After enjoying a lovely afternoon in the lovely Tanzanian village of Mloka, we headed back to eat lunch, play some pool with Migali and the chef, Rushidi, and then take an afternoon nap. Around 430pm Migali came by the tent to wake me. We had made plans earlier that day to walk back to the village to watch the World Cup match of Germany Vs Argentin
I have been following the World Cup at home and was able to catch a match or two since my arrival in Tanzania so I was really excited *and a bit shocked* to see the sign outside of the one of two locations that had a satellite dish in the whole village. To be honest I didn’t expect to catch a match at all while on our safari, but this is Africa and it is football! We walked our 3km back into town and when we arrived at the small little cement building I was in heaven.
We stepped inside the one room building that was almost pitch black except for the glare of the television that sat on a table in the front. One side of the room had two benches and in the back there were 3 rows of benches with the men from the village sitting closely together. In front of those benches were about 30 or 40 more villagers sitting on the dirt covered cement floor. They were all sitting tightly together in order to better see the 20 inches of FIFA World Cup football in front of them. We were the only two foreigners, or muzungas, as they call anyone who is white, let alone the only two girls in the tiny little building. They all looked up when we walked in and then went straight back to the match. Migali offered us seats on the benches in the back but we wanted a closer view of the TV so we sat on the floor next to the one little boy in the building and a few other men. Migali thought it was interesting we would choose the dirt floor over the benches but we wanted to see the match as best as we could and that meant dirty bottoms.
There was one fan on the ceiling and the only thing it seemed to be doing was blowing the air around. The air was a mix of sweat, sweet and sour smells from the day of sitting around and waiting for the match. I saw most of the men earlier that day sitting in the village, which is common here in Africa, while the women are off in the fields and in the homes working, the men sit along the streets and talk about life and for now the World Cup. So as the fan blew the smells of sweat and dirt and hot air around the building I sat in complete awe. The men were all cheering for Germany and there was a man in front who would stand up and do a dance every time Germany scored, which happened to be 4 times that day. When the game ended and the final score was Germany 4 and Argentina 0 the group of men cheered and clapped, and we cheered and clapped right along with them. It was such an amazing experience to be with the men of the village in that dark one room building watching history in the making. And after the highlights of the match ended the men went out into the night and Nora and I went back to our camp site along the Rufiji River.
It was definately different from the 4th of July I had last year. I think this was one of the best Independence days I have ever had!