Football Hearts
Some new friends competed in a raucous 9-on-9 soccer tournament over the weekend — playing for pride against friends and neighbors in a Kenyan election spectacle organized to promote a candidate running for a seat in parliament.
Four of the men in this team photo are involved with something called Light and Power in Nairobi’s Gatina neighborhood. They’re working together, they’re worshiping together — some are living together — in an effort to make it through massive challenges in their community to find education, jobs, shelter, food, and safety.
Their weekend games were rough, wild, and physical. They played on a gritty field that is dangerously uneven. One sideline is a meandering stream of sewage. I saw one player with only one shoe.
Our friends were eliminated from the tournament after a semi-final, shootout loss Sunday morning. Still, we returned for the final Sunday afternoon.
The championship was funded by City Councillor and aspiring Member of Parliament Linett Mirehane. She and her entourage hosted the game, literally. They arrived in cars decorated with campaign posters. Dozens and dozens and dozens of supporters flowed on to the field … dancing, playing drums, and wearing yellow t-shirts with her name and picture. Ms. Mirehane then settled in to a plastic chair to watch the match inside a tent just beyond a corner flag.
At halftime, I asked her about her ploy for the Gatina community’s football hearts … and whether she had plans to come back to those hearts after the election.
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