Adventures in Africa
Yesterday was super fun. Head downtown to meet up with Lauren and had some breakfast (HUGE meal for about 100 shillings = $1.60CAD) then to find a matatu to take us to the TUSKER CUP! From what I've gathered this is an annual competition between the national teams of select countries in Africa. We got some VIP tickets for the finals (and the 3rd place match). Once we managed to get all the way out to Moi Stadium (named after a former President) we head to the stadium. It was quite huge - but there seemed to be no people. It was raining, but didn't anyone want to see the 3rd place match between South Africa and Ghana? Only about 1000 people were there. We got a free TUSKER (Kenyan beer) bandana. We bought some doughnuts (the only concession available and sat in the mostly empty stadium. Ghana slaughtered South Africa. Then the Kenyan fans slowly filtered in. The stadium only got to about 1/3 capacity - probably because of the drizzle & rain. We had been mistakenly sitting in the press box for the first game so were asked to move somewhere else - we saw that the other side of the stadium was mostly empty but still had good seats, so we went there. As the Kenyan and Tanzanian players came out there was mass cheering. Deafening roars. Adding to this were the sound effects that they play of roaring crowds - it was hilarious during the first game when there were hardly any people there - to have fake cheers coming from the speakers. But then we were faced with a dilemma. What team was Kenya? The people we were sitting around seemed to be cheering for the Red-jersey'd team. Which would make sense - because there is red in the Kenyan flag. But then there was also the yellow jersey'd team who also got a lot of cheers. And yellow was the colour of TUSKER beer which they had given out t-shirts and bandanas for. Why would they give out yellow merchandise if that was the colour of the opposing team. But there is no yellow in the Kenyan flag!!
To make things even more confusing, people would yell when just about anything happened. We weren't sure what to do. We obviously stood out. Then I started to get the sneaking suspicion that we were on the Tanzanian side. What to do!? The first half was scoreless. At the half-time break we head out and found a girl selling MALTA - the non-alcoholic Guinness energy drink (don't try it - it's gross). We asked her colour the Kenya team was. She couldn't speak any English other than - "Hello, would you like a Malta" "Only 20 Shillings!" "Thank you". So we went up to a security guard and asked him, feeling like complete fools. He told us that Kenya was sponsored by Tusker and therefore wore yellow - Tanzania's team was called Simba and wore red. In my embarrassment I blurted out -
Kenya ended up losing a valiant battle 1-0. But there didn't seem to be too much hostility. No crowd stampedes (like at the last game they played where a child was killed after being trampled). Although the fact that it was an alcohol-free game probably had something to do with the lack of craziness (and perhaps attendance).
To make things even more confusing, people would yell when just about anything happened. We weren't sure what to do. We obviously stood out. Then I started to get the sneaking suspicion that we were on the Tanzanian side. What to do!? The first half was scoreless. At the half-time break we head out and found a girl selling MALTA - the non-alcoholic Guinness energy drink (don't try it - it's gross). We asked her colour the Kenya team was. She couldn't speak any English other than - "Hello, would you like a Malta" "Only 20 Shillings!" "Thank you". So we went up to a security guard and asked him, feeling like complete fools. He told us that Kenya was sponsored by Tusker and therefore wore yellow - Tanzania's team was called Simba and wore red. In my embarrassment I blurted out -
"Thanks for letting us know - We're not from here!"Officially the understatement of the year. Seriously - we couldn't stop laughing. I can't believe I said that. Like anything could have been more obvious.
Kenya ended up losing a valiant battle 1-0. But there didn't seem to be too much hostility. No crowd stampedes (like at the last game they played where a child was killed after being trampled). Although the fact that it was an alcohol-free game probably had something to do with the lack of craziness (and perhaps attendance).
0 Responses to “Understatement of the Year”
Leave a Reply