Soccer Match

Last Thursday I got the first glimps of what high school sports are like here in South Africa. The orphanage is located right along a the Injesuthi river and right on the other side is a "soccer stadium," Just a field that is fenced in. The local team plays there on the weekends, but on thursday it was time for two local schools to battle it out on the field. Two girls from the orphange are on the team. Patience plays forward, and Sthe is the goalie. As the teams were warming up I thought it was odd that only a few players on each team had shoes on. I thought that maybe they would put on shoes right before the game was to start. I was wrong. I only saw a couple of cleats, and definitley no shin guards. So with some players in cleats and most players barefoot, the game began. The school that we were cheering for had green shorts with green and white tops. The opposing team had green bottoms with all green tops. Very confusing if you ask me. Sometime into the second half a herd of goats decided that they would graze in the middle of the field. They wandered on, and there was hardly a pause in the game. The ref made a half hearted attempt to shoo them away by throwing a pebble in their direction, but that did little to get them out of the way. Defenders were literally running through the pack of freightened goats to get to the ball. The goats were surrounded on all sides and were very confused as to how to escape. Eventually they found the side line and the exit to the stadium. Our team won (2-0) with an impressive showing by Patience and Sthe. The girls were extatic about the win, regardless of the goats.