Vivent les Femmes

Vivent les femmes de Kolaboui! Vivent les femmes de Guinee! Vivent les femmes d'afrique! Vivent les femmes du monde!

Happy International Women's Day/Month! We celebrated in style au village. I didn't realize that March 8th was anything special until I arrived at school and my students were telling me "Bonne Fete, Madame!" which prompted me to inquire what holiday it was. I didn't realize that the women of my village were planning to do anything but on my way back from school I ran into some of the women from the women's groupement and they told me that I needed to come to our cultural center for the festivities later that night.

The festivities started with dancing to a Djembe performance. All of the women wanted to dance with me - though mostly they were trying to teach me how to dance because apparently I dance very badly (think Elaine of Seinfeld). After dancing we went outside to have a soccer tournament: women teachers VS women from the market. Tons of people showed up (including all the important authorities of our district) and cheered us on. The score was 0-0. It was awesome to see a lot of the older women wearing shorts and t-shirts. After the game we went back to our cultural center and once again danced. And afterwards we danced some more...did I mention how much we danced? I was a little self-conscious dancing in front of what seemed to be my entire community, but I got over it (my dancing was the talk of the town for a few days). Over the loudspeaker someone chanted vivent les femmes du monde and at that moment I felt really happy and connected to the women around me.

Fete des Femmes

Vivent les Jeunes Filles

Our girls soccer time finally had their first game. Let me tell you how it went….

I’ll start from the beginning. Awhile back a few coaches from the Boke/Kamsar regional girls team came to my house – they had heard that there was a girls team in my village and one of the students at my school showed them my house. They told me all about their team (mostly how good they were) and asked if we could set a date to play against each other.  We decided that their team would come to my village to have a match amical, friendly match. Organizing the date was the easy part. The hard part was getting the soccer field. One of the boys that helps me train the girls informed me that someone else had planned a boys match that day (like every other day). I had to go to this person’s house, whom, by the way, I had never met before, and had to literally beg him to let the girls play. After making more than a few sexists remarks about girls playing soccer, he told me he would think about it. Thankfully, the next day he told me that he would let us have the field, which I’m sure is not because he cared to let the girls play, but rather that he didn’t want to be known as the person who ruined the white person’s plans.

Finally, game day arrived. The girls showed up at my house early on Friday afternoon. We had to prepare sachets of water for our team and Kamsar to drink. The tension was in the air – the girls knew that Kamsar was good and they were already slightly discouraged from the start. And in fact, the game was more or less a disaster. Aside from losing 5-0, there were many problems with substitutions, girls that didn’t have shoes, etc…Tons of people showed up for the game, though, which was great because it showed that a lot of people actually support the girls. I was really worried, however, that the girls were totally and utterly discouraged and ashamed to have been beaten so badly on their home turf, in front of everyone. In a place where you have so little, dignity seems to be the one thing that you do have. I felt like I let the girls down and somehow felt that it was all my fault. My whole goal of trying to improve these girls self-confidence, was it not turned on it’s head? Would my entire village and the whole school be talking about how bad the girls soccer team was?

As it turned out, no one was saying these things except little kids who laughed and kept saying 5-0, 5-0, 5-0! But in fact, a lot of people said Du courage and even mentioned how well some of our girls played. The trainer for one of the local boys soccer teams agreed to help train the girls for future games. The boys who play on club teams are also interested in helping us and let us train and play with them now.

We also recently played in the school tournament in Boke and we beat another village 1-0. After the girls won they picked me up and danced on the field. Great, great day. Our school and village were so proud.

The girls at school getting ready to head to Boke for the big game

My most dedicated players - Mahawa and Fouleymatou

This is our fan club - riding on top of our minibus to come and support us in Boke

The girls and I before our big game. Our classement of players is on the chalkboard behind us.

In uniform

Sidenote:

Also, I found out why I'm not getting letters. I figured they were being sent to the wrong country and a recent letter that I did receive (6 months after it was sent) confirmed this: