Waka Waka

Several summers during college I lived together with 5 of my girlfriends in this beloved little white frame house. On those rare idle summer evenings when nothing--not margaritas, not mullet hunting, not Russian Roulette, not even Apples 2 Apples--seemed to trip our trigger, we would entertain ourselves by popping in a movie.

Side note: When we first moved in, we harnessed our inner Monks and in our OCD stupor, we managed to create the most intricate movie cataloguing system ever. Eat your heart out Blockbuster.

Soooooo, when the tequila ran dry or the weather turned wet or when any entertainment options that necessitated putting on a bra were unanimously vetoed, we resorted to our anally arranged movie collection, all the while congratulating ourselves on our undervalued skill of cinematic taxonomy. Our choices ranged from the following categories: action, drama, period drama, comedy, romantic comedy, vulgar Apatow-ian comedy, Disney movies, television shows, Classics, eye candy movies, pretentious movies only the critics and your smart friends claim to enjoy, movies you are mortified to possess (ummm…Lake Placid 2, Spice World, the whole Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen straight to DVD collection), and then, of course, there was the Sports section.

Whenever we were at an impasse in our movie decision process, the category we always turned to was sports. It was the great unifier--the middle of the Venn Diagram. It didn’t matter if you were more Anna Wintour than Jim Thorpe. Everyone could relate to a good sports movie. Everyone. Because although most sports movies stick to a formula that is painfully predictable, it is also one that makes you feel good about life. Everyone loves a good underdog story which is what most of the best sports movies are (Little Giants, Mighty Ducks, Space Jam, Bring It On!!!).

And it is also what Mozambique is, the underdog.

It came as no surprise to me, then, that my little Mozambican town rallied together in a show of solidarity and collective pride that Africa played host to the biggest sporting event in the world…the World Cup.

Africa United, the commercials broadcasted. United by the pure and simple love of a sport, soccer.

Nooowwwww, before my arrival here in Mozambique, I would definitely not have considered myself a soccer fan. First of all, I never played it. Secondly, in Nebraska, nothing eclipses Husker football. And lastly, my dad’s dislike for the sport seemed to rub off on me. To avoid getting a Howard Stern sized smack down from the FCC, I will refrain from using the expression he likened it to.

But being here with that vuvuzela noise and all those sport endorphins so close, I became hooked. I loved every minute of the World Cup. Before all my favorite teams were eliminated (by “favorite” I mean teams that either had the best looking players or the most offensively short shorts), I was catching every game with the locals in the only place here that has a television.

And talking World Cup action with the community members garnered me major brownie points. For instance, the owner of the local bakery and I became best buds because he was just as fired up as I was about the US being robbed of its third goal against Slovenia. Damn straight, Mr. Ossufo. WTF!?

But it’s not just professional soccer. Soccer in all forms here is just a way of life. At any point in the day you will encounter some sort of pick-up game. Kids, adults, boys, girls, Mozambican, Chinese, American, Portuguese. Everyone. And because there is really no equipment or soccer balls, they have to improvise. Bare feet on an open plot of land, with tree branches staked into the ground to mark the goals. Just playing a game they love. Their creativity and resourcefulness still amazes me. I have seen soccer balls fashioned out of almost every sort of material. It’s really quite unbelievable--like when Benny the Jet Rodriguez pickled the Beast! In Mozambique, you don’t have to build anything for them to come.

While most of the soccer fields are pretty rustic, Angoche does have one big field with actual goals where the local town team plays. And these games are major town events and a great way to mingle. Attending my first soccer game here was probably one of the most entertaining things I have ever experienced. After watching just a few World Cup games, I began my transition to the dark side…aka into a fan of soccer (I’m sorry, Dad, please don’t call me Benedict Arnold. I can’t help it. I mean, have you seen Cristiano Ronaldo!). Anyway, ogling the Copa Mundial players, I have been amazed at the finesse and fluidity of the athletes.

I don’t know why I thought an amateur Mozambican game would be the same. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t. The game was rogue, unpolished, and tears were involved. It was like Mozambique meets the WNBA. There may be no crying in baseball, but there definitely is crying in small town Mozambican soccer. One thing I’ll give em’ though, they’ve got flare. Whenever there was a remotely good play, both the spectators and players would celebrate with a soiree of acrobatics. When the winning team scored the only goal of the game, the whole team erupted into flips up and down the field. What now, Kerri Strug!?!

Maybe it’s not technically soccer that I am enjoying--perhaps it’s just being surrounded by so many people who just so much love a game. It’s like being back in Memorial Stadium.

What can I say, sports fans, Africa was most definitely an exciting place to be this summer. The World Cup was a welcome distraction from so many other things and one of the most successful ways I’ve found to get to know folks here.

Ahhh, the power of sports.

It’s enough to make me want to eat a box of Wheaties, put the SportsCenter theme song on repeat, and chant Rudy Rudy Rudy!

Or I could just pop in a good sports movie. I like rooting for the underdog.