Even more than I am a fan of soccer, I am a fan of African soccer fans. So, after hearing that my school had a TV, I had asked my students to tell me the next time there was a game in the Africa Cup so I could watch it with them. I thought the games were on Saturday though so I was caught off guard when Faustin was waiting for me on my porch on Friday afternoon when I was coming home from a walk with Beans. Apparently, Tunisia and Niger had started playing 12 minutes ago! It hadn't rained all week, but of course it started at that exact moment so we ran to the school under a couple of umbrellas only to find that there was no reception because of the storm. All the boys were crowded together in the cafeteria with their eyes fixed to a black screen while the one boy with a raincoat stood outside in his rain coat trying to adjust the satellite dish. Finally, the game was on and the teams were tied 1-1. My boys scooted around to make room on a bench for me in the front. The reception went in and out a couple of times and the image was fuzzy, but it was football! On TV! In the middle of nowhere, Rwanda! My students crowded around to explain Kinyarwanda soccer terms to me (of which, I only retained the off-sides rule or “kwiherera” that translates literally to mean “to be alone”). My students predicted Niger would win, but they would have been excited no matter what the result because they ended up cheering for just about everything. Tunisia ended up slaughtering Niger, scoring twice in the last 20 minutes, leaving the final score at 3-1. 
It was time to eat. It was already 8:00 so those boys piled out to get their food FAST. I made my way out of the school to make my own dinner and overheard the girls singing in the dormitories, which made me realize that not a single one of them had been in the cafeteria. I guess it's not considered very feminine to take too much of an interest in sports.
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