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Published: November 3rd 2005
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heartmelting colors
green, yellow, red.....
'my' colors now...
donned here by friends Maria and Moudou, with an anonymous fan inbetween While admittedly not a soccer, excuse me ‘football’ fan, I was genuinely excited to go to a big match here at the main stadium - if only for the cultural experience…and to share a good afternoon out with my football-crazed friends.
The game was the final qualifying match for Senegal to be in the World Cup (and hopefully to have the opportunity to kick the pants off France again…I just love when the colonized put the colonizers in their place.). Alas, though Senegal won the match against Mali that afternoon - the way the elimination works, they also needed Togo to lose their game against Congo that same afternoon, and it didn’t happen. So, off the Senegal lions go to the Africa Cup instead of the World.
I, among swarms of silent others, left the stadium in this weird bittersweet mood. I was also exhausted walking out of there. My adrenaline had skyrocketed from getting caught up in the thrill of it all…jumping to my feet and cheering with all the others. I had even got teary-eyed when the crowd, for the second time, whooped into cheers (the first time it seemed for apparently no reason, but I learned
dual personality
2 sides of the arena were packed, with the endzones scanty - where the fans would take off running back and forth after goals! before the second outburst, that the screaming was being instigated by fans relaying information from their radio earpieces about the Togo - Congo game…the celebratory news being transmitted was of course that Congo was scoring against Togo. As the truth is often negotiable here, the score of that game went from 1-0, to 2-0, to 3-0, to 4-0 --- Congo leading --- to suddenly 2-2 and then a final of 3-2, Togo. oh, well.) In the end, we all trudged out of there with our yellow, green and red Senegal colors donned on our sweaty t-shirts, worn as scarves, wrapped on our wrists, dragging from our bookbags…and a few had gone so far as to paint their bodies for the occasion. A whole new use of traditional tribal painting, I suppose.
But let me back up to where the fun began for me, the parking lot scene - not too different the chaos of Giants Stadium pre-game time…
Hawkers, vendors and trouble-makers aplenty…The colors that now make my heart skip were everywhere…mostly on flags and makeshift jerseys. And as with any major event in the states, the merchandise in the parking lot were pathetic imitations; the green star
where's waldo?
can you find the odd jersey out?
easier to spot is the rifled army guard keeping fans off the field...worked effectively i must say in Senegal’s flag had been reduced to a brownish blob with barely distinguishable 5 points. They were also selling fanny cushions! I couldn’t believe it! ...pieces of thin felt about 12x12 inches in size, but I guess that’s better than nothing when you’re talking concrete. (I had thought ahead of course and brought the airline blanket I had snagged from a snooty airline I’ll leave unnamed).
We made our way through the parking lot to the main entrance, at which point the guy who took my ticket ripped up the whole thing instead of giving me back my half. Uh-oh.
So, the next 3 checkpoints were me bumbling through an explanation that it was the crazy main ticket guy’s fault that I had six, wet scraps of paper to show (when he realized what he had done, the ticket collector had scraped round and round on the ground through thousands of ripped stubs trying to piece mine back together.) Luckily, we had 2 Senegalese friends with us who helped smooth over my explanations in Wolof. (These two guys, grown men, and protectorates of my friends Andy & Berengere’s house - had been transformed into giddy, wide-eyed teenagers in
cultural snapshot
my football-manic brit mate's tamed caucasian clapping juxtaposed with dark-skinned fists of victory anticipation of the game…so much so that I hadn’t recognized them when I first got into the taxi, I had mistaken them for some neighborhood ‘kids’! That’s what football does to the Senegalese.)
It was also at the main entrance that they had confiscated my water bottle (another example of applying the rules when it’s really most inconvenient for me)….
We circled around to our gate (labeled with huge numbers just like ‘our’ stadiums - though the paint had long faded off of these…making them distinguishable only by a different shade of concrete) ascended - and the first glimpse was breathtaking - a real stadium!!! It was much more than I had expected. Overwhelming in size, as well as in detail. Even the concrete seating area was organized - with evenly painted vertical lines marking the area you had for your bum, with a number and everything. They sort of had food venders, though they were scanty, perhaps due to it being Ramadan.
The beginning of the game was marked by what I guess was supposed to be helium balloons, but someone missed the helium memo -- and for the rest of the match, most of the failed balloon extravaganza bobbled around behind the white field lines.
We were sitting right next to one of the major djembe drum contingents - non-stop throughout the game. Most were donning Senegal jerseys…lots of ‘11’s for the faved player, ‘Diouf’. Except for this one guy, who had on a number ‘23’ - as in, ‘Michael Jordan 23’. The world is too much sometimes. I got a laugh out of that one. Here he is amongst all his comrades in a sea of yellows, greens and reds…with his white and navy blue trim American basketball jersey.
Once the game was underway, the exuberance of the fans was downright endearing. When goals were scored, the crowd erupted - acoustically and physically. Lots of fans took off running full speed around the stadium - what I thought was a clever, invigorating and harmless display of their excitement!!!!
On top of which, most Muslims don’t drink, and particularly now with Ramadan - so without alcohol as an excuse, it was fun to think how all the crazy behavior stemmed from patriotism -nothing more nothing less. And, I, too…stirred to cheers and tears out of some awkward sense of patriotism. The last time I remember having such misplaced, but genuine patriotism due to football-craziness was outside das Rathaus in Munchen on my 11th grade high school trip. For a few brief seconds, I felt part of it, and part of the country. (And if you think Yankees fans are dedicated - well, you ain’t seen nothing til you see the Deutschers drunk and the Senegalese happy.)
I did feel somewhere on the ‘inside’ of it all, though, with ‘the people’…sharing their emotions, being in their orbit. And that sums up most of what I feel this time being back in Senegal, being in a tighter circle inside the culture - knowing I’d never reach the bull’s eye even if I stayed here the rest of my life. But it’s sweet to be a few steps closer - very aware of what I do know now, and all of what I still don’t.
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