On just another ordinary day, towards the evening time, whilst I was cooking dinner, I had my good friend in the village, Joe, come over for a visit as he normally tends to do. Joe is a young chap who is one of the few villagers who had the motivation and opportunity to make it all the way through high school and finish with good marks. He is also one of the only villagers who speaks English beyond the capacity of a child, so him and myself can communicate beyond that of cavemen banter. We have been friends since the beginning of my stay. He comes to visit often and we chat about various topics that interest us both. He was also the counterpart I choose to accompany me to Camp Elite (see previous blog). There he did a wonderful job at performing translations and bridging the communication gap between volunteers and the kids. Joe is a great friend to have in the village.
That evening when Joe came over, he came with an idea he wanted to discuss. Joe proposed that him and myself organize a village soccer tournament, as the end of maize season was approaching and villagers were finding more and more free time on their hands then they knew what to do with. And when villagers find too much free time on their hands, a common tendency is to spend it drinking and wasting away. At first I was a bit apprehensive to the idea. After all, I was a fish farmer, and a soccer tournament hardly seemed like an appropriate secondary project to devote so much time and energy towards. We discussed the issue over dinner and we eventually overruled my previous notion.
Recreation is not an issue to be taken lightly. It can be the difference between a healthy lifestyle, and an unhealthy one, and it is especially the case here in Zambia. The majority of all villagers everywhere in the rural setting are farmers; well over 90%. These farmers are, for the most part, especially the older generation - uneducated. They have devoted their lives to growing maize through the months of January to May as maize fetches the largest payoff at harvest. As for all other months, a small amount grow various vegetables, and I'm working in getting a trend for fish farming started, but the majority pretty much do nothing in this off season. If you're not on the soccer team, or not watching a match, you're probably drinking. Unfortunately most devote their off time to drinking either the village brew 'chimbuku', which is a maize based type of beer, or a more dangerous homemade spirit that can cause serious health issues called 'cuchasu'. Organizing a village soccer tournament wouldn't completely avert this negative village habit, but I had hopes that it would potentially get people out of the bar and onto the village soccer pitch either to play or spectate as a community.
Because I was unsure as to how this tournament would play out, and because I had just began to start fish farming meetings on pond construction in near by villages, I wasn't to thrilled on making a long, drawn out tournament. The format that fit my schedule best would be a single elimination, one weekend, three day tournament. Teams would register with a moderately low join in fee and we (Joe and myself) would purchase appealing prizes for first and second place winners, which included a soccer ball and team jerseys.
We held a meeting about a week before our projected first tournament game to see if we would have enough interest to commence. The meeting easily had 80 people attend, and more ended up showing up as the meeting progressed. People came from villages near and far to here about this new and first time thing called a tournament. Prior, villages would just arrange single match games against one another, once every few weeks, and have an equally agreed upon wager put up by both teams for the winner. There was no league, keeping track of win and loss records, or stats of any kind recorded let alone something as complex as a tournament that had ever taken place. At the meetings conclusion, people seemed to be very entertained by the idea and I invited coaches to register by submitting a joining fee and a team rooster so we could verify no players playing on multiple teams. I wanted to do this tournament as official as possible so the teams felt a sense of pride and seriousness towards the game.
When the last day of registration approached, we found that only four teams total had registered. Thrown off by this low turn out, I called a coaches meeting with the teams that registered to find out why so many failed to follow through with their original enthusiasm from the first held meeting. I had shown the teams on a chalk board the tournament outline and how it would work with a confirmation from everyone in attendance that they had understood what I was proposing and would register; we should have had at least 10 teams. It turned out that the teams were hesitant about the single elimination aspect of the tournament. Paying the join in fee and only being guaranteed one game frightened many teams away from following through with their initial inclination. We remedied some of these discrepancies and decided that in the following few months we would hold another tournament that would last two weekends long, instead of one, and have it take into consideration some of the apprehensions that many of the teams that didn't register had, specifically, to have it be a double elimination tournament.
Never the less, the show must go on as they say, and we still had four teams that were registered and interested in partaking in the initial tournament proposal. We remade the tournament and changed the prizes. We decided that this first tournament would simply be a trial and decided to make every team get some kind of consolation for being involved; First place would be 50K, second, 40k, third, 30k, and fourth 20k (k=kwacha; 5 kwacha = 1USD). So on the eve of the tournament's first game, we revamped the entire organization of the tournament to satisfy all teams. The first day we were to have 2 games; the second day 1 between the losers of the first day as consultation for 3rd and 4th place; and the last day was the championship between the winners of the first day. In every project in peace corps, adaptability is a must.
I was under the impression that the news of the tournament would attract quite a few villages nearby. A few hundred perhaps. But what I wasn't prepared for was the massive throng of fans that had flocked to witness the next days events. Literally THOUSANDS of people had come to watch. There were vehicles that had come from 20+ km away. So many people were in attendance that you would have thought there was a Red Hot Chili Pepper concert going down. We could have used a crowd control squad, a loud speaker with an announcer and a stadium with the amount of spectators present. This small tournament trial run had turned into a village festival that attracted much more of a crowd then I could have ever imagined. Villagers were selling their harvested goods, singing, dancing, laughing, smiling and anxious to see how the upcoming games would unfold, eager for their team to succeed to the championship game for bragging rights and pride. I felt like I was in over my head. I had created a monster of an event.
On top of organizing, I had also agreed to officiate. The pressure felt was nothing to shake a stick at. This was practically a stadium crowd that took their soccer incredibly serious and one poor call could, I feared, surmount into a full fledged riot. And to make things even more interesting, I had suffered food poisoning the night before. Pressure was coming at me from all angles in all forms. All of which were unpleasant.
I had two volunteer linesman who helped out with the refereeing. They helped me chalk the field (with white sand found near by) and make calls, but both hardly felt confident enough to be center referee. I decided to officiate both games as center ref on the first day. I met with each team to check in each players, and then held a coin toss in the center to follow proper officiating procedure. We were about to be under way in the first EVER tournament in my village or anywhere near it. The Chataika Cup 2013.
The first game was between a near by village called Chimbeso and an even closer village called Mastala. The game was heated, both teams were evenly matched and it was quite physical. To digress a tad, let it be known that I also decided to incorporate cards in this tournament. Prior, every game was played without cards (yellow or red) so no team ever held back on the degree of aggressiveness that they administered in their tackles. I felt this to be serious problem and therefore decided to incorporate cards into the game for the safety of the players and quality of the the game. Why they choose not to use them before, I can't say, but I felt that it was essential to keeping the game fair. I Issued many yellow cards that first game and called several penalty kicks as both teams did a fair share of poor tackles inside of the goalie box. They weren't use to my strictness of my refereeing and it took sometime for them to adjust. The final score was five five and the game came down to a shoot out where Chimbeso won by a goal. It was soccer drama at its finest.
The first game seemed the most intense. Perhaps because it was the first game I had refereed in quite some time and teams were adjusting to my style of officiating. After also refereeing the second game (which I felt much more comfortable with), I felt that I should relinquish the center referee position to the other sidelined referees, not because I wasn't comfortable or confident, but because I wanted them to find confidence in being a center referee and I do believe that there should be a rotation in officiating. I believe that my service is about sustainability and I'm here to teach people how to do things, not to do it for them. I show them the way, they walk through the door. For the two next games on the following days, I insisted that my linesmen find the courage and take the center referee position for one game each. Both were bashful and lacked confidence and I knew they would need a little support and words of encouragement to get the job done. One of the linesmen was young (around 20) and was unsure of himself, while the other was quite and not as commanding as one should be as a center referee.
We had a referee meeting that night before the next days second leg of the tournament. I discussed with them my theories of what it takes to be a center referee; Confidence, mobility, and the ability to conference with the linesman when a call was not seen or difficult to make. I told them that as referees, they were a team and they were in it together. They should use each other and communicate often to always do their best in making the right call. But if a wrong call was made, not to loose face and resort to shame. Bad calls were part of the game and teams, coaches and players had to learn that. That night I restored some confidence in these two amateur referees and they agreed to each referee the rest of the games from there on.
The following day was another close match followed by an epic championship game on Sunday. Both referees had taken their share of verbal abuse from fans, players and coaches but had officiated reasonably well with only a few questionable calls. I was proud that they held their ground even when they had heated protesting and name calling directed towards them. The final game was a 1-0 victory for Chataika over chimbeso with a memorable celebration on the field of singing, dancing and for some crying, both tears of joy and disappointment.
At the end of the the championship game we held a ceremony in which the referees were thanked along with the teams and coaches for registering and taking part in the first ever village tournament. I was then forced into a speech among the massive crowd in which I thanked everyone for participating and asked them how they enjoyed the event. The response was unanimous I received perhaps the largest thanks and round of applause I had ever had in my life. For all the nonsense that I had to deal with in that tournament: the unbearable task of controlling such a large crowd, dealing with so many individuals who decided to make much of the tournament affairs their business the drama with the referees, coaches, players, drunk fans, people not showing up on time and the fact that I had to referee with food poisoning - that round of applause and thanks made it all worth while. Joe and myself had succeeded in turning just a whim of an idea into a full fledged village event that had attracted so many. It was easily the most successful - in terms of grad scale popularity - side project I had completed to date.
Being that the tournament had been such a success, it has been scheduled that there will be one held every few months. My goal is to stay in the position as tournament organizer for a few more goes and eventually hand over the reins to the villagers themselves so they can keep these tournaments alive and going long after I have left. There has been talk that after a few tournaments and after a good deal of stats have been recorded that the village would begin to build an All-star team out of all the teams that participate. That All-star team would then go on to perform in leagues at the next level; in markets and intercity leagues. Though I believe that the village league is far from establishing a worthy team as of yet, I do like that many are thinking ahead and of what opportunities the tournament can provide. There is no doubt that having these tournaments will raise the level of competition and quality of soccer in the village. Perhaps on some individual levels, it will provide grand opportunities for some to elevate to premier levels of the game. But for what its worth at this point, the community bonding and recreation is enough to fulfill my satisfaction.
To conclude, I feel that this tournament was beneficial to the community and myself on more levels then I can express. It provided villages with a sense of pride and entertainment, and hopefully initiated the idea of recreation at the grassroots level. I hope that it also will spark interest to start leagues with women and youth in the near future. As for myself, the next day as I was walking towards my market to pick out some vegetables and I had an unusually large amount of strangers greet me with a smile and handshake and to share how much they enjoyed the tournament. The amount of respect that I gained from that day has been tremendous, so much to the point that I can't recall the last time I have shaken so many hands in a single day. I look forward to our next village tournament and to keep the progress of improvement continuous. I am proud that the village has high aspirations for what the tournament can add to their lifestyle and will be proud to leave it behind when the day comes for me to depart.
