soccer and socializing

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CHANTEL - Got to cross something off my life’s to do list today…play soccer in Africa! Seriously, if I can surf over here next I am going to be ecstatic. Playing in soccer has been a dream of mine for quite some time so when one of the American girls offered to take me with her to Labadi to play soccer with a local competitive women’s team I jumped at the chance to join in. We headed into the village and wound up at massive dirt field in the middle of a village compound surrounded by what looked like run down housing and possibly a school of some sort. The field was overrun by children and goats but as we put our gear on the field started to clear and crowds of people gathered to watch as we started in a warm up. I had no idea what to expect, soccer is second nature to me so I wasn’t really too worried about the actual playing but none of the women said much to acknowledge either of us and I can only imagine what I looked like running alongside them given that I was as white as they are dark and that I was easily a head taller than the average player. With the hot African sun starting to set and the idea of water breaks all but a fond memory we got into quite the competitive scrimmage. I was impressed by the competitiveness of the women, their skill level was a lot rougher and less refined in comparison to Western/European soccer but given the uneven beat up dirt field it was still a pretty intense game. No one spoke any English - asides from “obruni (white person) get the ball”, positioning seemed to be optional, and one could expect taking some serious flak if they happen to mess up a play or not pass off the ball as quickly as they should. I am not in bad shape but I was huffing and puffing by the end of it, so really happy that I got an opportunity to play some soccer while I am over here. I still plan on trying to play in one of the pick up games that the Ghanaian guys on campus seem to throw together at random but have yet to do so. Got to stay in shape because if I come back to my soccer teams at home out of shape and unable to run I am going to be in trouble.

So we had met Lobke at Labadi beach last weekend and she convinced us (twisted our arms really I swear) to go out with her at night because we have been in Ghana for a bit now and still have not gone out to a club or bar to party. So this was our official first attempt at exploring the night scene of Ghana, also known as the point in time where An and I became the minor party animals known as “those crazy Canadian girls”. I had no idea that night life in Ghana existed to the point thatit does - it’s actually a lot of fun and Ghanaians definitely understand the term ‘party all night long’ considering many of them don’t even bother to head out until after midnight. Lobke took us to Champs, a sports bar owned by a Canadian that does a karaoke night (Friday), a movie night (Sunday) and a trivia night (Thursday) while playing every major sporting event live and catering to all the westerners residing in Accra. After our first visit to Champs we learnt that actually there are way more white people in Ghana than we thought…and almost all of them are in Champs on Friday night. Champs could easily be like any other sports bar in the world…complete with soccer on the big screen and terrible karaoke at centre stage. We made a whole pile of new friends, including a group of Lebanese guys that would continue on to be some of our closest friends here in Ghana. I had no idea there was a large and prominent Lebanese population in Ghana but there is, and many of the local businesses are Lebanese owned and operated. After Champs we made the move to the local “hot” night club, Tantra, a packed night club with quite the mix of foreigners and Ghanaians all dancing and hanging out until the early hours of the morning. Now I am known to be quite found of going out and I was pretty pleased with our introduction to the Ghanaian social scene. Now the only problem is that I had no intention of going out while in Ghana so I brought no form of appropriate going out wear so An and I will have to get on the phone with one of the seamstresses to get some cute party outfits made up fast!

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