“We” Woes

My father would occasionally buy one of those rubber balls; fancy balls that would bounce around for a day or two. They weren’t made for the thorny field that made our playground, not to underrate our sturdy feet. All hope lay on stuffed paper bags, ringed in by neat rows of nylon rope.

Soccer was the only sport I could think of, in fact, it is the only sport most kids in rural Kenya play today, the urban kids having graduated, by a large extent, to video games. In the morning, my friends and I would wake up to play, between classes; we would rush out to play. In the evenings, we would play until darkness reigned us in. Whenever a big match was on radio, we would crowd around, stuffed ball in hand; and cheer on as the fast talking commentator relayed the match. I knew the local teams and players by heart. I had a collection of our national team players from Coca-Cola bottle top liners neatly placed in their rightful positions on a makeshift field and as they played, I pushed them along. I grew up knowing that one day, I’ll be in that stadium, playing, commentating or if things didn’t turn out well, on the stands, cheering.

Fast track two decades and a couple of days to… last Evening. I’m scratching my head seriously trying to think up teams in the Kenya premier league. I got to eight; quite a good a count, if not better than most of my friends seated around a pub. No one got to the halfway count of ten. Yet, we are on a big soccer night out. Manchester United is playing Arsenal and all pubs with the business sense of installing Satellite TV are full. Only moments ago, we had dazzled a group of tourists with our knowledge of the English premier league. Not only did we name all the teams, but topped it with their home stadiums to a good measure. To save face, one of them stopped us from delving into the nationwide league as well. … “and the local? tell us about the teams in your league.”

To save face! Whose face? Frankly, our premier league has gradually driven us into discontentment. It is permanently muddled in squabbles that take the lion’s share of the sports pages; but even so, can we rightly pack pubs in the tens of thousands to watch a foreign league while in our backyard, our teams are playing to hundreds? can we, colleagues and friends, dutifully split alongside our English club preference and taunt each other on who “we” are fielding, the damage “we” will inflict on “your” side while drinking way funds our former classmates and neighbours, the real “we” could use?... isn’t it ironic to display those bumper stickers with the clarion call “I’m proud to be Kenyan” as we dash past a local encounter to a nearby bar?

Things didn’t quite turn out well for me; I’m not even on the stands mate.