him,” implying that it is entirely out of the control of said person. How different that is for me as an American – think about how important personal responsibility is in American culture. Of course, nothing is true across the board in any culture, but this is a pretty strong  difference.

As for the important information, we won the game 1-0. I didn’t score, much to the disappointment of the fans, whom I was told were expecting two goals out of me, but I had fun (when I wasn’t getting kicked), and I hope to keep playing with them some, though I’m not sure how much. We drove back to Nyahuka with the truck full of players and fans singing in celebration of the victory. It was a fun experience, and one that provides a small window into culture and human nature, as so many experiences here do.