Football

In Nigeria, everything revolves around football. Real football, not the American game that you don’t actually play with your feet. During the Olympics, while my dad and I were sitting in the clinic, we could hear the whole hospital around us roar whenever Nigeria scored a goal. People would crowd around TV’s in the general ward to watch the games or watch on cell phones that picked up analog directly. Everyone watched the games, and bringing up the final where Argentina beat Nigeria for the gold medal was a touchy subject for a couple of weeks. But not only does everyone watch football; they all play since they are knee high. Even the toddlers will run after the ball and kick at it. Football is the neighborhood social event. Any footballs in the neighborhood are used so much that they quickly break or go missing. Currently our family has the only intact football in the neighborhood, so we always have kids knocking on our door asking to borrow it. The other day one of the boys who lives down the street knocked on our door while I was baking muffins, asking if I could come out and bring the football with me. I told him I would finish the muffins and then bring out the ball. When I came out about half an hour later, I was surprised to find that he had rounded up what appeared to be the entire Evangel compound for a game. Not only all of the elementary school aged boys, but also high schoolers, residents, and doctors were out to play. The teams were already divided, the order decided, and the only thing missing for the game was the ball. One of the older players called for me to toss him the ball, pointed to which team I would play for, and the game started immediately.
Since that game I have been playing with the same group of high school students every day. Playing football has been a great way to get to know people in the neighborhood other than the ones under the age of twelve, who just roam loose in packs. People here are often named after people in the Bible or days of the week, so of the five or six guys that I play with, two are named Joshua and two are named Monday (Sterling’s football coach’s full name is Sunday Monday). Playing football has also turned out to be the perfect solution to my problem of figuring out how to exercise every day in a safe and culturally acceptable way. Jogging outside the compound is not particularly safe, especially for white women alone. It is possible to jog around the compound, but it is a fairly small loop and stays muddy most of the time. Football is a fun way to keep fit and has been a good way to connect with all of our neighbors at the same time.