I had hoped to post this blog last weekend, but in the busy-ness of work/life, it didn’t quite happen! So here are the events from Sunday afternoon, September 20th, as reported by me.
My three weeks of language learning in Djougou passed quickly, and I’m now back in Parakou just in time for the end of Ramadan celebrations. On Sunday afternoon, I knew that everyone was out in town, enjoying the “end of fast,” so I decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood and see if I could catch up with some of my friends in the area. I ran into a few friends from the local running club and after they all had a good laugh over my newly acquired language skills, I agreed to go watch a soccer match with them. It was the club-level city final, being played on the field just across from the mission compound, so I could easily leave early if it wasn’t an interesting match.
The field is just a local high school field, no bleachers or stadium lights, and standing room only with the exception of a few chairs for some local big shots. Lucky for me, my friends are tight with the referees, so we got prime seats on the refs’ bench. Seems like a safe place to view a soccer match from, right? Hm, that’s what I thought.
The game was ho-hum for the first 20 minutes, the crowd was pretty calm, it was still hard to judge which team had more fans and who was cheering for which side, and I was more interesting in practicing my Dendi-listening skills, trying to make out what people were saying around me. I didn’t catch the names of the teams, they represented different city districts, but for simplicity’s sake, we’ll call them the Red (& white) team and the Black team. I was cheering for the Red team; this time I chose to support my friends’ team because I figured that they would at least protect me if a crowd riot broke out.
Team Red had a break-away, and as the guy was about to shoot, he tripped on a mound of sand. The defenseman was close, but hardly touched him, and it was at that unfortunate moment that the referee made a gesture with his arm, indicating the penalty. Well, the crowd erupted, and whether the ref was planning on blowing his whistle or not, he never got the chance because as the crowd surged onto the field toward him, he sprinted for the safety of the referee bench.
Yes, that is where I was so comfortably seated, on the referee bench. The four referees stood back to back, forced into a tight circle as the Team Black fans roared and yelled around us. We all jumped up as the referees and crowd came toward the bench, but thankfully the Team Red fans stepped in and formed a protective circle around the referees (and me). Not that I needed to know Dendi to understand what was going on, but I managed to pick up a few phrases, including “Can’t you see?!”, “Get off the field!”, “It’s not right, not right!” There were a few more phrases I picked up, but unsure of their meaning, I don’t think I should repeat them until l confirm the meaning with another Dendi-speaker… This went on for another 15-20 minutes, the referees wisely chose to remain quiet as they sat looking at their shoes, waiting for the noise and threats to subside. Various “important” men would come over and demand to speak to the senior referee, to council him on the poor call that was made, to tell him that he was a disgrace to
Now into the second half, we were again seated comfortably on the bench, and behind us the fans formed a solid 15 foot thick wall surrounding the entire soccer field. There was even another level of fans being formed, as they parked their motorbikes and many were now standing on the seat of their bikes in order to get a clear view of the field. Black Team had already scored a goal, and the fans had made their rounds, taunting the Red Team, parading back and forth in front of the Trophy (replica of World Cup trophy) sitting on the table to my right. I surprised at how sedate the rest of the crowd was, no one was really reacting to the jeers and calls from the Team Black fans, perhaps because they knew 35 minutes was plenty of time for the score to change. It wasn’t until Red Team scored the tying goal with only 5 minutes left that the war really broke out.
At this point we were all standing again, the bench was no longer beneath me as the crowd surged forward. My common-sense finally kicked in, and I turned to tell my friends that I was going to “sneak” out, but they were no longer beside me, and the dude behind me was now standing much too close and was definitely blocking my escape. The fans were now racing back and forth waving their shirts and fists in the air, and I managed to hear a Dendi-phrase being repeated over and over again, “I will hit you!! I will hit you!!” Again, I didn’t need three weeks of language study to figure that one out; the intentions were made quite clear by the speakers’ actions. Finally several men intervened with belts and tree branches and began beating back the fans now engaged in a neighborhood brawl in the middle of the soccer field. My friends showed up again out of the crowd, and we all waited as the war slowly subsided.
The score was tied 1-1, and with only minutes left in the match, the crowd was already gathering around the goal in anticipation of the shoot-out to follow. It was already dusk, the sun was setting, the crowd was getting more agitated, and the referees had the look of hunted animals, because they sensed they would be lynched by the fans no matter what the outcome of the match. The shoot-out began, and after the first five players of each team went through, the score was still even, and the sun had set. The referees huddled together for a few minutes and then signaled that the match would have to be re-scheduled; today’s results were cancelled as incomplete. It’s really no surprise, the many interruptions delayed the game by more than an hour, and without any police security, I’m sure the referees knew that they could never survive the wild fans’ attacks in the shadows of dusk.
My friends and I agreed that we would definitely plan to attend the rescheduled match, and I promised to bring my camera for the sequel. Normally I’m not very interested in attending sports events, I prefer to play sports rather than simply watch them. But I’m finding that I quite enjoy “spectator sports” in Benin, because as a fan you can actually interact with the match, and as I witnessed in today’s game, fans can even go so far as to change the outcome of the match!
Stayed tuned for the re-match, hopefully along with a few action photos as well! J
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