Thursday, February 14, 2008

Cup of Nations

During the last month, all of Africa talked about football (for all you Americans it's soccer). Sixteen countries sent a team to represent them in the 2008 Cup of Nations was held in Ghana. Cote d'Ivoire, my current place of residency, sent their team--the Elephants! We were favored to do really well and we did wining three games until Egypt and then it went all down hill. We lost to Egypt and then to Ghana to place 4th.

No one was out, no rooming the streets or going to the store for the inhabitants of Abidjan when Cote d'Ivoire was playing. All eyes were glued to the TV. And when we scored, Deron pushed mute and we could hear the cries of joy ringing out through all of Abidjan. If we won, motorist drove around town with flags, honking horns and flashing lights to rejoice in victory.

We all wore our colors with pride.

But, to loose, oh the terrible loses. No one cried for joy, no dancing in the streets, no flag waving. Just heads held in humiliating silence. It took days to recover. Thanks Cote d'Ivoire for a great experience at true team loyalty.

1 comment:

The Black Family said...

Jesse,

I completely feel your pain and passion for West African Football. We are so missing it - we watched the Superbowl with friends, but no one was passionate about their team like our WA friends were about football. It was a bit anticlimactic! :-(

We do pray for you and Emily and look forward to hearing all that the Lord is doing there. I think of you both whenever I get my nails done - hee hee!

We are adjusting to being back here, but we miss all of our friends there so much. We are blessed in that T has a great job - the only catch involves a move to Phoenix in July. Although we are sad to leave our friends - we are thrilled to have a new opportunity for missions.

Love you!
Margaret