The second reason our Saturday was exciting was I got to attend an international football match between Rwanda and Zambia! We're called the Amavubi, which means Wasps. Before I tell you about the match, I have to tell you about our rat race all around Kigali, trying to find tickets! We were told by our guard and many others that we needed to buy tickets early since it was an international match, because the roads would close later on for the President coming. So we hopped on a moto at 10 this morning and went to the stadium to purchase tickets for everyone. When we got there our moto driver said that we weren't going to be able to buy tickets at the stadium because they didn't sell them there until right before the game started. He told us that government was bad in that way, and that is why there were always stampedes to get in the game right beforehand. Very comforting information! So he takes us down the road to a tiny Rwandatel shack that is supposed to sell tickets. No tickets. We pay our moto driver and he drives away. We went to another Rwandatel shack. No tickets. They send us back to the stadium. It took us about 15 minutes in the blazing sun, then we arrive and the gate police tell us no tickets. Finally a nice man tells us to walk back down the way we just came from to a hotel called Chez Lando where they sell tickets. We walked the 15 minutes back down the road, and finally found the entrance to the hotel, hidden behind a wall of ivy. We walk in, confused and went to reception. Of course the reception lady looked even more confused when we told her we wanted to buy tickets for the game. She sent us to the bar, where we found some men watching a football game on thier small tv. I just knew they would direct us to the right place! They told us to cross the street and go to Ndoli's market (where I found the fake Teddy Grahams), and they assured us we could buy tickets there. We cross over, and of course find people shopping for produce, meat, milk. We come up in there and ask the lady for football tickets, and she looks at us like we are crazy. We are so tired by now, but just laugh at each other and say in unison, "TIA," which means "This is Africa!" We talk about "Tia" a lot. :-) But then some random man in the market tells us to go three shops down to another Rwandatel shop and we will most definitely be able to buy tickets there. And he was right! Finally! We got our tickets, and the man selling them told us we still needed to arrive 2 hours before the match started so we wouldn't have to "push" to get in. Haha. We got there at 2:15 for the 3:30 match, and thankfully, the "pushing" hadn't really started. But they DO pat you down. For real. We had a female police, thank goodness. And they make you turn on your camera and take a picture of the ground to show them that your camera is real and not a bomb. :-) I laughed out loud at that. But I complied anyway.
The stadium was really pretty modern. They totally rebuilt it after the events in 94. Today's was a qualifying match for the African Nations Cup held in Angola. I think Rwanda is already out of the World Cup qualifiers, because we're not very good. From the little I understand about soccer, the winner of today's game was the last team to advance to the Nations Cup from our Group. And in order for Rwanda to advance, we had to win by 2 goals. Sadly, the game ended with a 0-0 tie, which still meant Zambia would advance. Rwanda had many, many shots on goal, but each time they got close they got really excited and overshot it. It was kind of frustrating to see so many near misses. Zambia looked much more controlled. We just seemed to be very excited when we had the ball, and we would kick it far down field, instead of pushing the ball up the field together. One of the hilarious things was watching all the guys on both teams fake injuries. They would fall down just to stop the clock and then lay there writhing in pain. Then the "stretcher" team would run out onto the field carrying a makeshift handheld "stretcher" and clumsily lift the person onto the stretcher and run off the field. Then, as soon as the person was dropped on the sidelines, they would get up and run back out there. It was crazy! But I think I figured out that the rule was if you left the field, it had to be on a stretcher. This happened about 12 times during the course of the game. Of course, each time, that player just wanted a "water" break. They would sip their water on the stretcher, be carried to the sidelines, dropped in the grass, then they would immediately run back out there to play. Hilarious to watch! The atmosphere in the stadium was great..it reminded me of an American football game. There were Rwandans with painted faces and chests, blowing crazy horns, wearing masks, trying to humiliate the other team. Lot of fun to watch! One neat thing at the end to see, was how they release everyone from the stadium. You cannot leave early at all! Not even if your team is losing by a mile! When the President is there, no one is allowed to leave the stadium until he formally leaves with all his people. It's a big, formal process. The policemen have to stop everyone else from leaving. So it took us a while to get out of there. Thank goodness we didn't need to immediately catch a moto. We would have been out of luck. A bunch of us girls walked to Sole Luna cafe afterwards for some great Italian pizza. All in all, a super day! :-)
Rwanda vs. Zambia
Amharo Stadium
An enthusiastic fan :-)
The army band playing for President Kagame
The "mzungu" crowd. Don't make fun of my hat. I was just trying to show my support for the Amavubi! :-)
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