THE DAY AFTER GAME DAY

Contributed by: Dave

After the insanity that unfolded at Sierra Leone’s 2-1 victory over Egypt yesterday, we wisely planned a bit of a quiet day today. Kei Kamara had spent much of his interview talking about the importance of football in Sierra Leone, and though we had certainly witnessed this for ourselves, we felt we needed to capture the average person’s passion with our cameras.

Right across the street from our hotel, games covered Lumley Beach. Picture your local beach on Fourth of July with blankets and umbrellas covering every available inch of sand. Replace those blankets and umbrellas with balls and makeshift goals and you’ll have an idea of what it was like.

Kei would later tell us that on Sunday, Lumley is the place to play. Guys would run from Kissy, miles away on the opposite side of the city, just to get there to play until they ran out of light. Even the national team gets in on the action. Over their winter holidays, the team arranges games along Lumley. Like the kids that dream of representing Salone, the Leone Stars head to the beach to work on their skills. If the tide is in too far, they sit in the sand, catching up until the water recedes and the game is on.

Unfortunately for us, the tide came in and we were sent searching for another match. We settled on a red clay pitch bordering Man of War Bay. When we arrived, no one was there. We decided to shoot it anyway—it was too picturesque to pass up. We were quickly met by curious children. They poked around our cameras a bit, then disappeared into high grass along the shore. Moments later, they materialized, carrying a small ball. The game began. It was still going a half hour later when the rains rolled in and sent us scattering to get our equipment safe.

And the rain. Oh, the rain. We plowed through Freetown as water flooded through the streets. To our driver, it was nothing. It was a way of life.

A catchall phrase around these parts is “This is Africa.” It’s meant to explain away things like late or missing vans, shady government officials and the general maddening frustration foreigners feel at this way of life. We’ve never been too fond of that sentiment. Because to us, this—the welcoming kids, the sandlot feel of games along Lumley, the resilience and adaptability of the people in face of inescapable challenges like the rainy season downpours—is Africa.

GAME DAY, PART 4: IT’S LIKE THIS FOR EVERY GAME

Contributed by: Dave

The team bus turned down the final stretch of road to the stadium to an explosion of sound. People screaming, horns blaring, vuvuzelas vuvuzelaing. Sirens wailed, contributing to the chaos. Bright colors flashed along the street as seemingly everyone waved a Sierra Leone flag. It was peaceful at first. People stood at a respectful distance from the bus and waved and cheered wildly.

Then, something happened. The bus made one final turn and suddenly, it was a madhouse.

The coach’s van, carrying Chad and I, was never more than three feet from the players’ bus. There was barely enough room for a person to pass by. In New York, where jaywalking is an art, an attempt to get through would result in a smacked hood or an injured pedestrian. But where we saw impassability, the fans saw opportunity. As we turned, they surged between the van and the bus. And instantly, we were stuck. We couldn’t move forward without hitting them… and they were not moving. The bus slowly crawled ahead of us. The gap widened, inviting more and more people.

Quietly, from the back of the van, the goalkeeping coach, who hadn’t spoken a word, said, “Close the windows if you want to keep those cameras.”

People began to notice that the coach was in our van and they started flocking to it. Men pounded on the doors and windows, they rode on our hood, they hung from the back of the van. Enjoying the brief (but absolutely necessary) respite from shooting, we took the opportunity to ask the head coach if it’s always like this. “Every game,” he responded. When we finally scraped through large iron gates better suited for Jurassic Park than a football match, we were relieved. We still had no idea where Josh and Clay were, but we knew Abu would take care of them.

Inside these walls, the madness was curtailed. The van rolled to a stop just yards from a pair of steel doors 15 feet high labeled “Home Team.” A dozen military and police officials guarded it. The coach’s assistant hopped out, slammed the door behind him and proclaimed, “This is the coach, the white coach.” He tried to get security to open the door, but when the throngs of fans realized that the door to the stadium was going to be thrown open wide enough for a van to pass through, they saw their chance. They rushed towards the van, quickly surrounding it. The fine men and women of the Sierra Leone police and military did their best to secure a perimeter around the van, but there were too many people. Seeing what was happening, the coach said he’d just get out and squeeze through an entrance small enough for a person. Chad and I jumped out of the van and stood beside him. The coach’s assistant still hadn’t had any luck getting the door open, so he scaled the doors and continued his assurance that he was with “the white coach.”

The instant the door opened, the crowd pressed forward and people were literally being squeezed through the entrance. In a true, “You jump, I jump” Titanic moment, Chad reached back, grabbed my hand and we burst through the door and found ourselves standing outside the Sierra Leone locker room.

GAME DAY, PART 1: PREPARATION

Contributed by: Dave

There are just some things you can’t prepare for.

Last night, we spent hours—literally, hours—dissecting how today would go. Two days of shooting Kei Kamara’s training with the Leone Stars had forced us to re-evaluate our strategy. From day one, we knew that the torrential downpours that appeared at a moment’s notice threatened to destroy our equipment or, at the very least, severely limit our mobility.

Day two had yielded a much larger threat. At the end of a relatively calm training, Kei made his way over to the Leone Stars supporters, took off one cleat and hurled it into the stands. Not surprisingly, mayhem ensued in the crowd. What was a shock, though, was the reaction from the small number of fans who had been watching the practice from the field. These supporters each had some connection to one of the players. They were each allowed in by security before the entrance gates were locked. They were screened. But when they saw Kei’s boot was up for grabs, they rushed him and began grabbing at him, tearing for his other shoe, literally lifting him off the ground at one point. Always the fan favorite, Kei somehow managed to escape the madness with both his body and status among his supporters unscathed (he did, however, leave shoeless).

Calm was quickly restored, but only for a moment. The gates on the far end of the field swung open to allow the Leone Stars bus to exit. As it did, fans came running towards the few remaining players who chose not to board the bus. Kei had opted to ride home with his brother, which placed him on a collision course with the mob rushing towards his car. He quickly hopped in the passenger’s seat and we were given an idea of what Beatlemania must have been like. People surrounded the vehicle. A dozen fans quickly turned into 50. Then there were a hundred. Kei’s brother couldn’t get his car free of the masses. Kei opened the window a crack, then tossed a stack of player cards into the air, sending men and boys scattering to get one. Kei’s car sped away with hundreds chasing.

We knew that if the reaction of 200 fans could make us feel unsafe, the 45,000 inside National Stadium on gameday could pose a problem. Our fears weren’t unwarranted: not only had my dummy wallet containing $20, an expired license and a 2009-2010 New York Rangers schedule been pickpocketed during the madness, but we heard the government had already called in 1000 additional members of the military for the game. Apparently, the two governing bodies of Sierra Leone’s football association had disagreed on ticket prices. Rather than reach a compromise, two sets of tickets were issued, rendering one useless. Tension was on the rise. We needed to be ready for anything. And we thought we were.

We had dissected every possible scenario. What if we’re separated? What if one of us is injured in a stampede? What if we can’t find the car and need to cab it home? Our preparations went above and beyond. First and foremost, we had decided to leave the game at least 10 minutes before the final whistle (I had excellent preparation for this as I never stayed for a complete game as a child so my dad could “beat the traffic.”) We stashed money in secret places on our body. We left our passports behind, but carried a copy on us. Non-essential electronics stayed in the room. We gave each other the Disney treatment—which is to say we took digital pictures so we could show the authorities what we looked like and what we were wearing on the day we disappeared. We even had headlamps stashed in each bag so if we had to make our way back to the hotel in the midst of one of Freetown’s famous blackouts, we’d at least be able to light the way.

In short, we thought of everything. Or had we?