GGGOOOAAALLLLLL!!!

10/17 Today I went and played soccer with one of the second tier clubs in Madagascar. Their coach came and picked me up from the center and drove me to the field where they had scheduled a match. Earlier in the year, I had asked the program director how I could donate to one of the sports programs here, because sports played such a big role in my life. So I worked out a way to buy new uniforms for a team and they invited me to play with them. On the way there, we got to talk about Madagascar and World sports as well as the country. He tried to bad talk US basketball and say that Europe was getting better! But I quickly reminded him who won the most recent gold medal hahahaah. He also explained to me that there aren’t too many soccer fields anymore because foreigners rent the land (it is illegal for foreigners to purchase land although they can take out lifetime leases…) and then build big buildings on them for their foreign businesses. Really too bad to see athletics and youth athletics get compromised although the country is not getting money from a lot of sources, so that might help out with other things.

I didn’t play TOO terribly although it has been about 4 years since I played any type of organized sport and about 6 since I played any form of soccer. I was clearly the least in shape and foot coordination is hard to pick up in a matter of 45 minutes. Still, I played a shut out half of defense that is much less dramatic than the title of the post suggests (although that is usually the case with soccer). And I even made a couple plays too! It was really fun to get out there on the field and run around with those guys though.