Rules Apply

It has been a busy time in Nairobi, and I've noticed that the students haven't been as religious about filling in the blog as when they first arrived, and I too have not been writing as much as I might about our adventures. Some of it probably is accounted for by the fact that routine of sorts has set in, so there is an element of "same old, same old" for those of us on the ground, even if it might seem to our readers that we're in a highly unusual situation.

Perhaps the most amusing thing I can report on is yesterday's second annual UBC-Kenyan soccer matchup, a game held at each of our sites. It's not really UBC vs. Kenya, because there are not enough of us to make a team, so in fact it's two Kenya teams, each of which is handicapped by a few UBC participants. Last year I played team photographer. This year I arrived at the game to find I could not plead that role, as I'd left my "film" behind in my laptop when I was uploading pictures from my camera. Oops. That meant I had to play.

I'm sure that this next sentence will come as no surprise to many readers: I have never played soccer in my life. My general reaction to a ball of any size coming at me is to close my eyes and duck. Not the signs of a good soccer player. As the teams were dividing up, I could see everyone else anxiously awaiting my placement (we simply counted off 1, 2 to divide up). At least I didn't have to go through the humiliation of being chosen last. I might add that I'm about twice as old as the next oldest player.

Game started. I could not remember who was on which team (except I knew which team each of the UBC players was on). I didn't even know which end of the field was my team's, so I stopped one of the UBC students from the other team to get him to tell me. Which he kindly did.

My team, through no help of my own, got off to a quick 3-0 start. I managed to miss kicking the ball when it was stopped right at my feet, twice. (I could imagine doing the same thing in golf.) In the middle of the game I had to take a cell phone call (I don't even have a cell phone in Vancouver!). Yesterday was logistics day--trying to get myriad people from myriad places to a place where we would eventually converge later in the afternoon. While talking on the cellphone I actually managed to get my foot to connect with the ball, and gave it a good kick. I didn't even kick it in the wrong direction, though whether it was kicked in a helpful direction is less certain. Obviously I need the distraction of a cellphone to get me to connect with the ball.

Several minutes later, the ball comes toward me again, and I again give a faint kick. Seconds later, I see an intense argument going on nearby, in Swahili. Actually the entire game was conducted in Swahili, which didn't really help my ability to understand what was going on. I soon intuit that I've committed a foul. I can't tell if one of my teammates is more angry with me or the ref. The ref comes over to me and asks me which team I'm on. I have no idea (we didn't have team names, and we didn't have team shirts or anything). I tell him "not David's" because I know for sure I'm not on David's (one of the Kenyans) team. He tells me some rule about I can't kick the ball if my team has the ball. I have no idea why this might be true, and point out that I really don't know the rules of soccer, this being my first game. So, he looks at me very sweetly and says "no problem." Just when I think that the foul will be forgiven, he adds, with a pause, "Rules apply."

Shortly thereafter I exited the game of my own volition. Having become a liability to the team, and having a ref with no mercy meant that the only honorable thing I could do for my team (whoever they were) was to bow out. Shortly thereafter my team lost its lead, and the game ended 4-4, when we had to leave for our next appointment.

Maybe I was not such a handicap after all. And, though I don't know what they were told by the UBC students who were in the game with me, when I met up with our students from the other game later in the evening, the three of them greeted me with a sort of surprised "Nancy, we heard you played soccer today." I think they were a bit admiring in their tone. Or at least that's what I want to believe.

By the way, we have apparently agreed to end this tie next week, which means another opportunity for "clueless in soccer."