For the past month and a half, I’ve been trying to find some sort of sporting activity. I’ve gotten a little soft now that I have a 9-5 desk job; my African dance class once a week isn’t going to cut it. I tried getting my jog on, but too many laughs and taxi honks have steered me away from that outlet. I've looked for volleyball, but the only facilities are at the American Club, where there would not be enough people to play. I tried getting into the Pilates DVDs that Claudia (my American boss whose house I’m living in) has lying around, but doing series of “10-minute Super Ultra Turbo Waist Slimmer” routines in my air conditioned room seems kind of lame here in Bamako, where women get trim waists from walking around with babies tied to their midsection and baskets of mangoes balancing on their heads.
That’s where football, or rather, soccer, comes into play. A young man, Douad, had stopped into the office saying that his women’s soccer leagues wanted to team up with our women’s groups to promote family planning, sexual health, pre-natal consultations, the importance of sleeping under a mosquito net, and all that good stuff. My boss in the office, Cameroonian David, knew that I had been searching by and large for some team camaraderie, so he suggested I start playing with the women and eventually introduce the topics to them.
Douad took me to my first practice last Thursday, and from “la rue pavée”/”the paved road” (there are no street signs here, and this is my only point of reference) we turned left onto a dirt road and parked next to a big block party with music and a mic hooked up to an amplifier, a normal occurrence.
Block party
We were in a large open space where the dirt road widened, with some kids were running around. No field, per se, or grass to be seen. Then I saw the two goals and realized this extra wide dirt road was actually the soccer “terrain.”
The soccer road/field
a) child performing what looks like gris-gris on the tubab
b) second child in awe of the tubab
I introduced myself to the coach and team as Liza (Lee-Zuh), as that seems to be the easiest way to pronounce my name to most Malians here. I offered the alternative “Sali” in case Liza was even too difficult. They decided just to call me “Tubab,” short for “tubabou,” or “white person.” Pronunciation wasn’t an issue, they chose to call me "Tubab" simply as a matter of preference.
The practice felt like any other I’d been a part of, with warm-ups, sprints, passing drills, and a scrimmage. I overpassed many a ball, not having any grass to slow the roll, and when we did header passes everyone kept asking “tu es d’accord?”/”are you OK?” and insisted I stop a few headers early to get some water. Other than that, I felt like a regular part of the team.
Only one practice into my new soccer life, we had our first game on Saturday. I walked onto the sand/gravel field and was handed a long-sleeve blue soccer jersey. That day, of course I had chosen to wear my bright blue polyester capris, and they insisted I put on the long blue socks so that none of my skin would be exposed to the hurt that awaited when (not if) I'd surely fall on the gravel dirt field. Covered in all blue, being the only white person on the field or in the entire neighborhood for that matter, I was quite a sight.
Before we began playing, the owner of the league had both teams circle up in the middle of the field for a pep talk. I figured it was a part of their normal pre-game routine until he turned to me and said, “I hope you’re getting all this,” as if I were a special reporter. The message was, however, duly noted: that women’s soccer has picked up in other surrounding countries of West Africa but had not taken off here in Mali the way it should.
I could tell. My team had girls as young as 12 and as “old” as 28. It was a mixed crowd. Not very many sporting opportunities exist for women out here, and there are few young women in Bamako that aren’t already with child or children.
Which is why I felt pretty bad when the coach decided to “start” me, after only one practice and still wishing for grass. Normally, as in back in high school, I would play defense, but I had been put in the forward position. Fatumata, my main pal and the oldest on the team at 28, stayed on me about where to go, and after an unproductive few minutes with only minor slips I was happy to be subbed out and thrown a plastic bag of water.
On the sidelines, I took a seat in the dirt next to my teammates. They grabbed my arms and took turns comparing their skin tone to mine. A few stroked my arm hair in wonder, as theirs is almost non-existent.
At this point we had quite a crowd. I suppose there’s not a lot else to do on a Saturday afternoon when the rain is waiting to fall and a men’s team isn’t playing. We’d attracted more than a hundred by-standers; mostly made up of young men and boys but a few other girls’ teams had come to the game in support.
Just when the game was about to be end, Coach yelled at me to get warmed up. I stood up, all decked out in my blue, and start doing high knees on the sidelines where the fans were lined up arm’s length away. They all start chanting “tubabou, tubabou, tubabou!” and yelling to each other, “tubabou se réchauffé!”/”white girl’s getting warmed up!”
I jogged onto the field only to be met by the whistle with the ref holding his hand up to stop me. Apparently our very local league was playing by international standards, and after subbing out you’re not allowed to sub back in. He tried to escort me out, but the crowd wasn’t having it. They wanted to see the tubabou in action, and so they all yelled “boo” while simultaneously chanting, as usual, “tubabou.” The ref turned to me, defeated, and said “C’est pas normale”/”This is not normal.” And while for different reasons, I had to agree.
On the field, I tried to stay low on the radar, but a teammate passed me a ball presumably far enough ahead where I could run and take a shot. I tried to run after it but my legs weren’t going too fast after hurrying through my on-display warm-up. It rolled out of bounds, and everyone, all one hundred something people, started laughing.
They laughed again when I tried to change direction after trapping a ball, and slipped in the dirt.
Pilates was starting to sound like a good idea after all!
Our team, FC Amazon, won the game 3-2 no thanks to the tubabou. My teammates still gave me big high fives and sincere props, “tu as bien joué, tubab”/”you played well, white girl.”
Coach gave us an inspirational talk at the end of the game, where I tried to just blend in with the girls. The neighborhood kids surrounded me, grabbed at my hands, and practiced their French on me, “bonjour!”, “bonsoir!”, “ca va?” throughout the entire talk. I guess I’ll just have to accept that I can't exactly blend in.
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