At last something happier than genocide! This weekend I got to check out the National Woman’s Soccer team take on Morocco out in Pikine. It was the first soccer match that I’ve ever attended (I descend from hockey people), and it was definitely a fine Senegalese activity for a breezy Saturday afternoon.
Start of the game. I think it’s cool how you can see that Morocco has a Muslim team member who plays completely covered.
Woman’s soccer (football is what I should really be saying), like most of sports, is still a developing program here in Senegal. Sure a lot of girls play sports, but they are still heavily dominated by males once you are at the professional level (I guess you can make the same observation back in the States). Some of this has to do with the fact that girls grow up and assume traditional family roles (that of a mother and running a household), but this is slowly changing. In fact, I was invited along to the match by a co-worker who ran a girl’s soccer tournament last summer in Senegal called “Ladies’ Turn“. A cool project, where she worked with girls from towns outside of Dakar to bring Le Foot Féminin into the public eye.
Like every society, progress happens slowly. I sat next to a person who worked with Ladies’ Turn last year, and while he enjoys supporting soccer for women in Senegal, he still saw much room for improvement. The FIFA banner that was held up at the beginning of the match, for example, was carried by young men. “Those should be women out there holding the banner”. He pointed out how the support staff for the Moroccan side was composed of women, while Senegal still had men serving in some roles. Of course me being engineered to draw everything back to hockey terms, I kind of likened it to the place where girls ice hockey is right now in the States. A growing enterprise.
I am sure that I will write more about this later, but the other national sport of Senegal is la lutte (wresting, for lack of a better word). There was a lutte taking place in another Pikine stadium on the same day as our game. With that in mind I was impressed at the turnout for the ladies match, as plenty of people crowded in to watch the action and requisite théâtre of field injuries that miraculously healed after 60 seconds of writhing in the grass. Although it ended up at a 0-0 draw, there was constant drumming and enthusiastic support throughout the 90 minutes of play. People waved flags and were clad in red, yellow and green wigs- just as any rabid toubab would at an American football match.
I love how we are all fundamentally the same, no matter where you go in the world. Getting interested in le football just might get me through the next couple of hockey seasons until I get back to a cold climate.