HEAL Africa 3 - the other guys 1!!!

Yesterday I was invited to play Futbal with the HEAL Africa staff at the main stadium in Goma. I've been wanting to enter the stadium since I arrived to watch a match and as it turns out my first visit was as a player.

What I thought would be a pick-up game of sorts ended up being quite serious. We had uniforms, refs, and fans! As is typical here I was told the match started at 15h and was worried when I was 5 minutes late, only to find out I was the first one there and the match didn't actually start to about 4:15. I was initially on the bench but before the match started I noticed there weren't enough players on our side, so I stood patiently by the side lines. When they looked over for another player I was right there and got to start the game. And I never left the field. They placed me at left back which suited me fine since it's a position I had played growing up.

Our team was surprisingly strong right from the opening whistle. The majority of the first half was played on the opponents side of the pitch with several shots just over the cross bars. Than with about 15 left in the first half we put one in the net... and the celebration was amazing. Kids came running on to the field doing cartwheels and our fans where jumping up and down in wild excitement. I felt like I played ok for having running shoes on a dirt pitch. I was sliding around a bit, but for the most part contained my side. I think mostly because I'm a mzungu, everyone was making a huge deal and high fives all around for my play on the field. I guess when the expectations are low, it doesn't take much to impress... ;

Second half we put in two more, with one coming off my cross from the left side, about 10 yard in from midfield. The ball just cleared the defended and the keeper was already too far out, so our forward redirected the ball with a header right over the keepers out stretched hand as he dove backward toward the goal.

The put one in on us through the middle of the field towards the end, but when the final whistle blew you would have though we won the world cup. The cheering and singing (oleee, ole, ole, oleeee....) was great. And as everyone piled into the hospital vehicles to head back to the hospital the sirens were blaring and horns honking as they plowed through the middle of the dirt pitch.... I now have been dubbed Zidane for our team, mostly because we have the same skin tone... ;) What an incredible experience. Unfortunately no pictures, but trust me, even if you don't enjoy futbal/soccer, you would have had fun witnessing this match and being a part of the fans on the sidelines.