Football in the Streets

1.14.07

Burkina Faso smells like Barbeque and dust, like the Fourth of July mid afternoon when everyone has retreated from the crowds to their houses and begun to relax into evening. On my way from the airport last night I felt cool air upon my face and inhaled the thick, smoky, heavy air. In the morning, I found more subtlety in the air, it was a bit lighter and I could almost sense rather than smell a sweet, fresh undertone of tropical flowers. It is now mid afternoon and the semi charcoaled scent hangs in the hazy, white sky.

After arriving, I had a glass of beer at the house with Jonathan and Elena, two friends who will be staying in Burkina Faso, then crashed under my mosquito net until 11AM the next morning. I awoke to a quiet house, ate bread and jam for breakfast, then went to the market with Elena. It wasn’t until I was walking down the street, passing women in brilliant, printed fabrics carrying things on their heads that I truly believed I was in Africa. Last night, passing the square cement structures, loud colored hair salons, corrugated tin roofs and bumpy dirt roads, the collection of motorbikes and men that congregate at each off-shoot of the main road I easily could have convinced myself that I was back in the Dominican Republic. Today, I know better. The people are different. I try not to stare at the loads that women carry on their heads, at the peacock shaped fabrics that juts of their heads, the smooth, dark skin.

Returning home with bananas and bread, I pause at the gate to my house. across the street a group of boys pass around a soccer ball. I smile, half to myself, half to them and one comes over, passes me the ball. I pass back and he jukes me. He rolls it behind his legs, over the roots of a tree, bounces it against the wall, through the puddle in the middle of the street while I chase after him, low, following his moves, jabbing every so often and missing. It is so natural, this progression into some semblance of a relationship. Soon, we are passing the ball, all five of us. Elena takes the groceries inside and a few more kids gather around the periphery. After a while we have six and start to scrimmage. At first I try to avoid the piles of bird feathers and charcoal and puddles of the street, but soon I am in, and all I see are the green shorts of my first friend, and the blue “Zidane” jersey of my other team mate. We play for a while, till the game gets big and all I know is to pass to green shorts and blue jersey. Everyone else seems to be trying to get the ball from me. More people gather on the periphery, girls and small children. I stop to talk to them; they are more shy. Without football to talk around, conversation is a little more difficult. I bounce between playing, and standing in the shade, smiling at the girls. After a while I go inside, to get a glass of water and my camera. When I come back out, the camera becomes a hit. They gather round and I take pictures of each juggling the ball, then they crowd around to look and giggle at their friends photos, then jump “Et moi maintenant” Now me, now him! Their voices are more rhythmic than European French, they sound rounder, like you could bounce a ball around their words. I teach them to play “Head, Catch” (thanks Mom, great game!) It is easy and I am trying hard to get the girls involved. I throw the ball, say “ tete” and they catch it, I throw the ball and say “main” and they head it. It has been a long afternoon, and I am thinking my job wont be so hard.

Now I look down at my legs and realize that I have already picked up some African color: the streaked terra of dust films my legs to just the inside hem of my skirt and fine layer now lives between my toes. Every time I eat something or take a drink, the first taste is somewhat chalky. Johnathan has come back and is itching to go watch his football team play, we’re headed for the bar. Life is good. Signing off.