Football

Saturday afternoon J, N., and I went to a football game. P. was supposed to come with us, but he got stuck in Jinja with some stupid Americans who wanted to bungee jump at the source of the Nile.

The U-20 Ugandan Cranes were playing South Africa in the stadium downtown. Place was hectic. And smelly. And hot. By the time we actually made it from the cab to the stadium, I was pretty much ready to turn around and go home. We came upon a couple entrances which seemed to be mob scenes of one guy standing in front of a small opening and letting a few people in here and there. It appeared as though he was like a bouncer who only lets the hot girls in at clubs. Did everyone have tickets? And if so, why couldn’t they all get in? And if they didn’t have tickets, why did they think this guy was going to let them in? J asked someone what the deal was. He sent us around to the other side of the stadium and we assumed it was because we were Muzungus (white people). The entrance on the other side was much quieter and (surprise!) more expensive.

We go in through an opening not all Americans would be able to fit through. A guy asks for our tickets. He tells us our seats are not available right now but will be at halftime. (We’re actually quite late as we were told the game started at 4 when it really started at 3:30. Very few things start on time here, the exceptions being football games and movies, the latter we discovered actually start early. Last weekend we went to see Music and Lyrics (not a movie we would normally see but it was the best option available). It was supposed to start at 7:15; when we came into the theater at 7:10, the had fully started, even the credits were through.) The guy points to passageway with a railing connecting to portions of the stadium and tells us we’ll have to stand up there. We were pretty doubtful we were going to get seats at halftime, and with good reason. We didn’t.

But the view was great and it was a good game in which Uganda seemed to dominate, though no goals scored before we left a little early in order to avoid the crush.



Next time we want to sit on the opposite side of the field. Though it’s in the sun, they look like they have more fun over there. On the expensive side of the stadium, it’s very quiet.