international hat trick

Well if being white didn’t make me stand out Rhodepan, the coloured township, then scoring three goals in a soccer match certainly did. That’s right, I just got my first international hat trick. Not bad after being here for less than a week, huh? But before all you start showering me with praise (which I know you are) I should probably clarify a few things.

I found out about this girl’s team from Clifford, one of the coaches. He told me he was the coach, that it would be no problem if I played and that I should show up at the field by 11:30. But when I asked for directions to the field he just told me to find the police station and then find the field… I’ve discovered that this is how most South Africans give directions. They don’t use street names and they rarely use landmarks. Instead they say things like, “just go to Rhodepan and go to the soccer field.” Well when Rhodepan is an intricate maze of roads that seem to go on forever this is not too helpful. Trevor and I drove around for a good 45 minutes before we found Clifford on the side of the road and had him direct us to the field.

When we got to the field I looked around and noticed something odd… there were no girls. So I asked Clifford where my team was and he said they are playing later. And by later he meant after 3:00 but I didn’t find this out until it was 3:20 and we were finally starting our game. Another thing I’ve discovered about South Africans is that time is really a relative thing. 15 minutes likely means and hour and saying that kickoff is at noon means that kickoff might be at 3:00. I didn’t mind hanging around the field though. Trevor and I got to watch a couple of guys’ games and chat with a few people.

When 3 o’clock finally rolled around, I was stoked. I actually had butterflies in my stomach I was so excited. I followed Clifford into a garage to meet my team. It was then that I found out that I was going to be playing on an under-20 team. And even though they called it an under-20 team, the oldest person there (other than me) was 15. Starting to see how I got my hat trick?

But I wanted to play and Clifford said it was no problem so I took the field. I scored my first goal maybe 7 minutes into the game. I’ll admit, it was actually a pretty sweet goal. It had a good amount of power on it and it was close to the upper ninety. I got the biggest reaction from both the girls on my team and the sideline. All of my teammates ran up to me and gave me a complex high five thing, with which I struggled to get through, as per usual. And the sideline went crazy. I wasn’t there to hear it, but Trevor told me after the game that right away everyone started asking, “Who is the white lady?”

After I scored my first goal however, I decided I wasn’t going to shoot anymore. I also wasn’t going to straight up out run or dribble around any of these 12 – 15-year-olds just because I could.  Well Clifford didn’t like that too much. In fact I don’t really know what Clifford was looking for… When I had the ball he’d yell at me to be a team player and pass it, but then when I’d pass it he’d yell at me to shoot. There were a few times when I could have taken a shot but instead I chose to cross the ball. After the third time I did that he called me over to the sideline and told me I really needed to work on my aim. He was always nice was he was “coaching” me, but he didn’t quite seem to get that I felt really weird playing with young girls who weren’t quite at my level.

My team ended up winning 4-0. In South Africa, the players and the fans are all about victory celebrations. So as soon as the final whistle blew my teammates ran over to the corner of the field and started doing the “Street Boyz” celebration. It involves a lot of fist pumping and hip thrusting… and I’m not sure how else to describe it. They were all doing it and it looked like fun so I joined them. The sideline exploded with laughter and hoots. Even though it wasn’t the best soccer, and even though I felt a little bad about having scored three goals, that victory celebration was probably the highlight of my week. Next time, I’ll get Trevor to take a picture of it.