Zambian Super Fans

This past weekend, our group traveled to Kitwe in northern Zambia.  Located in the “Copper Belt,” Kitwe is Zambia’s second-largest city – and is home to a number of different types of mining.  The entire purpose of our journey was to meet with a professor from Copper Belt University (CBU) to discuss the potential for further collaboration between our two institutions – but the experience certainly extended far beyond that single meeting.

We departed from Lusaka on a 6:00am bus on Saturday morning, thinking that the station would be much quieter and easier to navigate early in the morning.  So I was completely shocked when we got there and the bus depot was already a thriving mass of semi-controlled chaos.  There were men (presumably workers, but I’m still not sure) yelling into our vehicle to figure out where we were going or what bus we were taking, cars forcing their way through mobs of people and a smattering of Zambian super fans amongst the crowd all decked out in Zambian flags.  (Saturday was the day of the Zambia-Ghana football (soccer) match in one of the preliminary qualifying rounds of the World Cup of Soccer – and the game was located in Ndola, a community almost halfway between Lusaka and Kitwe.)

As we drove, we saw cars, mini-buses and full-size buses covered in Zambian flags or scarves with people dressed in national team jerseys hanging out of the windows cheering, waving and blowing their vuvuzelas.  The energy, excitement and pride of the Zambian people were so palpable on Saturday that it made each of us wish that we were going to the game!  We even saw a bus that had driven all the way from Livingstone (where Victoria Falls is located – roughly 6 hours outside of Lusaka, and Lusaka is 5 hours from Ndola... so they were really committed fans!) that had a banner proudly displayed on the front and super fans hanging out of every window, so obviously excited about the upcoming match. 

The Zambia-Ghana match was the first international football match to be held in Zambia’s new stadium – and the stadium was enormous!  With the capacity to fit tens of thousands of people, it starkly contrasts with the simplicity of Zambian daily life – people living in thatched homes, peddling their produce on the side of the road while earning an average of USD$1600 each year.  However, the Ndola stadium was actually built by the Chinese government (and have actually just begun construction of an even more grand and massive stadium in Lusaka) for the Zambian people.  The Chinese have even provided roads (materials, labor and construction) within Zambia.

Once we arrived in Kitwe, we found a large flat-screen television and watched the Ghana-Zambia game with the rest of the country – and it was so exciting!  Zambia won the game 1-0 and the crowd in the stadium went crazy!  A blur of green, orange and yellow, the fans were screaming, blowing their vuvuzelas and dancing.  In the streets, cars began honking their horns in celebration, just like the hockey super fans do at home after a big game.  While our business meeting was positive and wonderful, it was experiencing the passion and pride of the Zambian people that made the journey so worthwhile!