Tournaments!

It’s a hot Saturday afternoon before the sun has had a chance to sink low enough over the horizon to provide any shade. When I arrive at the field it is already teaming with kids. They crowd around under the plastic tent, hanging over the metal chairs and milling around the dirt. Excitement hums in the air, punctuated by the rhythmic sound of Bambara, its heavy round syllables and consonants swinging around my head like mosquitoes. The soccer field is a rocky dirt pitch slanting away from the mayor’s office, about the size of half a regulation size field. The goals are constructed of branches stuck in the ground, connected at the top by a thin piece of string. One of the teams has marked the boundaries of the pitch with white chalk. A tall tree stands about 18 yards from the downhill goal.

As I take a seat under the tent, I greet the group of girls behind me. They are animated and warm towards me. ‘Eh togo?’ they ask ‘What’s your name?’ When I reply that my Malian name is Ami Traore, there are some cries of approval ‘ee yeh balimomuso yeh!’ from my fellow Traores; and other clucks of disapproval from the dreaded cousin ‘Diarras’. ‘Ahhh, ee beh shun dun’ ‘Hah hah! You eat beans’ they laugh. This is the favourite Malian Joke between people who have last names such as Traore and Diarra. Soon I learn that these girls are one of the teams that will be playing in the final match. They are in the 7th class and will be playing against the 9th class. I ask them if they are excited, and if they are ready, they answer in unison: ‘Oh yes we are; we may be smaller than the other girls but we are going to crush them!’

As the coach who has organized the whole event arrives and distributes jerseys to the delight of each team, I reflect on how this tournament came to be. Lamine Samake is a Coaching for Hope educator, who has been trained by my project as a quality football coach and HIV educator. He has taken his role farther than many, and become engaged as a community actor in Same, a suburb at the foot of the hills surrounding Bamako. Lamine has taken it upon himself to work with several groups of youth, employing the Coaching for Hope tactic of using football to share important social messages with the youth of his community. At the insistence of these youth, Lamine organized a football tournament. The young people in Same organized their own teams, chose captains, and trained for the competition in football and HIV knowledge. Before each match, Lamine would ask a series of questions about sexual health and HIV. The team’s responses to these questions contributed to the final score of the match; the success of the team depended not only on the team’s skills on the pitch, but also on their collective knowledge of HIV and ways they could protect themselves from it.

I turn back to the girls, and ask how they feel about their HIV knowledge. ‘Oh, great!’ they answer, and then rattle off the modes of transmission for me. ‘We also decided it would be important to share this with our families, so we have decided to go as a team, door to door in our neighbourhood to talk about it with our friends and their families’ mentions the captain of the team. The whistle blows and I am beckoned onto the field to greet the two teams before they start to play. I shake hands, say good luck, and initiate the kick off before returning to my seat.

The girls match is violent, messy, and passionate. The girls had never had a chance to play before Lamine introduced them to football, and have had no formal training but their passion in playing is evident. They are wearing soccer jerseys that my old Ashland High School had sent over, and the joy I get from watching my old jerseys on these girls is indescribable. When the first and only goal of the match is scored by a girl on ‘my team’ the whole crowd streams onto the field, dancing, running, arms flapping, music pumping; the girl who scored is beaming like she just won the lottery.

In terms of Soccer, the boys match is high quality. I watch them negotiate the terrain change, the rocks, and the tree with finesse and ease, wondering how our Ashland boys might fare in similar conditions. Their passes are precise; their headers are firm; their shots, strong. They communicate minimally but effectively. This is serious business and they play as if this were the champion’s league.

The evening shadows have grown longer, cutting the heat of the day, but not the passion of the crowd, which has grown to enclose the field three persons thick ¾ of the way around. The village chief and I hand out soccer balls to the winning teams; the DJ pumps up the music; I prepare to leave. As I start my bike, I look over to see a group huddled together over a school notebook. I catch a glimpse of the page. At the top it says ‘Team name: AC Barcelona’ followed by the list of players. The youth are already preparing for another tournament!