Girls Conference This Sunday... Er, Next Sunday

Here's An Idea

Why don't the Democrats and Republicans use some of the Bailout money to enroll middle and upper management at US car companies in business classes?  They can't run their companies for shit.  That'll save the government $24.98 billion (out of 25) that can be used to construct Obama's White House basketball court and take care of their new dog.  The dog, by the way, must be named Maverick or Joe the Plumber.

Girls Conference This Sunday… Er, Next Sunday

The ironic thing is that I ended up going to the game.

I was doing my last rounds of protocol the Thursday before the Girls Education Conference two weeks ago (November 13) when I found about the biggest soccer game in Cameroon since the African Cup of Nations in February.  This soccer game just happened to be held in Garoua and the opponent just happened to be an Egyptian team featuring most of the Egyptian national team, the country that was Cameroon's opponent in the final during ACN.  (Egypt opened a can of whoop-ass on Cameroon during the final.)  And this game was also taking place on the same day as the Lagdo leg of the Girls Conference.  I found all of this out when the mayor himself told me. Whoops.

My first reaction to this news was, "Merde!"  When I went to Yotti's a few minutes after, his reaction was, "Merde!  Merde, merde, merde."  All of our flyers were posted around town; the announcements for the churches were already handed out; the speakers were lined up; all that was left was the event itself.

The game was the "retour" leg of the Africa Champion's League final between Coton Sports of Garoua and Al Alhi du Caire, which means "Derka derka derka" in Arabic.  (Team America reference there, not a dislike of Arabs – that dislike is saved for Christian and Muslim Cameroonians, who have a less than high opinion of our Middle Eastern friends.)  The Champion's League is set up just like Europe's: the top club teams on the continent play a tournament over several months to see who's the best professional team and how much revenue sponsors can generate.  Somehow Coton Sports, owned by SODECOTON, made it all the way to the finals, and after getting drubbed 0-2 in Cairo in the "aller", had a slight chance to upset an Egyptian powerhouse.  On the day of the Girls Conference, no less.

From Thursday, when I found out about the game, to Saturday, the Ngong "aller" of the Conference, I kept telling myself that our event was still gonna happen.  When I talked to Amadou, the Garoua PC rep, in Ngong, he said definitively that the Lagdo "retour" had to be pushed back.  I agreed – I always knew it would be but had been delaying the inevitable – and made some calls to put the word out that it was being pushed to Monday.  When I got back to Lagdo that night, Yotti and I changed the church announcements and agreed to meet at my house at 8 the next morning to meet the sous-prefet and the mayor.

Yotti had the foresight to do a preliminary visit to the mayor before coming to see me, and the mayor told him definitively that the Girls Conference had to be moved to the next weekend.  What was up this time was an annual provincial "agro-pastoral" expo that happened to be happening in Lagdo last week, an event that's basically a farmer's tradeshow, which conjures up a funny image of Cameroonian fishermen and peanut farmers signing in at a welcome table to receive name tags in an air-conditioned room.  This tradeshow is a big deal, so there was no question the Girls Conference had to change again, this time for a more legit reason than a soccer game.

And the ironic thing about the soccer game is that I ended up going to the thing.  I was free Sunday and Monday morning now because of the delay, so I tagged along with some volunteers and nearly all the trainees in Garoua to see the biggest bandwagon joining I've ever seen.  Of course, I wasn't in the States to witness the 2007 Rockies and 2008 Devil Rays, but this is what it must have looked like.  I have never heard anyone talk about Coton Sport ever until the Thursday before the match.  I have never seen anyone wear anything with Coton Sport on it until the day of the match.  And when I left Lagdo Sunday morning, after Yotti and I went to every church to tell them not to read the announcement, everyone was wearing white and green and talking about Coton Sport like they were Dodgers fans in 1952 that listened to the game on the radio every night.  Pitiful. 

The game was being made into a huge deal, which I guess it was, with the Prime Minister himself attending the game and a continental TV audience, all in Garoua, an eyesore of a provincial capital it must be said.  (With the PM, they did the thing they do with grands at parades here: the PM is driven to the front of the stands where he'll be sitting so everyone has to stand up and see him as he goes to his seat.  The PM was being driven in the nicest Mercedes I've seen in two years.  That car could probably buy enough books for every student in Lagdo two times over.  And, who knows, that's probably what that money was originally for.  I won't miss this kind of thing about Cameroon.)  The stadium was packed, and unfortunately our seats were in the sun, but fortunately they were only 500 francs: $1.25 for a final game.  Also unfortunately is that there aren't actually seats, just row upon row of hot cement, so people came armed with things to sit on; I brought a GRE practice book while others brought the LSAT or French Grammar. 

Based on the goal aggregate system, the team with the most goals after the two matches wins (if the score is tied, the first tiebreaker is whomever has the most away goals), and Egypt started off the game with a 2-0 advantage.  For Cameroon to win, they would have to win by three goals.  The first half finished tied 1-1, with the Coton Sport goal coming right at halftime.  (Aggregate score: 3-1 Egypt, Egypt with one away goal.)  Coton scored a goal twenty minutes into the second half, and people went nuts, and I actually started to believe that maybe they could get 'er done.  (3-2 on aggregate.)  After a couple more shots on goal, Egypt started to get control of the ball again, and scored the final goal of the game on a penalty kick (4-2, two away goals), putting the nail in the coffin.  People started leaving the stadium shrugging their shoulders because no one really cared and the Egyptians celebrated, their small contingent of fans making a lot of noise, setting off flares, and someone inexplicably waving a Japanese flag.  I then started to re-plan my Girls Conference.