So there we were, sitting at the Al-Merreikh stadium in Omdurman, getting ready to watch our first professional football match between the Sudanese National Team, and Mauritius.
E and I went with a new local friend who was able to be our guide for the whole experience. We found our seats, directly across from three entire sections of fans just off work with the police and the army. They were already singing and bouncing around . . . and it was still an hour to game time. We had a look around. The stadium, one of three rather large fields in the city, was about 2/3 full. At 7pm, when we arrived, it was probably about 110 degrees . . . but at least we were out of direct sunlight.
As I was watching the men (and yes, they were all men) come past me on their way to their seats, I noticed a remarkable trend: one out of every ten or so men was wearing leopard print slippers! I'm not kidding. The first pair I noticed really caught my eye, but then as I looked around I saw them everywhere!
Thinking back now, I remember that at a seminar I attended last week, two of the men sitting across from me were also sporting footwear with bright animal designs. And there was that guy at the market, and, and . . . And these are not just subtle, faint, oh-maybe-there's-an-animal-print-somewhere-in-the-texture-of-this-shoe slippers. No! These are full on, fuzzy, orange-brown with black and brown spots, leopard print slippers!
When I pointed this out to E, he said "yeah, and apparently alligator is in too." Ha. He had a point, I would say that men wearing alligator (or faux) skin shoes is probably the third most popular style around here, after your basic leather sandals and the leopard print slippers. I don't know what that's about! If you have thoughts, please leave a comment on this posting, I'd love to know where this comes from.
Other big news from Little Happpening includes:
*swimming with my new friend the frog (who has now joined me twice in our pool)
*geckos in the bathroom
*the arrival of our air freight (yippee! more variety than what we've been living in for the past month)
*and a rousing performance by the 50 piece football band. (actually they weren't half bad, but the musical highlight of the evening was when the entire crowd - all men, as I said - joined in unison to sign the anthem. That was a site: reserved, emotional, sober, and gentle . . . and then it all went "out the window" once the game began. " . . . and the crowd goes wild!!!"
3 comments:
How does the frog survive in the chlorine?? So fun! You are just so irresistible even frogs want to be your friend!
I have seen a trend and you may know someone who has fallen for it
Brightly colored plastic clogs....hmmmm
The slippers were real animal skin slippers were they?
Kay
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