The Great Sporting Event

Forget the Australian Open, forget the Super Bowl, the real great sporting event today is the African Cup final, with Cameroon playing Egypt.

The game starts at 7 p.m. local time, just as it gets dark outside and when electricity is usually cut. After dinner, I get together with Christian, my guesthouse mate, and Anton, my running buddy, and head to the marketplace to watch the game. We arrive at the market to find that the only place with a generator running is the “Home Video” place, the local movie house/TV lounge. They are charging 1000 kwachas (30 cents) admission today for the game. We squeeze past a group of people loitering at the door and find ourselves in a stuffy and small room packed with over a hundred villagers sitting on bench seats fashioned out of planks and cinder blocks. Finding seats in the front row, we sit down to watch the game on the 18” color satellite TV at a corner of the room.

The room is stiflingly hot. I am thirsty; they are not selling any drinks. Don’t they realize how much more money they could be making just by having some cold ones there? Slightly annoyed, I squeeze my way out the door to the bar down the road to buy some drinks for us.

With a cold beer in hand, I sit down again to continue watching the game. Because Egypt is the defending champion, most of the people in the room are cheering for Cameroon. The Egypt supporters get drowned out during heated moments of the game. Maybe it is a good idea that people are not drinking; the last thing I want to see is drunken fights breaking out in a packed room with one small door that opens in.

At the end, Egypt retains the trophy with a score of 1:0. Promptly, everyone stands up and orderly files out of the room. There is no fighting, not even arguments. These villagers must be the most civil soccer fans around!