Hey folks, I just found this in a draft folder from this time last year. Enjoy! I’ll try to have a post up soon on the events that took place THIS YEAR!
_____________________________________________________________________
Written in September-October 2007
There’s that overused saying that people reference whenever something like a fight breaks out that ends up becoming more interesting or more of the focus than the intended original event.
e.g. I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out
I was thinking about this saying as I ran over to a large mob of adolescents screaming and waving and generally causin’ a ruckus. I knew what had happened before I arrived to see the assistant school director putting a headlock on a boy or before the driver for our program took off to try and catch a soccer player who had been wielding a meter-long piece of bamboo like a sword. As I entered the fray, I thought “I came to a fight and a soccer tournament/health fair broke out”, and that was right before a kid blindly swung and almost caught my jaw.
So let me rewind a bit.
The ARSH team was wrapping up activities for fiscal year 2007. I may have briefly talked about this before, but we helped some of our groups try to organize health fairs in their community. Basically, this would be an exposition of the activities that the groups are doing as well as a chance to invite other community organizations to present on health-related topics relevant to the community. All of this would take place during the final day of a community futebol tournament- Our thinking is, we attract the crowd with a highly touted game between two communities, and then during the breaks we have the different groups present their activities to the community.
The thing is, most of these groups are not at the level where they can plan an event like this. Even with our assistance, the health fairs ended up taking a back seat (though most communities did present) to the futebol games. Which, we realized, is ok. They still took away some knowledge in terms of event organization. They had to distribute transport funds, and keep track of team rosters and devise the agendas for the day- skills that they normally do not get to develop out in the bush. And this is the first time we have tried to have groups plan day-long events, so even though the results have been mixed, we feel like there is a good base that we can build off of.
We wound up our supervision of the fairs/tourneys last Saturday. The same Saturday that UCF gallantly played in it’s first REAL home game ever (sadly losing to No. 6 Texas by three points… but a good showing nonetheless, boys!) Luisa went to the fair hosted by Nhacutse in the Xai Xai districet, and I went with Manjate, our driver, to Mandlakaze (pronounced Mahn-jah-kahz-ee) to check out the fair in Mussengue.
When I arrived, the final game of the girl’s bracket had already begun. The other (visiting ) community that participated in the fair was Chalala. The women battled to a 0-0 tie before going to penalty kicks. Right before they started the shootout, Chalala replaced their goalkeeper (who was looking a bit worse for wear) with an Amazon-esque girl who had- up until that point- been playing defense. None of the coaches complained, so they started kicking.
*Quick aside- Flash poll: Do y’all think that calling someone an Amazon is a good thing or bad thing? I’ve heard that it can be positive or negative, but I use it in a strictly positive way. I mean, Wonder Woman was an Amazon, and she kicked ass! Just curious.
Ok, so to cut to the chase, Chalala won on kicks. The Amazon (named Sonia) only let one ball through, and combined with her good defense during the game we awarded her the MVP (and a new soccer ball). Then, it was time for the men to warm up. As the Mussengue girls gave their jerseys to the boys, the Chalala team could, for the first time, get a look at their competition.
Apparently, there had been some confusion with the rules, as Mussengue brought what reminded me of a Varsity college team. These guys were big, especially compared with the 13-15 year olds that Chalala trucked over to serve as cannon fodder. There was lots of shouting, and pointing of fingers, and pointing at papers. Chalala said Mussengue was trying to cheat, and Mussengue was basically calling Chalala a bunch of spineless wimps. Meanwhile, there is an argument brewing off the field between some of the female soccer players. Apparently Mussengue thought it was illegal to switch goalkeepers before the penalty kick phase (I honestly don’t know if it is legal or not; maybe someone can fill me in here on the FIFA rules.) So, we have an outbreak of machismo on the field, allegations of cheating off the field, and me trying to calm down the professors, who seem to be taking this stuff more seriously than anyone. Right as I am showing the professor from Mussengue the part where the paper says “ages of participants in tournament: 13-16″, the rumble begins.
Apparently, a girl from Chalala shouted one too many “we won, you guys suck” taunts at Mussengue, and number 11 came out swingin’. Then, a dude from Mussengue started whipping around his bamboo whuppin’ stick and all hell breaks loose. Aforementioned headlocks and beatings ensue. Manjate and Magaia chase kids into the bushes (kids are not seen again for the rest of the day)
I just couldn’t believe that this harmless soccer tourney/health fair turned into the royal rumble. Adfter we got things settled down, we tried to ask the kids what they were thinking. Responses included the following:
“He looked at me weird”
“They were bigger than us so we deserved to cheat” (we never CALLED you cheaters!!!)
“I am sick, I don’t know what I just did”
So we’ve got a temporary insanity plea, a self-defense arguement, and a whack-job who just likes to lie. Nice.
I felt so depressed upon leaving mUssengue. Not only were thie kids acting like kids, but the professors were just as bad. After all of the ruckus, the Chalala folks were leaving. I asked “so, where is the rest of the money for transport? You used XXX meticais and I gave you XXX meticais.”
The response by the ped. director? “We bought food.”
DAMMIT! If you want to buy food, use your own money or ask us if it’s ok. DOn’t just assume it’s cool to blow over a mil (which is not how much some 30 egg sandwiches cost to make) on food.
Sufficed to say, this was a dark day for the ARSH team. We have meetings with both schools to discuss the behavior. And David is not going to play the nice, caring PCV. Groups need to learn that some organizations do not appreciate getting money stolen from them and used to put on a community karate exhibiton.
