Jouer-ing with the Boys

Let me start with a note about today’s title. First, for those of you whose french skills are a little rusty the word “jouer” both means and rhymes with the English word “play.” Like, to play soccer. Second, remember that scene in Top Gun where they were playing beach volleyball? The song during that iconic scene is “Playing with the Boys.”

Despite Senegal’s overwhelming Muslim majority, school vacation is still planned around Easter week. That meant all of my favorite high school boys/23 year old seniors were back in town wreaking havoc and drinking tea. Long time readers may remember last summer when I debated the appropriate-ness of hanging around with the young men in my village, but forged on in my friend-finding mission. While I’ve successfully broadened my social bubble in the last few months (real friends! women! little kids too!) it was nice to have the whole gang of guys back in town for a few days.

Since there’s not much to do in village over break, the guys organize an informal soccer game every evening. I have often joked about playing, but have never joined. Until now. One night last week I took up the offer to suit up. I’ve played soccer only a handful of times in the last decade, so I prayed not to make a total fool of myself. Despite taking 20 minutes to realize where the goals were (apparently not the usual big goal posts but two small sets of sticks) and almost the entire game to figure out who was on my team, I managed to hold my own. I stole the ball from a number of the best players (including my younger host brother, who was not pleased) and performed the only successful header of my soccer-playing life. I think my success was 10% skill and 90% “oh god, why is she running straight at me” panic from boys who’ve never played co-ed sports. I had the aforementioned Top Gun soundtrack song playing in my head pretty much the whole game (not to mention all the guys here are pretty buff so it was like that scene in more ways than just the fading sunlight and sandy playing field).

The news of my soccer prowess swept the town and soon everyone had heard. Omar, my pseudo-host dad/uncle and counterpart, often says nice things to me about my work (undeserved, but I’ll take it) but that night he turned to me and said, “Koumba, now everyone in town likes you. The women, the children and the guys.” As usual, the way to people’s hearts here is to make a fool of myself.

Despite the fun of the game, I’m not sure I’ll be reprising my role as left midfielder any time soon. The guys go back to school next week and after an hour of running on sand my legs were ready to stage a Malian-style coup of their own - plus biking 85 kilometers the next day left me fairly crippled for the rest of the week and physically unable to re-join the game. Maybe over the summer I’ll start to play regularly and even get a spot on the squad for the next multi-village soccer tournament. That would really throw the competition off their game.