Football at Sunset

With the sun setting, some of my colleagues and I set out for the local bar to watch the evening game of the African Cup of Nations. We passed by a heavily-eroded field where people had gathered for a game of football, small groups of mostly men socializing on the sidelines. After walking along some dirt roads and past shops of straw selling sodas, we entered a complex of grass fences and mud huts with thatched roofs. Chickens scavenged around in the trash littering some of the compounds. Men gathered round in woven makeshift chairs to drink, others squatted on cloth to play cards, women washing their children in buckets or preparing the evening meal, teenagers smoking in doorways, and children stopping their simple playing to watch the passersby.

We followed the distant hum of a generator, until finally we arrived to our envisioned Mecca. Outside a hut there were woven chairs, most with three legs and on the verge of falling apart, huddled around a TV set on a plastic table. Two wires ran from the TV: one to the satellite dish, about five feet in diameter, setup on the ground next to the grass hut, and the other running to the generator housed behind some thatched walls. The sky streaked with purple and orange over the thatched roofs, providing an ethereal backdrop to a televised football match in the middle of a Sudanese village.

To steal the slogan from Tusker, Kenya’s national beer, and describe the world’s favorite game: “Has No Equal. Makes Us Equal.”