Boxing Day 2008 - The Big Football Match

At home, I’ve often shopped for bargains the day after Christmas, but this year I “celebrated” Boxing Day for the first time. (Our missionary friends from the UK couldn’t tell us the origin of the holiday, so I celebrated Sierra Leonean-style - with sports.) Our house is in the Wilberforce area of Freetown. Wilberforce Village proper is located up the hill from our house. There is a primary school, a junior secondary school, and a large football (soccer) field in Wilberforce Village. One day when I was visiting with some of my neighbors on our street corner, one of the guys mentioned that there would be an entertaining football match in the morning on Boxing Day. It would be the Single people vs. the Married people, with no rules. It sounded like fun, so I made sure they’d include me when they went to the game.

So on Boxing Day, they knocked on our gate and I walked up the hill to the football field with Usman and Olaji and had a nice chat with them while we waited for the start of the “big match”. My friend Nana and her children Ishmael, Mariam, and Fatima joined us a little later. I had been warned that they didn’t allow the really skilled players to be part of the game. Plus, there really were very few rules enforced, just as Olaji had described. I saw a man hanging off the back of another man to keep him from the ball, a spectator kick a ball away that was headed toward a goal, and plenty of general chaos. The first match was for the ladies –Hilarious! No one had scored at the end of the game, so the women alternated penalty kicks until everyone had attempted to score. The married women beat the younger and more skilled (slightly) single women. Then the men played. This also was a scoreless match until the married men scored a goal about 2 minutes before the final whistle.

This annual match is a big deal. The field had been freshly outlined, a “set” (a sound system with speakers and a microphone) had been rented, and announcers called play-by-play. (It made me think of the announcing “talent” in Beaverton as displayed at summer camps and Family Days at Alpenrose Dairy! I know that made some of you smile.) The teams even had uniforms. A huge crowd was gathered for the match, and three police officers patrolled the area. We only stayed for the football matches, but I was told that there would be volleyball and basketball games following.

My “hosts” for the day fed me lunch during the second half of the men’s match. Usman’s auntie, whose second-story house and front porch overlooked the football field, made couscous and roasted pepper chicken. I walked down the hill toward home holding hands with Mariam and Fatima. It was a very fun day – in part because it was a shared experience with my new friends in this new culture, but also because my friends were enjoying themselves so much. Life can be really tough here, so I think the times of fun and laughter are savored even more.