On Friday evenings, after work and before the sun goes down, we head out to a grassy field near the ship to play Ultimate. It's the perfect end to a week of work, and since the raining season has made temperatures dip to where it doesn't feel like we're stepping into a sauna when we leave the port, it's a sweet deal all around. This week, just like every other, it was made even sweeter by the watchful presence of close to thirty kids in various stages of dress and disrepair.The rest of the players joke that having me on their team is a gamble, that when the kids crowd the sidelines, I'm a flight risk. Yesterday, their fears were confirmed; it appears that I've gone from a hardcore player to nothing but a big softie.
I made it through about fifteen minutes of the game before the kids started mimicking us, hopping up and down and pretending to throw a disc around. One little guy in particular caught my eye, goofy grin and frantically wiggling eyebrows in an impish face. When I greeted them in Mina and they shrieked with laughter, taking it in turns to see who could come the closest to my outstretched hand without running away in terror, I was sold.
I took a spare disc and a spare player, one of my friends from youth, Alannah, and herded my little friends over to the other side of the field. Conveniently, about half of them were wearing shirts in many shades of red. The rest were clad in every colour of the rainbow, but when we asked them what their team should be named, they agreed on the obvious choice: Noir (Black). One small guy presented a bit of a puzzle, with a shirt that was covered in red flowers on the front but totally black on the back. Since it made the numbers even, he ended up on team Rouge (Red). His allegiance was confused throughout the entire game.
The guy with the wiggling eyebrows introduced himself to me as Janneau, and it turned out that he understood my French well enough that he became my translator as I explained the rules of the game. These were met with much nodding of heads and more wiggling of eyebrows, and soon enough we sent Team Rouge over to the other end of the field (they only made it about fifteen feet before they were too excited and turned around) to wait for the throw.
What ensued was nothing short of mayhem. I lost my voice fairly promptly, since all thirty kids either looked to me for guidance or just fought tooth and nail over the disc whenever it hit the ground. And it did hit the ground. A lot. Because they threw it with sheer abandon, no receiver in sight, shrieking with the joy of the game.
We played until it was too dark to see, and then we all said goodbye. Janneau and Emmanuel and Komla walked me to the Land Rover, their little hands in mine all the way across the field.
I don't know if I'll be able to play again before we leave Togo, but if I don't make it back to the field, I'll know that there are a whole bunch of kids who have at least some idea how to play Ultimate. I'd say it's a pretty good legacy.
(Photo taken by PJ Accetturo at our field last year in Benin.)
