The Soccer Field

May 21, 2004

My predecessor as director of the Dakar Campus, Judy Dushku, and her husband, Jim Coleman, began a huge project in December, 2003. Their goal was to take a vacant lot consisting of sand and rubble and convert it into a sports center to be shared by Suffolk and ENEA, the school we rent space from. The center would consist of a soccer field, a basketball court, and a volleyball court. They were successful in getting a grant from one of Suffolk’s trustees, facilitated by Suffolk athletic director, Jim Nelson. I don’t know the whole story of the construction or funding of the major undertaking, the soccer field, so I may have some of the facts wrong, but this is probably a pretty accurate.

After the grant was approved, negotiations were undertaken. First with ENEA, who needed to approve the use of their land for the field. Second was finding a contractor to design and build the field. A very vague agreement with ENEA was reached, concerning sharing the maintenance and upkeep of the field, putting in a separate water line to utilize a reduced meter rate, and renegotiating of the main rental agreement for our campus. My understanding is that Jim Coleman sought bids for construction of the field. Being new to Senegal and its style of doing business, and having little fluency in French, this was a daunting task. He finally accepted the bid from the lowest bidder, a contract was signed, designs approved, and construction was under way.

The first set of problems was with the contractor. Apparently the price was so low because he had agreed to build a “mini-field”, not regulation size. Another round of negotiations, and an increase in the price, corrected this problem. Construction proceeded ever so slowly. When I visited Dakar in May of 2004, I was convinced the field would never be completed. Manual labor was involved in leveling, spreading topsoil, planting grass, watering grass, weeding, etc. I think the original contractor was fired, Jim and Judy’s tenure in Dakar ended, and Dramane took over oversight for completion of the project.

Believe it or not, the soccer field and basketball court were completed in late October. A formal dedication event was scheduled for November, the day after Convocation exercises for the fall semester. Dignitaries were invited, as was the press, the military band, a monstrous sound system, various corporate promoters, and other dignitaries. I arrived in Dakar a week before all these festivities.

Felix, my administrative assistant, came up with the idea of challenging the team from the local radio and television station, RTS, to the first match. That, he suggested, would assure us a chance at some media coverage, and it worked. We were aired during the 2, 6, and 8:30 PM broadcasts. We can claim we let them win! The match was quite an event, starting with the various rounds of speeches from the assistant to the Minister of Sports to the Director of ENEA to Suffolk representatives. Vice President Marguerite Dennis kicked out the first ball, a sight to see. Being in the middle of Ramadan, the players had not eaten or had anything to drink all day. Unbelievably they played ninety minutes in the hot afternoon sun that way. The game finished just at sundown, and the food we provided disappeared in about two minutes.

So far, so good. Now comes the time for formalizing our sharing agreement with ENEA. My view is that they weren’t interested in building or financing a field and thought we were nuts to do it. But as soon as they saw how beautiful it was, they wanted “in”. They took our overtures of partnership and sharing literally, even allowing themselves to think that since it was on their land, it was their field. We were guests and should behave as such. They resented that we had painted the fence poles Suffolk’s colors – yellow and blue. That was the first argument.

I suggested that we form a committee of representatives from the faculty, staff, and students of both campuses to discuss finances, sharing, scheduling, and other matters. The director of ENEA and I agreed to attend the first few meetings, then turn that duty over to our representatives, who actually had an interest in soccer. The first meeting was my first real experience of a West African business committee meeting. The French was graciously translated for me by the director of ENEA. The first dispute centered around the color of the fence posts. Everyone in the room contributed lengthy diatribes about the colors. Too much Suffolk presence was the argument. Interestingly, ENEA’s colors are ---- yellow and blue ----- but different shades. After about an hour of discussion of colors, I was ready to run out and buy a can of pink paint and just paint the damn poles! My patience won out and this conflict was resolved. The discussion lasted over two hours and the poles are now white.

Over the next couple of months there were waves of cooperation followed by waves of conflict and resentment. The “attendant” of ENEA somehow held the only key to the gate. He would hide whenever it was out turn to use the field, so that we couldn’t get access to the field. He would schedule other events that conflicted with our own. It was impossible to deal with him. I feigned indignation and wrote a flaming e-mail to the director of ENEA. His response was very conciliatory, facilitating another round of committee meetings and a new mechanism for managing the shared use and management of the field. A new committee was formed – two Suffolk staff and two Suffolk students, two ENEA staff and two ENEA students. I attended their first meeting. That consisted of various long speeches, an agreement for a hierarchical structure for the committee, elections for president, vice president, secretary, and a few other officers (everyone in the room got a title). I blinked and when I opened my eyes, the committee had voted the attendant of ENEA as the president. I am still not clear what was accomplished. However, my intervention did get us our own key.

A subtle undertone of tension still existed between ENEA students and ours. I am sure that at some level, the ENEA students resent our students. Our students are a bit more affluent, come from several other African countries, and have access to more resources through Suffolk. I think also that the traditional Muslim current at ENEA holds some animosity to the United States in general, and somehow our soccer field exemplifies American abundance and wealth. Yes, they enjoy the benefits of the field, but harbor resentment at the same time.

The field has seen much use. We have hosted many outside organizations, who have rented the field. These include the British Embassy, the Gabonese Embassy, several corporate leagues, and several inter-collegiate tournaments. Many times I have been asked to serve some sort of official capacity at these events. This usually entails my arrival, dressed in a suit, kicking out the opening ball, sitting with the dignitaries and pretending I enjoy soccer, shaking hands with all the team members, and awarding trophies at the end of the long matches. All part of the job of Executive Director!

We even hosted WAIST, the West African Invitational Softball Tournament, sponsored by the American Embassy in Senegal. For this event, over 300 Peace Corp volunteers from all over West Africa descend on the city for a once-a-year weekend of softball, parties, and the opportunity to visit a city. The volunteers are hosted by families in Dakar, and enjoy home cooking, clean sheets, and a hot shower. We took in six young women who were doing various projects in isolated villages in eastern Senegal. They were so grateful and fun to have around for the weekend. They played or watched softball all day and partied somewhere until the wee hours of each morning. And watching American-style softball mystified all of the locals.

A few weeks before my visit to Boston in April, I wrote to Jim Nelson, Suffolk’s athletic director, asking if he could help us get some supplies for student sports activities. He suggested I send him a “wish list” and he would see what he could do. I asked for basketballs, soccer balls, and soccer shoes for the students. Never hurts to ask, right! He e-mailed back, asking for students’ shoe sizes. When I arrived in Boston, I paid him a visit, and sitting in a corner of his office were two large boxes containing everything I had requested. I was able to carry a lot of it back in my three suitcases, along with toner cartridges, office supplies, board games, first aid kits, and other hard-to-find things for the Dakar campus (not even enough room for my own socks!). My assistant had the remaining box, mostly shoes, shipped DHL to Dakar. About a week after my return, I got a notice that in order to have the box released from Senegalese Customs, I would have to pay a duty of 237,000 CFA (about $500, and much more than the retail value of the donated shoes). I futilely expressed my indignation to the Customs authorities, DHL, DHL’s corporate headquarters, and anyone else who would listen. I told DHL to ship them back to Boston. The cost of returning them was pretty high too, and that bluff didn’t work. I appealed to anyone for suggestions, but none were forthcoming. The shoes sat at Customs for two weeks while the students (and staff) salivated for “their” shoes. I refused to budge! Finally Manga (my driver) took me aside and told me to give him 100,000 CFA and he would see what he could do (wink, wink). I gave him the money, he went to the Customs office. Apparently there was some haggling and negotiating, and, voila, he arrived with the box in the trunk of the Laguna. (As a note – Suffolk-Dakar was granted an exemption from Customs in its original agreement with the Senegalese Ministry of Education in 1999. However due to many unclear bureaucratic technicalities, to date the exemption has never made its way through the maze of other authorizations necessary – Ministry of Finance, Director of Customs, etc., etc. My predecessors have tried, I am trying, the saga continues. Some shipments get stuck in Customs, some wisk through unharmed. I haven’t detected any logic or pattern.)

So two weeks ago, on a Wednesday afternoon, the semi-final of an inter-collegiate match was scheduled. It was against Suffolk and ENEA, followed by a match between the staffs of the two schools. I was away at an off-campus meeting, so didn’t attend. Of course our students got beaten, since ENEA’s team is much better. There was quite a bit of bad feelings about bad refereeing and the usual. Somehow the staff match also included a few students from each team. Our team was getting beaten and tensions between the teams were rising. Apparently one of the ENEA students was badmouthing our players and said something derogatory about Abel’s mother. (Abel is one of the security guards in the faculty residence.) Abel finally lost his temper and had to be restrained as he ran across the field to attack the boy. I am not sure of the exact details of the story. Abel says he never touched the kid. Others say he swung punches but missed, but maybe kicked him a little. The boy went down and had to be taken to the hospital. My understanding is that he had some sort of pre-existing medical condition. My guess is that he was epileptic. The game was immediately suspended.

When I got back from my meeting, I heard the gist of the drama, but not many details. I got back to my residence, exhausted from my day of meetings and other things, and Abel was behaving like a puppy who knew he had done something wrong. I told him I would find out the details and we would talk tomorrow. I made it clear that I was upset and disappointed.

The next morning, I was franticly preparing some final documents necessary for two lawsuit hearings that were scheduled that day, finalizing a huge grant proposal that was due the next day, and gathering stuff needed for a meeting with the head of Citibank in Senegal at 10:30 AM. Suddenly I hear a lot of shouting outside my office. I look outside to see about 300 angry ENEA students swarming through the Suffolk campus. They had walked into the English classes and disrupted everything. It was a full-blown student riot. So where were our fourteen “security guards”. Nowhere to be found. My presence somehow gets the students’ attention. I told them all to please go back to ENEA and I would go talk to the director. The swarm of students followed me to the administrative offices of ENEA, next door to our campus. I entered the building, accompanied by Dramane, and all the students waited on the lawn outside the offices.

We met with the assistant director of ENEA (the director is on medical leave due to his vision problems), the attendant, and one other staff member. We assure them that we in no way did we condone Abel’s behavior and inquired into the condition of the boy. He was released from the hospital and would be fine. We assured them that Abel will apologize and we would deal with any punishment necessary. We all then agreed to go out and address the waiting students. The students by now had calmed down and were receptive to our apology, understanding of the seriousness of the event, and that we would deal with Abel appropriately. They agreed to go back to their classes. Keep in mind that there is a long tradition of student protest in Senegal, even more in this most recent political regime. Schools are very overcrowded and conditions are eroding. This is the only way the students can complain. For example, the major university here – Cheikh Anta Diop – should have 15,000 students. It currently has 37,000, with resources barely enough for the original mission.

So I see this gift to our students, to ENEA’s students, and to others who enjoy soccer as a form of sport and recreation as a blessing and a curse. I can look out my office window almost every afternoon and see students, staff, and visitors playing or practicing on the field. Other days, I look out the window and see a lone gardener moving the two water sprinklers to different locations as he randomly waters the grass, or slowing pushing a small lawnmower up and down relatively straight rows, while huge turkey hawks enjoy the bugs in the grass and the hot sun. Sometimes I even enjoy sitting next to the Ambassador to Gabon in the hot sun, slightly dehydrated, ears ringing from the blaring Afropop music from the enormous loudspeakers, making limited small talk (due to the noise and language barriers), while 22 very serious athletes compete for 90 minutes in the hope of kicking a ball into a net. There are other days when I am very close to calling a bulldozer to come and return the field to its original state. Thankfully those thoughts pass before I act on them, at least so far.

To return to the main Stories from Senegal page, click here.