Soccer (football) Sunday

We all had to be up and ready by 7 to eat breakfast and go on the canopy walk. It was about an hour drive until we got to Kokum park where people built rope bridges through the rainforest canopies that people can walk across. It was so amazing! We hiked through the rainforest until we got to the series of 7 bridges. I took a ton of pics which I will post asap. It started raining as we were walking back – go figure rain in the rainforest. After the walk we got back on the bus to head home for the Football game. We went to go see Ghana’s team (The Blackstars) compete against Sudan to see who would play in the World Cup in 2010 (which is happening in South Africa) The stadium was completely packed!!!!! One of the guys from the Aya Center got us all tickets so we met him there. The game was supposed to start at 5 and we got there at like 3:45. Sonny told us to hurry because even though all the ticket numbers have seat numbers they really don’t guarantee that you will get your seat. We rushed through the stadium and passed all of the vendors and a lot of Muslim fans praying on prayer mats facing Mecca in the stadium entrance praying for the Black Stars. We ran to some open seats that were really really close I had no idea that we were going to be so close to the ground. Then I realized that it was because we weren’t in our seats lol. The staff from the Aya Center told us not to stand up for anything or anyone and we soon found out why. Theres some unspoken rule that its like first come first serve for seats. People who didn’t know this rule were starting fights in the stands and everyone around them would clap and chant AWAY AWAY and yell at them for causing a commotion and not just being there to support the team. We also found out that if you stand instead of sit people will throw water at you, and water bottles and scream at you until you sit- it was so interesting it was almost as entertaining as the game. The Sudan team was at quite a disadvantage because they are all Muslim and they are fasting for Ramadan and were not allowed to eat or drink anything (even water in the hot sun) because they aren’t allowed to from sun up to sun down for a month according to their religion. The game was the fourth qualifying game in the series and it was so amazing to watch. The Black Stars won 2 to 0- and the crown went wild!!!!! We all sang and did the wave and yelled and clapped. After the game we finally went back home from our completely exhausting weekend.