Soccer match on Kassa
by Anne Harkin
Soccer…the passion of the nation. Every
boy plays soccer. Every boy wants to be a champion player. It's their
dream to find freedom, travel and wealth through soccer fame and
success.
Throughout the streets of the capital little matches are set up using portable, iron mini goals. Troops of teenagers and men jog the dusty soccer fields seeking physical strength and perfection. Sports clothes are all the go - shorts, singlets, joggers - cheap Chinese copies of brand name goods. Even the tiny island of Room has a team in the local division, and today it's the semi-final of the season on the neighbouring island of Kassa.
We climb aboard the pirogue B52 with instruments, gongoma, djembe and bolon*, push out from shore and sing all the way to Kassa. The beach where we land is chocolate brown. Steaked milk and dark chocolate brown, soft, clean volcanic sand, and huge, bubbled, chocolate mousse boulders. We trudge the length of the beach in the searing heat then take a little path through the coconut palms which opens out into a soccer field. Considerable effort, if not quantities of dynamite, must have gone into achieving the flatness of a playing field amid this island of solidified magma.
The Room fans arrange themselves on the
boulders perched up on the hill behind the goal posts, while the Kassa
followers form a throng around the edges of the field. The umpire
appears. He blows his whistle and from between the coconut trees, the
Room team jogs onto the field, resplendent in fluorescent yellow tops,
red shorts and a rainbow assortment of socks, joggers and plastic
sandals. Their opponents, similarly ragtag, but making an effort with
orange tee-shirts, jog onto the arena and the match begins. 
Up on the hill we egg on the Room team by
drumming and chanting rousing songs which cite all the team by name.
Despite the awful heat, it's all go on the field. The Room boys are in
fine form and race about manically to the point where it seems there are
twice as many of them as their
opponents. They quickly, score a goal which prompts most of the
spectators to take to the field in excitement. They disperse and the
match continues. Players slide and crash, raising clouds of red dust
from the sand and scoria surface. A black goat with two young ones
ambles nonchalantly onto centre field. No one seems to notice for quite
some time, then she's chased off with pebbles skittering at her feet. Up
on the boulders the Room fans are chanting, singing, drumming and
cheering on their fellow islanders.
Two more goals and it's half time. Trois a
zero. During the break, women and children stroll about with wares to
sell perched on their heads…frozen fruit juice, coconut pieces,
bananas, fried sweet biscuits, roasted corn on the cob.
