Danger: beware of falling mangos

It’s strange how eclectic life can be sometimes. Some days you’re on top of the world, nothing can stop you, you might as well put on some tights, and a cape and start fighting crime. Others though it’s like everything is out to get you. A few days ago I had the latter. I was dealing with the typical chanting of toubabo as I passed small groups of children by the school. The schools here sometimes more closely resemble an African depiction of “Lord of the Flies” than any form of learning institution. I told one of the teachers that once to give him a hard time… he didn’t get it. The same teacher that a month ago tried to explain to me that he doesn’t like speaking Mandinka to me because, “Your people come here, especially your women, and learn Mandinka very fast. So I will not speak modern Mandinka to you but my grandfathers Mandinka, or my grandfather’s grandfather’s Mandinka.” His tone ensued that women have no right to be smarter than men, I then told them that there wasn’t a word for it in the local language, but there was in English: Bigotry. I continued to walk past the school to the hospital for work and by some blessed coincidence stopped and greeted my friend Mustafa on the side of the road. Having completed an abridged greeting I began to walk under the shelter of another one of the copious mango trees. Clunk! Mere centimeters from my face fell a ripe softball sized mango. I laughed, mostly out of relief that I would if lucky, have received at least a concussion.

To children the mangos are part game part precious treasure. At the very sound of a mongo falling to the ground dozens of children instinctively flinch. If they are anywhere within fifty meters of it they’ll sprint, scrambling and scraping for a chance at the prize. It will end with the essential duality of competition, crying from scrapes, bites, and being mangoless or the triumphant glow of victory and quite literally the sweetness of it. This doesn’t happy everywhere mind you, in areas like mine where Mangos are more plentiful and the kids behaved they are very gracious, up country though it can be a street fight. I saw once visiting a friend of mine up country a kid fight with all his heart to get a mango, his scrawny frame enduring ample cuts and bruises; and when the dust settled and he held the trophy in his hand… he handed it to me, but I didn’t have the heart to accept it. I told him, “thank you very much but I’m full to the tip, you eat it”. I lied. So the mango that almost took my life fell in front of me, I like mangos but by no means need to eat them everyday as some people around here. A girl around 8 years old was sitting only ten feet from me off the path passing the time. Her eyes lit up at the sound of the mango’s impact so I gave it to her. Later I would be recounting the sheer horror of the near death experience to the Gambian hospital staff, and right after the “Clunk!” they injected, “So did you eat the mango?!?

On a side note the other day I had an interesting conversation with some men about the American presidential election. For some odd reason the entire country is fascinated about it and most of them keep more up to date on it than I do. I may just let them vote for me. The majority of them as you would have guessed are Obama fans and when the topic of Hilary came up this is what my host brother had to say, “Hillary can’t be president because there are many bad boys in America who want their freedom, and she is very slow. Obama will win, he is the man I support. He is very fast in brain too. He’s a young man, young men are much more capable of ruling than old men.” –Abdoulie A. Jarju.

I painted my house a few days ago. Well really just the doors and windows, a deep shade of blue, I’m going for the Mediterranean look it reminds me of Greece. I was painting, singing to the radio and attempting to guard my door from several very stubborn children who don’t understand the phrase, “don’t touch, wet paint.” While I was playing defensive linesmen to my house a few of my football players invited me to the bush to go hunting with them the next morning so they could show me some of the wildlife. I had been before but they needed the escape. Once again we had no luck hunting… especially considering we didn’t even have the dogs this time and were going to attempt to kill the squirrels with large sticks and our own wit. We walked all the way south past the village and walked past a border post. There we found a baboon, someone’s pet, tied up to a tree. Don’t worry I got pictures of it preening my hair, good times. The guy yelled at me and wanted me to pay him for the pictures but I told him in Mandinka I didn’t have any money and that it was impolite to give me a hard time about it. He thought I was British, so in English I told him to piss off.

An African Exorcism

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Is all I said later to a friend who had asked. I will attempt to do this story justice but I fear I won’t be able to truly recount it; I feel though, having bore witness to the oddity I must at least attempt to. It was the quarterfinal game of my village’s regional football tournament. I’ve told you about the splendid ridiculousness of the group stage victory and the team was nervous to move on to the knock-out stage. The game started quickly as we were rushed onto our gilly and moved through some rare forested bush roads. It was a more open game then I’m used to with ball possession going back and forth, neither team holding it for very long. Their team was bigger than us, and from what I heard far more experienced, as the corrupt footballing system again allowed our opponents to take on far to many first division players (none of which remotely lived in their team’s village). Regardless though for the first half we were holding our own, with the exception of our flanks. A shitty foul was given in our penalty box and amidst sighing fans a goal was scored. Two counter attack goals by the opposition would follow shortly after and moral crashed. It was excruciating to watch and I know the rest of the coaching staff could have done without having to be there through second half.

As the whistle blew for half time most of the team was brought to tears, walking off the field like they had just watched their puppy be beaten to death. There they sat, balling there eyes out, most said nothing, completely drained not from their fitness but the situation; the others were cursing the crowd controllers, Army soldiers equipped with AK-47s and egos. We had to break up one fight and calm one of the guards who was fairly pissed off by some off color sideline comments. It seemed every man in the village that had come to watch the game, just had to put their two cents in. I shoed away the spectators from the bench as best as I could, not that I had a great inspirational speech planed, but that was not the way to go about things. The last thing the team needed was to be yelled at by elders calling them brainless. I kept it positive and told them the things they were doing well, I told them to forget the first half and just play the game, not to get frustrated and never give up. I did end up getting hokey and saying nothing’s impossible and that I truly believed without a doubt in my mind that they would come back; thankfully I have a doctorate in bullshiting.

The second half began and ended, drawn out like a small town actor’s flamboyant death scene. The team had shown a valiant effort though regardless; but a few atrocious calls and a red card later we were walking to the gilly home. Grown men balled and players were brought to their knees. It was beautiful in a way, to see people so passionate about a game; but here in Africa, it was never just a game. We piled into the vehicles, people asked me what I thought happened and I would explain our absence of ball possession, vulnerability on the flanks, and our lack of positional awareness, but I would conclude with a simple, “You practice how you play.” It was true, though I had taught them a lot their discipline and maturity on the practice field was less than admirable. None the less they could have won the game with a little better luck.

It was a pretty ride back with the sun setting through the woods. I stuck my head out the window of the front seat to take in the cool breeze, a short relief from the muggy vehicle. Brush fires were burning to our left clearing the forest floor of debris and leaving it only in cinders. The smell outside reminded me of summer campfires and late night stories. Without warning I heard arguing in the back and the pounding of feet on the metal roof. Looking out to my right I saw one of my players running off into the bush at full sprint. The car stopped and a group of us began chasing after him jumping over bushes and plowing over freshly grown saplings. We ran further into the wilds as the van drifted from view only to bring large trees above and a thick layer of ash below. Gray dust rose with every step and only black craters remained. We wouldn’t find him until later, curled in the large buttresses of a mahogany tree. We walked farther through the brush and intercepted the gilly past a clearing. Driving further down the road my goal keeper began convulsing violently and five players had to hold him down. We stopped the car again and I ran in the back and pulled out a mat to lay him on. With the little water we had left we washed him down. One of the older men began whispering something in his ear, he then started to blow in both his ears and his mouth until he calmed down. We got back in the gilly for only a few minutes before it began again with two of my players now becoming violent and cursing with out remorse. Stopping again I had to hold one of them with both hands locked around his torso as we brought them to the side of the road. They began trembling again and the older man repeated the breathing ritual. One of them in the shuddering called out my name and exclaimed, “Meng bi coos woli bi cas!” old Mandinka for: what is here is there.

I’d love to leave it that creepy but at that point I believed this one was putting on an act. That proverb he used I say on a regular basis in village; I use it as a deterrent against answering the question in Mandinka on a regular basis, “which is sweeter, America or Gambia?” The kids rag on me all the time that I actually know that proverb and repeat it whenever they see me, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that when he saw me helping the other boys hold him down he would repeat that. Either way they were able to calm him down a little. My goalie wasn’t doing as well. He had begun convulsing harder and it took twice as many guys to hold him down. He started screaming curses and gibberish, I know enough of the local languages to know it wasn’t sensical speech. A large group of men picked him up and began walking him to the nearest village and I hopped back in the truck to drive ahead and fill up some water at the pump. The pump water came out murky brown and I was forced to filter out the sediment with an old t-shirt. Once the flat bed truck of supporters and the men caring the player had reached the village a few minutes later, they were immediately directed to the marabou’s compound, the village “medicine man”. They laid him down and he began foaming profusely from the mouth, his eyes clouded over and became red as he continued to what looked like seizure, but less erratic. It wasn’t full body shaking as much as twitching waves of muscles as if something was moving through him. The Marabou began saying prayers and rubbing what smelled like fresh limes over each part of his body. He then sprinkled some sort of powder with it. Yelling and arguing by the older men in Mandinka began and it was two fast and loud for me to follow… something about a “key”.

Stabilizing him the Marabou rushed us back to the vehicle and told us to hurry back to the village. The sun was setting in the trees as we raced back through the bush road narrowly avoiding large branches and pot holes. The roof passengers had ditched at the beginning as it was getting too dangerous even for them to hang on, so they decided to walk the 5k home. We drove further and further into the encroaching darkness of the sinking sun until it vanished completely, the two troubled players moaning eerily in the background. Not exactly sure how the heap of junk made it back but we did. The car chase reminded me of that scene in Jurassic Park where the T-Rex is chasing the jeep and I kept looking back into the shadows for the dinosaur’s silhouette. As we reached our village we took a sharp turn away from town that caught me off guard. We zipped onto a constricted side street narrowly avoiding a drainage ditch on the right; then we took another left strait into the bush. I had passed by this place that morning on a walk but never knew this rickety earthen compound on the outskirts of town had been our Marabou’s. The two troubled boys were taken inside one by one as most of the passengers waited outside. Would it be rude if I walked in and wanted to watch? Would they push me out? I have to go in there and see for my own irrepressible curiosity. I dared.

I walked into the dank but homely hut, the only light coming from a jerry-rigged flashlight affixed to the ceiling. I walked further into the back room lit only by a single candle on the floor, the boys being held down on a mat by the bed. Oddly Latin salsa music was emanating somewhere in the darkness until the dancing flame of the candle exposed the radio in the corner. The ritual began much the same as before and ended unclimatically with the player’s bodies relaxing as they passed out on the ground. I was half expecting to hear, “THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELLS YOU!!!” but disappointingly no.

They awoke delirious as we asked them the day, where they were, and random people in the room’s names. It was over. We walked backed to the center of town and I to my hut. A few of the players tried to explain to me that this was African magic, that this is why football in Africa will never go anywhere. They went on to say that essentially in Africa you’re subject to spell attacks by opposing team’s “witches” and marabous. A few of my players even told me that they couldn’t see the ball at times in the game, and that they felt like something was stopping them from playing their best. Was it all an act, if so why? Was this just an excuse for an embarrassing loss, that maybe by embellishing this magic it took the pressure off of the players? In the end I’ll never know for sure. Maybe it was just a mental defense against dealing with the reality of losing the critical game. A lot of people here are incredibly superstitious and the mind is a powerful thing. Maybe in the end, magic does exist? Who’s to say? As for the business with the key, I later found out that the day before our team had done some magic with the marabou to protect us from dark curses during the game. Out of absentmindedness or being too busy one of the other coaches had supposedly neglected to pick up a lock and key from the Marabou that morning; a key that with a certain further ritual would safeguard the defensive spells completion. I’m still trying to figure out what really happened but as for now I believe I witnessed my first exorcism…until next game, welcome to Africa.

Additional asinine adventures in Africa

I had another run in with the diverse assortment of animal species that live in my hut again. It was late at night after a meeting with the football team on how they need to get their act together. It didn’t end till 12pm and I was exhausted and feeling a cold coming on. Entering into my house I immediately stripped down to my sleeping clothes… aka the clothes G-d blessed me with. Don’t judge, it’s fucking hot here and a man’s got to sleep. So anyways, I sit down on my bed in nothing but my skippies and a dollar sized tanish scorpion runs right across my foot and into my embarrassingly large collection of shoes. I’m the beast-master and all but it was late and I’m not going to lie it scared the ba-jesus out of me. The first thing I did was yell at Dano, my cat, who didn’t exactly live up to her “hunter” namesake. Lazy bitch. I proceeded to then strategically hunt down and kill the intruder that so rudely disturbed my much needed beauty sleep. I cornered the monster in between my trunk and a large Listerine bottle. With the scorpion’s stinger ready to strike Dano decided to step into action and prove her valor. As to keep my kitten’s confidence up I pushed her away so she wouldn’t get her ass kicked. There I was poised and ready to strike, my weapon the back end of a plastic broom handle, and with a single focused blow slayed the monster in my hut. Dano jumped in to drag off the carcass before I could stop her and I spent 10 minutes chasing her down and disposing the carcass. Maybe when she gets bigger I’ll let her take on one of her own. As any of my stories would not be complete with out a touch of irony, coincidentally the name and official mascot of the Gambian National Football team is the Scorpions.

The other day the hospital received a very hefty donation of about 20 computers and monitors so that I could teach IT skills. I was taken aback by how quick we received them as I assumed I’d be waiting for months to even get one. I set an entire day aside to check them all and see how many I could use. One by one I went through all of them. Some made strange beeps then never turned on, other’s gave dramatic dying noises like a wounded animal. In the end only three ended up working, and of those three only one was in a useable condition that I could actually attempt to fix well enough to run a typing program. Yet all three… unfortunately… were in Dutch, a language that could easily be mistaken for Volgon; back to the drawing boards on the computer front.

On a worse note, I was toubabed in my own compound the other night. It was late and I wasn’t having the best day of my life, so I broke out my laptop and decided to watch an old episode of Scrubs with my family (if you’ve read early blogs about the problems associated with showing American television to Gambians, disregard it as my compound is a million times more exposed to western society than back in training village). There we sat, enjoying the humor of Zack Braff, my host mother even thought it was me (I was doubly flattered), and watched “the Todd” indiscreetly expose his ‘Banana Hammocks’. A young boy around 10 years or so walked into my host brothers house as we were enjoying the show and decided this was the optimal time to proclaim, “Toubab!”… yes, there is a white person in the room. It absolutely baffles me the nerve of these kids some times. What exactly was going through his mind, that he decided it was necessary to announce there’s a white person here, in the middle our compound, while we were intently watching a show. What confuses me even more is why the families here see nothing wrong with it. In America lets say, if a child were to be delivering a newspaper to my house in Cincinnati, while I was entertaining a black friend of mine; then he was to walk in and announce, “Black person! There’s a black person here!”. That child would be in an amount of trouble deeper than if he had called his sister a two cent Caucasian hussy. He would then be grounded for life and if it was me would feel guilty for a good amount of time after the punishment was over. If a child was walking around in front of other company screaming, “Blacky!” every time he passed an African American, the parents would be more than shamed by their child’s actions. Here though it seems they are completely ok with that behavior, more over in some areas literally train their children to say it. Just the other day I walked past a man (who after I had asked him how the home people are in Mandinka he morbidly responded with they are all dead) by the school his entire family chanted “Demba Toubabo, Demba Toubabo” at me. That not only tells me they actually knew my name, but that they also preferred to be perpetually ignorant. It baffles me.

So before I conclude another Iliad of a blog entry I’d like to end with one last story. After my football teams victory the kids wanted to raise some money for the transportation fees etc. and they all decided to throw a huge dance party at the school and charge 25 dalasis to enter. Doing the math in my head it was going to take 40 people to pay off the DJ who was charging us 1,000 dalasis for the event. It was a mess of sound and speakers packed into an office sized cubical classroom… a medical problem waiting to happen. I had fun the entire evening trying to teach the guys my age how we dance in clubs in America: aka I put a little crunk into a dance party which far more resembled a Jr. High dance than a club. Muslims schmuslims, dancing takes two. Regardless of the fact that the team actually ended up losing money on the event I woke up with my ears still ringing and a little disoriented from another night of lucid mephlaquine dreaming (the malaria medication… not to be confused with methanphenimines please, mother I don’t do drugs so don’t you dare think your kid ran off to the peace corps and started toking it up). Anyways in the confused mess of bringing myself back from the dream world there was an acute lapse in my thinking paradigm and I managed to put on a unique pair of pants. I walked the 30 meters to the pump to fetch water like any other day, greeting the dozen ladies who normally presence the pump for a chat while waiting to collect water. I sat down, continued my greetings, and waiting a few, what are now bewildering, moments to which I realized I had selected my favorite pair of genes that day. The pair that my mother pleaded I didn’t take to Africa as a cavernous rip was located right below my zipper… but they were my favorite pants, and I just assumed I’d be wearing underwear on a regular basis. That morning though, I had not, in a mess of daze and confusion, and exposed my testicles to the entirety of the pump. In retrospect I think I handled it very smoothly by not jumping at the realization of the situation; and not noticing anyone having remotely reacted to the spectacle I can only pray that by the grace of G-d my lanky legs had obscured my parts from view. Recently I was able to fix my jeans with the help of the sewing machine at the skill center, my favorite pair of jeans lives again. Just another day in the life of Steven in Africa.

What’s these gillys and bumpsters Steven keeps talking about anyways?

So I’ve mentioned a lot the “gilly gilly” bus service that runs throughout west Africa but I don’t think I’ve every truly explained it. I have a few good stories from the last week (one of them being my last blog entry which was too big to put in this one) but I’ll go into them later. Let me start to attempt to explain the experience that is a gilly ride. What is a gilly? A gilly or gilly gilly, is usually an old decrepit 20 passenger van that they pack far more than 20 people into. No hubcaps, no bumpers, muffler dragging across the pothole ridden roads. I got in one one time which even had the added amenity of a see through floor like that of a glass bottom boat, except instead of beautiful array of coral reef life you get the pleasure to bear witness to a dirt road and a cloud of dust below your feet. An endless abyss to which if any item is dropped on the floor will surely fall victim to a dusty tomb of dirt and sand, never to be seen again. What’s even better is the “bling” which is placed on the van by the driver. Most carry tacky window drapes across the tops with pictures of famous religious leaders stuck to the windows and remnants of American and western influence. The best of these are the cars with random American paraphernalia on them such as large stickers of “Rambo” and the “A-team”, some of the PCVs have an on going joke on the fleet of “Creed” gillys that flash a large sticker across the front praising the band which if you don’t know is not only typical American rock but have been associated with strong Christian undertones… doubly ironic. Most gillys also include painted saying such as, “Peace to all”, “I’m a lover not a fighter”, and my personal favorites, “American gangsta’”.

So how do you catch one of these gillys? In major cities like Birkama, Soma, Basse, and anywhere in the Capital there are car parks where you can buy a ticket or find cars going to your area. In village though or out walking around on one of the two main Gambian roads (all other roads are merely bush roads) you can flag one down and hop on. If you can though try and get to a car park because in some places at certain time of the day a million gillys may pass by but they’ll all be full. A few words of advice though for riding on these moving hunks of metal. 1. Don’t be offended by pushing, shoving, people coughing all over you, babies crying and/or the occasional biting roster. If you’re claustrophobic you may be better off walking. 2. Be aware they will try and give you the white man fare so always ask around for the local rates. 3. Know the territory, some places have frequent gillys but others you may be able to get one in the morning but good luck trying to get back in the afternoon. 4. You will get dusty so if you’re a man don’t wear nice clothes. If you’re a woman on the other hand you may be better off sacrificing your African apparel and dressing up for the occasion, as that’s what the locals do and you can avoid heavy pestering by doing so (or so I’ve heard). 5. Do use the bathroom before hand, especially on longer rides stopping may be sporadic and if you have to release the entire contents of your colon do to the well water you drank the other day; pray you’re wearing thick pants. 6. On top of this the road conditions are not even close to decent and your seat will be vibrating like a bed in a cheap honeymoon motel; while the ride may feel like you’re on Disney’s Magic Kingdom’s “Star Tours” I insist you do not by anything at the gift shop. Instead of C3PO you’ll have a less than courteous, short tempered driver. Due to some of the obscene road conditions in some areas it makes more sense to just ride a bike part of the way (if you have a place to stash it) vs. getting a gilly. From my site for instance I ride my bike part of the way and pass a good amount of gillys; as they struggle through a midfield of potholes and concrete gorges I wave to the irritated passengers. Also take into consideration road conditions during the rainy season and plan accordingly 7. Most gillys also hire a small boy or two to collect fares. They are usually punk kids and it’s fun to watch them act cool, attempt badly to spit game to girls, and hang off the back of the gillys… then fall off into the middle of the road. Don’t even attempt to carry on a conversation with them, all the conversations will end with trying to get you to take them to America or nothing remotely interesting. 8. Also be careful when giving them large bill dominations that need change. Most of the time it’s just a hassle, and in smaller gillys this may be impossible, so try and carry exact change. Also I had an incident once where a kid posed as a gilly apprentice and tried to run off with my change; don’t though be alarmed if they do run off to find change, they will come back most of the time, mine was just an isolated incident.

What’s a bumpster you ask? Bumpsters are sadly an intricate part of Gambian life. It may be the easiest way for a young Gambian man to make money to some extent “legitimately”. Bumpsters are the blue collar boys of the Gambian sex-tourism industry. You can always find them on the beach and in the tourist neighborhoods and they later become a plague on the smaller villages as the tourist season slows down and they return home. Identifying characteristics: sleeveless net shirts and wife beaters with bright colors or country flags, rasta haircuts/hats and/or accents, 70s basketball shorts, and like most Gambian boys will also be sporting a wide assortment of g-unit/50 cent attire. Will be seen doing pushups, sit-ups, running on the beach, and doing stretches that attempt to show off their muscles. Will also be seen holding hands with unbelievably old and unattractive European women. Like the small boys on the gillys most conversations you have with them will be an utter waste of time and scientists have proven that for every hour you spend with a bumpster your IQ will decrease 2.3%. Unlike the small boys, most of the time they are not to be trusted, these are boys who make a living suckling off ancestral European titties, drinking, wasting their lives away smoking hash, and listening to bad reggae music with random laser sound effects (it’s like someone got their first soundboard and wanted to use all the buttons in random places). I have thought for long periods of time though of what would encourage these kids to choose such a life; but realistically who could blame them. To them it’s not a bad gig at all, I’m not supporting it but put yourself in their shoes. You get to sleep with many exotic (although repulsive, still exotic) women, relax all day on the beach, listen to your favorite music, have conversations and exchange knowledge with people from all over the world, learn new languages, and now have a window to reach a Gambian boys true mecca… the west. America and Europe to them is paradise and thousands have died trying to get there: on overcrowded passenger ships trying to sneak onto European soil, to diseases passed through sexual promiscuity in Africa and to malnutrition. I’d like to make it clear though that I do not judge the bumpsters, but rather make sure I take adequate measures to avoid dealing with them. It should also be stated that there are, although very rare, female “bumpsters” but they aren’t characterized with that word as you know. TIA. If I could only find a strong argument against theirs to urge them on the negative effects of such a life, but most won’t hear it.

Where the game isn't just a game

It was Thursday on the first of May. I awoke in a pool of sweat like usual, shivering from the cool Atlantic breeze coming in through the window of the stodge (the peace corps frat house). I hadn’t planed on breaking three month challenge by staying the night in the capital but with Dan leaving and everyone in town to take a break from village life time got the best of us, and by the time we realized it I wasn’t going to be able to catch a gilly back to site. I went back to the office to check some last minute e-mails then took a taxi to Westfield to hail a gilly gilly to site. It was game day. And as the newly elected coach of the village’s football team they were counting on me to I guess pull some sort of miracle win for them from the sidelines. Half the village still thinks I’m English or German and thus an expert in football, ironically if they only knew how much the entire country of America loathed soccer and saw it as a “child’s” sport. Luckily for them though I am the rare American who has obsessed over the beautiful game my entire life.

The afternoon arrived quickly and the entire football team came for an inspirational game day speech from their coach… and yes I gave them the ‘ol “win one for the gipper/mighty ducks speech”. An empty “15” passenger van arrived shortly after and we crowded the entire team into it along with coaches, substitutes, reserves, and a few supporters who climbed on to the roof. Now it was transformed into a 30 passenger van, TIA. It was a half an hour ride along a sandy bush road to get to the game and we must have prayed 6 times before we got there. Before we left we prayed, along with stopping at every village on the way to say a little prayer, not to mention when we got there I was told to give a candle to a random woman and tell her to pray for our team (a common tradition in the area I’m told). We arrived into a wall of sound and energy, so immense it practically swept me off my feet. This wasn’t a 70,000 capacity Stanford Bridge or Anfield stadium in England but a bumpy field in west Africa with tree limbs for goal posts and it had me mistaken. The team and I were escorted through a maze of rice bag fencing and metal partitions amidst a large number of puzzled stares aimed solely in my direction. Frankly I think the administration of the football league here thought my village was cheating somehow having a foreign coach. The football commission in the area is incredibly anal about cheating and with full right. Corruption isn’t exactly alien to west Africa and in this major tournament it was common place to have first division national footballers come back to their cousin’s uncle’s brother’s village, claim to have lineage there, and play for the team. In Gambia though that’s fairly easy considering anyone can easily trace their family trees throughout the entire country. It’s become such a problem that the Football commission literally has to match each player to a photo to make sure that they are in fact from that village and/or have lived there for at least 6 months (which is why I’m thus coaching and not playing).

The match was coming up fast and we barely had time to do a full warm up and stretch. We were pushed off towards the field, our captain running out first into a herd of screaming fans. Even university football games in American don’t get this much crowd support. At the very least for a soccer match played on a sandy field with the lines merely the referee’s shoe indentations dragged across the ground. The whistle blew, the game began. The drum beats in the background were thunderous vibrated your very soul. Supporters gathered in groups to dance and sing as they screamed profanities at the referees and opposing team. This is how the game should be played; with passion and grace, pulse and pace. Logistically the first half was a disaster going a goal down early in the game ending the half down two to nothing. We barely touched the ball and I was on the sidelines trying very hard not to throw chairs and benches at the ref and my own players. Coming into half time though I urged the other coaches to be calm and remain supportive. If the kids needed anything it was to see our composure. Something had to be done, I told the team to catch their breath and I switched our formation from a standard 4-4-2 to a 3-5-2. We needed to start controlling the ball and the pace of the game, and considering every game in this tournament was a must win the sacrifice of a defender was well worth the support of a larger midfield. The second half started and from the first minute it was apparent a new team had entered the game. The opposition seemed to have felt very content with their 2 goal lead and gave up even with a few of their key players being injured in the early minutes. We took control of the game, having the majority of the ball possession and attacking chances and slowly came back. One goal came in the ‘75th minute, and as the final seconds wound down the emotions were high. You could feel the goal coming before it ever happened, a perfect pass through the defense to a sprinting attacker. He shot, and the goal was blocked by innate reflexes, only to be deflected into the path of our other striker. The crowd rushed the field like a summer storm and cheers erupted like thunder. The game ended as a draw but our team surely took the better result coming back from two goals down. I shook the hands of the opposing coaches and refs and the team celebrated by breaking out warm sodas from a cooler. Thankfully there was no ice… I had a nice shirt on.

We crowded back into the vans and headed back to the village chanting, the driver literally holding his hand on the horn the entire way. Coming back into town the atmosphere was overwhelming and overpowering. It was a raucous clash of boisterous chanting and screaming. A loud mess of spirit and rhythm like nothing I could ever imagine. These kids could have been war heroes coming home from a long and perilous campaign in a distant land. Their faces tan with distinct patches of dirt, their bodies riddled with growing bruises and dried blood, but their voices loud and clear. We drove through the entire village in song, children hanging on to the site of the van and the girls singing and dancing. Ending our parade of chaotic children we did another couple victory laps through my compound, barely fitting between the walls of mud brick houses and the low branches of a mango tree. This is how the game should be played: on a shitty field, with tattered shoes, degraded uniforms, and a pure heart. If only our lives could be lived as simply.

In recent news my football team played their second game in the group stage of the regional dry season tournament. We won 1-0 and advanced to the quarter-final round by a perfectly executed free kick. We won even with two of my players randomly collapsing on the field due to “Black Magic”. (… sigh). No joke 20 minutes into the match my goalie just falls over complaining of pulsing pain in the back of the head, but he’s able to get up and grit through the rest of the game a few minutes later. Then at the end of the first half my left defender keels over to the ground screaming in agony, yet he wasn’t near anyone to make any sort of collision. He began tossing and turning in the sand exclaiming that his body was “extremely hot” as if his very blood stream was circulating molten lava; as well as abdominal pain that he said felt like an anvil. I rationally attempted to have the situation explained to me but was told that I “wouldn’t understand… this is a black man’s curse, African sorcery.” They went on to tell me that the opposing team must have paid a ‘Maraboo’, a Gambian shaman if you will, to cast a spell upon our team so that it’s players would begin to burn up and not be able to play. My defender began to stand up all of a sudden, drunkenly stating he was fine but he was obviously delirious. Attempting to reduce the already rapidly spreading hysteria among my team I urged a few of the older men to keep him down or take him somewhere else. We walked back to the locker room and I gave my usual inspiring halftime speech over the gut wrenching cries of my cursed outside defender. The game ended and both players seemed to miraculously feel better. Whether that was because of the coursing adrenaline from the win or the curse wearing off, who knows. As a scientist I’d love to discredit the entire event medically, but a piece of me still thinks it’s pretty fun to believe in magic. What would life be like after all without the romantic lure of the supernatural, that enchanting thirst to explore the unexplained. *X-Files theme plays in background*