Africa, My Passion

by Corinne Hofmann

  From the clubhouse they send us out on to the field where the trainer coaches the team every day between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The training ground is little more than a meadow. It rains so much here at the moment that the grass is very long, although there are also a few bare patches. Four men are sitting in the sun on a wooden bench next to a simple goal with loose netting that’s obviously been darned in places, while out on the field twenty or so lads in yellow jerseys are going through training exercises. It all seems rather modest, with nothing to indicate that these players are in the top flight of Kenyan football. We ask for Francis, the trainer, and a rather quiet-looking man makes himself known and accepts our apologies for being late. I’m beginning to think it’s not my day as he just sits there with the others watching the team training while we stand there in the baking heat. The young men out on the pitch take turns receiving the ball and shooting at the net. Out of the blue Francis points to the man sitting next to him and says, ‘This man’s the best goalkeeper in Kenya.’ The man next to him replies, ‘And this is the best and most sought after football coach in Kenya.’

  I’m relieved that finally somebody has broken the ice and smile back and say, ‘Well, that’s why we’re here. We want to talk to the best. We’d like to talk to some of the players too.’

  But nobody replies. It’s all gone silent again. Five minutes pass before Francis finally says, ‘Why did you come now? Didn’t anybody tell you that we train at this time of day? It’s not a good time for interviews.’

  Klaus tells him that a certain Mr Jecton who organised the meeting for us suggested this time. At this point the third man introduces himself as Mr Jecton. There follows a discussion between them in Kiswahili where all I can make out occasionally is my own name and the words ‘White Masai’. The trainer turns to me then and asks me about my book and what other books I might be planning to write. He listens carefully for a bit and then says, ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do for you. I’ll have a word with the players. But if you’re really interested in us and our football, you should come to a game. We’re playing in the City Stadium the day after tomorrow.’ He turns to Jecton and says, ‘Give her your mobile number and sort it out with them.’ Then he nods goodbye to us and walks off to talk to his players.

  Unlike his coach, Jecton turns out to be extremely chatty. He tells me he’s the financial head of Mathare United, though he used to be a player himself. We chat for a bit and agree to meet again the day after next, at the stadium.

  The beautiful game

  We’re standing in a long queue waiting for our tickets. Klaus and I are the only white people. People stare at us a bit and ask which team we are here to support. We tell them ‘Mathare United’. It seems we’re the club’s only fans in this queue. When we eventually get to the ticket desk we’re told that VIP tickets have to be collected from another office on the other side of the stadium. So we have to queue up again, although this time the line is shorter. Most of those in this queue are wearing smart suits. The entry price is only €3 here while the ordinary seats cost just a third of that.

  I have to admit that it’s the first time in my life that I’ve actually been in a football stadium. The City Stadium only has 15,000 places but it still seems impressive to me. By the time the game starts only about one sixth of the seats are taken, although the stand where we are is relatively full. It’s only later that I find out most Mathare United fans, who live in the slums, can’t afford the price of a ticket or the bus journey to get here.

  We’re supposed to rendezvous with Mr Jecton but there’s no sign of him. No sooner has the game begun than some twenty trumpet-like instruments erupt into a deafening din. Later, I learn that these things are called vuvuzelas, and they become more widely known after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. I’m almost driven out of my mind by just two of them in our immediate vicinity. I imagine that if I’d been at a World Cup game, my ears would have fallen off and my brain exploded.

  Mathare United start well and are clearly the better team in the first half. But almost the entire audience are fans of their opponents, Gor Mahia FC, the other best-known club in Kenya. The former prime minister is their biggest fan. When Mathare get their first sight of the goal, I’m urging them on loudly, surprised at myself for getting so caught up in the game. The people sitting next to me smile and giggle a bit but obviously find me somewhat annoying. I get the feeling we might not be in the right seats. Down on the edge of the pitch there’s a cameraman dashing back and forwards so quickly he’s pulling the guy holding his cables along with him, which is quite amusing. I’m still sitting there cheering on my team when the cameraman rushes up into the stand and turns the camera on a couple in front of us before sticking it right into my face. A few days later down in the Mathare slum lots of people tell me they saw me on television.

  Just before half-time the other side scores, but it’s disallowed for being offside. Within seconds there’s a near-riot going on by the side of the pitch and the police are moving in. It seems the local fans don’t think it was offside and demand that the goal be allowed to stand. The man sitting next to me apologises for their behaviour and says these are the hardcore fans who can get violent at time. But the police take control of the situation and at half-time it’s still 0–0.

  Anyone who imagines the half-time break might be a time for the fans to relax has no concept of Africa. There are already about eighty people on their feet singing and dancing, doing a sort of Polonaise between the seats, blowing their vuvuzelas and singing their hearts out. I get an adrenalin rush from it all but just hope it stays peaceful. At one point they all get down on their knees with their arms around each others’ shoulders, then all leap up into the air, turn right, put their hands to their heads as if saluting an officer and take a step forwards. To me it looks a bit silly and doesn’t seem to have anything to do with football. We’re watching it all with broad smiles on our faces when I spot Jecton on the left-hand side of the stand, waving at us. He comes over and says hello, telling us with a laugh that, as we guessed, we’ve been sitting in the wrong place, among the opposition fans, which wasn’t very clever and could have been dangerous. He takes us up to a little box and introduces us to Bob Munro, who founded what was at the time the biggest sports club in Africa, MYSA, which eventually gave birth to the professional Mathare United Football Club. They obviously took the name from their idols, Manchester United.

  Bob, a tall, thin man, with bright eyes behind rimless spectacles, introduces himself cordially, showing interest in me and my project. Before long we’re all engaged in an animated conversation that lasts until the referee blows his whistle to start the second half. Bob tells me that the club will be celebrating its twenty-fourth anniversary in a few days’ time. He invites us to the party. Bob promises he’ll find me interesting people to talk to. There are going to be not just videos of old games but music and exhibitions of photography as MYSA also sponsors creative skills. I’m delighted to accept his invitation and can’t wait to hear the team’s stories.

  The second half starts but there are only a few opportunities on goal and that’s it. It seems to me that Mathare United play fairly while the other team commit lots of fouls. But on the other hand it also seems as if the referee is giving my team the benefit of the doubt. It ends in a no-score draw and when the whistle blows there’s a rush for the exits. We take a safe rear exit having made an agreement to meet up with Bob at the party next Saturday.

  A few days later I find out that we did well to avoid the exit crowds as there was a lot of trouble at the gates and as a result the next game was ordered to be played behind closed doors. That sounds to me like a shame, but I’m just pleased to have been at my first ever game and I’m already looking forward to the MYSA party and meeting the players.

  The jubilee party

  The party for the twenty-fourth anniversary of the MYSA sports club is held on 6 March 2010 near the Huruma Stadium, where there is a big, open but otherwise unremarkable square. There is
a trace of cloud in the sky but even so the sun is hot above the hard, dusty square. It’s about as big as two football pitches and is ringed with tall grey apartment blocks with washing hanging from the balconies. Some of them are only half-finished and lots of people have climbed up to watch the festivities down below. Everywhere I look there are children and young people in the yellow MYSA shirts. They are all members of the football club. I head for a shady open tent where there are already several activities going on. There are people explaining the risks of HIV and there is a doctor doing tests on the spot for anyone who wishes. Apart from him everything seems to be in the hands of fifteen- to twenty-year-old teenagers.

  The tent next door houses the photo exhibition. Frederick, our guide, explains that the photos were also an MYSA project which he himself has worked on since 2005. It all started with twenty kids aged between twelve and seventeen from the Mathare slum who were given simple cameras and told to take snapshots of their everyday life. That produced a photo album that sold around the world. The kids took snaps of their daily life – or rather, their fight for survival – taken from their own point of view. One example was of ten- and eleven-year-old children looking after their younger siblings, or a seven-year-old girl washing mountains of clothes with nothing more than soap and her own bare hands, or other children cooking their maize broth on charcoal stoves. Yet another photo shows kids sleeping on top of rubbish tips.

  There are pictures taken by children for children. Across the tent are photos of the football team at sporting events or doing cleaning duties in the slum, photos of fourteen-year-old kids hanging around in tin shacks flooded by sewage or mud. It’s very moving to see everyday life from a child’s point of view. Frederick, the head of the photo project, is himself not yet twenty. He has some eighty kids involved. He tells me: ‘I’d like to pass on to others what I’ve learned. We set up exhibitions of pictures of everything that goes on in the slums, so people can take stock of their lives and talk about them. Obviously we hope to sell a few of them as well,’ he finishes with a friendly grin.

  I’m still staring at the last few of these remarkable images when Bob Munro comes up and introduces himself cheerfully. He’s the sort of man whom you immediately feel you’ve known for years. He takes me over to a tented area in which rows of chairs are marked ‘reserved’. I’ve got a prime position, it turns out, right in the first row in front of the cups that are going to be handed out. A lot of the chairs are still unused at the moment, but before long they’re filled up by local dignitaries and team sponsors.

  With a broad smile on his face Bob says how great it is to see what all these kids have achieved. I congratulate him for what he has done, but he says, ‘No, Corinne, it’s not me, it’s the kids. We started this all up twenty-four years ago when I was working in the Mathare slum as a representative of the UN. I saw little kids playing with a ball they’d made themselves in between heaps of rubbish and shards of broken glass. It moved me so much that I went over and promised the kids that if they cleared a proper space for them to play I would bring them a proper football. And to this day that’s still the motto of the MYSA: “Do something for yourself first and then we’ll help you with the infrastructure we’ve built up.” Even the little ones soon learn that it’s in their interest to do something for the common good. They don’t earn money directly, but they become part of a club and can grow up to become a coach, a referee or even run one of the departments. Kids learn quick that it’s worthwhile taking responsibility. In a country where the average age of the population is eighteen you soon learn how to do business and not just expect something from life. We have to teach them how to lead, how to act responsibly. Most of our department heads or team coaches are just fourteen to sixteen years old. But they get engaged and get respect for it. Last year FIFA officially recognised our youngest football official. Her name is Charity Muthoni, she’s just twelve years old and in her free time works with a hundred and thirty teams and a total of two thousand people. Isn’t that incredible?’

  It certainly is incredible to see how quickly these children mature compared with ours back in Europe, who at this stage still get driven to school or their local sports club and are taught by people years older than them. It’s remarkable how self-assured these young people here are. Looking at them I can’t help feeling that our affluence doesn’t make our children freer, but instead makes them less self-assured, more dependent and smug.

  Bob is still talking. ‘MYSA isn’t just a football or giant sports club. MYSA is designed to set a good example to the youngest kids. They need a goal in their lives to get them off the streets. In the slums you don’t just need to educate the leaders of tomorrow, that’s crazy, you need them today. Right now! The most important message MYSA sends out is: you can be whatever you want to be, achieve whatever you want to – nothing’s impossible – but everything takes really hard work. That’s the only thing that makes life here different from anywhere else.’

  There’s a loudspeaker announcement that I can’t quite make out, and Bob invites me to join him in welcoming the two teams of handicapped football players who are about to play a match. ‘That’s another thing, Corinne, we’ve seen to it that even those with disabilities get a chance in life. Sport makes them visible. People notice them. Previously the disabled were pushed aside or blocked in anything they wanted to do because their families were either ashamed of them or feared they’d get a bad reputation, which would damage the chances of their brothers and sisters finding a marriage partner. Here we give them a platform to be themselves. You’re about to see a game played with real passion,’ he tells me with a laugh.

  Bob and I shake hands with the players, all of whom have some physical or mental disability. You can feel how excited everybody is about the game. On the back of their shirts is the slogan: ‘Give the young disabled a real chance.’

  I stand next to the goal with a few other spectators. The keeper keeps jerking backwards and forwards and doesn’t seem to be really following the game. He’s wearing ordinary shoes with a silver stripe down them. It seems he has some mental handicap. A striker wearing two different football boots comes charging towards the goal, but the keeper manages to deflect his shot. The spectators applaud and he turns round to thank us just as another attacker takes the ball and lances it towards the net in a shot only just knocked away by one of the defenders. This particular defender caught my attention early on. He can only play with one foot because his other leg is deformed and just sort of hangs loosely so that he has to use a stick. It’s quite incredible under the circumstances how deftly he manages to get around the pitch. He runs forwards then all the way back again, kicks the ball hard, heads it and even jumps, which takes my breath away. I can’t get over his enthusiasm. He is easily the fastest player on the pitch. Even taking a free kick, he takes a run-up, leaning with both muscular arms on his stick before kicking the ball with his good leg.

  There’s a big African mama standing next to me who smiles and asks, ‘Do you like the game?’

  ‘It’s great,’ I tell her.

  Then she says, ‘The lad with the stick is my son. I’m so proud of him.’

  I find myself thinking of Bob’s words: just a few years ago, these kids would have been considered worthless. Now here’s the mother of one of them standing proudly on the touchline watching him play! It’s simply amazing.

  Once again the ball is heading for the net and this time there’s nothing the keeper can do. But instead of getting angry, he claps his hands in happiness for the opposite team. I can’t get over the game, and when it’s over and the player with the stick comes over to us, drenched in sweat, I tell him how much I enjoyed it, which makes him very happy.

  Bob introduces me to his old friend and assistant Helge Søvdsnes. He is a formerly well-known Norwegian football player and has done wonders here. Now every year several MYSA teams of different ages go to Norway for the Norway Cup. For most of the kids it’s the first time they’ve been out of the country,
the first time they’ve been on a plane and the first time they’ve had the chance of spending a few days away from the slums. On many occasions the MYSA teams have even come out on top. They have a long list of victories, Helge says, and that includes the girls’ teams.

  ‘You know, Corinne, it was only in 1992 that women’s football started in Kenya. Up until then you wouldn’t have found a single girl who’d played. Back home in Norway we were world leaders in women’s football. Our women won gold in the Olympics and the world title. I picked four of the best players out of those teams and brought them to Kenya. They spent a week in the slum girls’ school doing training. One year, you wouldn’t believe it, we had five thousand girls all playing in different leagues. Nobody here is talking about becoming world champions, it’s all about winning the respect of the boys. And that we did. Look, over there two women’s teams are playing and you can see how the boys and men are watching them almost in awe, clapping and cheering them on. That’s what we want to see. Women in Africa are the backbone of society. Every year I take three teams to the Norway Cup and when, after two weeks away, I ask the player what they most miss about Kenya, they all say “Mama”. Not one of them ever mentions their father. That just proves to me how important it is to improve the image of women as role models, because that’s how we can change this whole society.’

  Three hours later I’m present when the man who introduced women’s football to Kenya says goodbye, and tells his audience he is finally leaving the country. He gives a short, emotional speech which, however, doesn’t make as much of an impact as it ought to. But then this is Africa. At the end Bob comes over and gives him a presentation vase, then some of the players from the MYSA girls’ team come up, and, one after another, shake his hand and place a rose in it. By the end there are twenty-five roses in total, one for each year he spent here in Kenya. It’s a very moving gesture, and even Helge has to wipe away a tear.