Olympic Fever!

The Olympics have come in gone, but luckily for me, I’ll always have the memories of London 2012.  What’s that, you say?  You didn’t think I’d get a chance to participate in this happy and glorious sporting event because I’m living halfway around the world in a developing country prone to power outages during the Holy Season of Ramadan?  You and me both.  Luckily, it turns out that in many ways, the Olympics really are the worldwide festival that exploitation would have us believe!

First, let’s get a few things straight.  Obviously, I love the Olympics.  I fully realize that they arrive every 2-4 years with ramifications, environmental waste, and probably a lot of political corruption.  As a 20-something living in Chicago during the 2016 bid, many of my hippie friends enlightened me to the dark side of the Olympics, and I fully acknowledge its existence.  But I also know that ice cream is bad for me BUT IT’S SO FUN.  And the Olympics combine so many things I love – bloodthirsty competition, world geography, my childhood glory days of gymnastics and track, nationalism, spontaneous displays of emotion.  I just can’t get enough, ever.

Also, I live in Senegal.  This is a country whose biggest sport is not, as you may guess, soccer (though that is very popular!), but is, instead, fat man wrestling.  I call it fat man wrestling because it’s not like high school wrestling (no real weight classes, small chance of contracting MRSA on sand), but it’s far from the sexy spectacle of Hulk Hogan.  Senegalese wrestling involves hours of traditional dancing, prepping, and music before two men in skimpy diapers kind of swat at each other for a few minutes until someone falls down.  I’m not trying to belittle it as much as describe it.  

SENEGALESE WRESTLING

  

Anyway, the country is crazy for it.  I was with some friends in Dakar after the latest “match of the century” and it was like Chicago Bulls early 90s levels of hysteria.  Needless to say, I doubted the country’s ability to branch out to other sports.

On the night of the Opening Ceremonies, my host father happened to be nonchalantly flipping channels and passed the show.  “THE OLYMPICS!” I yelled, hoping they’d get the hint.  The hint being that I have lived here for 17 months and never once commented on a television program nor expressed a specific desire to watch something.  They took the bait, albeit less than enthusiastically, and proceeded to watch with me.  Their few reactions were as follows:

• -       Chimney sweepers dance, signifying the Industrial Revolution.  “Is this about power outages???” yells my host mother.
• -       David Beckham appears on screen.  “DAVID BECKHAM!” yells my host father.

• -       The Queen simulates jumping out of a plane.  Everyone freaks out.  “She’s older than Abdoulaye Wade!” yells my host mother

• -       Dancing nurses fill the stage.  “Is this what your clinic is like everyday, Nene?  Do you dance like this?” I ask my nurse host sister.  She stares at me and politely laughs. 

• -       Possessed children fill the stage.  Bigue and Mohammad start acting like zombies, dancing around.

• -       The inventor of the internet comes out.  “HE INVENTED THE INTERNET!” I yell. People start leaving the room.

• -       Some Eurythmics music plays.  My host brother, who studied in Germany in the 90s, looks up, obviously remembering the good old days.

• -       Mr. Bean joins the stage for Chariots of Fire, the national song of Senegal.  EVERYONE FREAKS OUT.

The opening ceremony that somehow bored my family.

Over the next few nights, I continued my routine of quietly forcing my family to watch the Olympics, or just changing the channel while they were all praying.  Maybe that’s low, but it marked the first (and probably last) time I’d ever touched the remote control, and I think it ended up being a good, enriching experience for everyone.  Together, we watched some shotput, men’s gymnastics, and weightlifting.  I thought my Olympic-viewing days were over the day I trekked hundreds of kilometers away from my site into the bush with Plan to observe some Life Skills lessons – but nope, even then, in the middle of the afternoon in a tiny little village, a TV was rolled out and we watched some pommel horse action.

One of my favorite moments was watching the women’s 10k with my family.  Most Americans can’t hack watching the 25 minute race, so I hardly expected my Senegalese family to.  So imagine my surprise when everyone ended up glued to the TV yelling and watching the entire race unfold.  I’d always secretly wondered if Africans took pride in their continental distance-running prowess – if they knew that in this sport, they destroy the world.  I don’t know if they knew it before, but my family seemed pretty stoked about the Kenyan and Ethiopian finish.  They also made fun of the Americans, Asians, and Europeans who stumbled in minutes later, which I didn’t appreciate, but let slide.

Senegal had a few Olympic competitors, including the soccer team, which had quite a showing, beating Great Britain in their first match and pushing eventual gold medalist Mexico to overtime in a semi-final game.  Senegal also had a female judo participant, which I baselessly attribute to the numerous Korean Peace Corps taekwando centers that pepper the country.  Korean Peace Corps is always one-upping us, and sending a girl to the Olympics isn’t above them.

But ultimately, the Olympic memory that I will take with me was watching the women’s gymnastics team and all-around finals, the crown jewels. I love gymnastics because it makes me feel like the Cold War still isn’t over.  America!  Russia!  Romania!  China!  The occasional token Canadian or Brit!  I happened to be in Dakar (to see Hillary Clinton, but that’s another story), so a few of us trudged across the street to a dive bar to see if the TV would indulge us.  It did, and I got to watch every glorious moment – the beam routines, the Russian chase, the Russian falls, the US floor dominance, and the girls ecstatically winning all while sipping on my Coca Cola and spouting off gymnastics lingo like an 40 year old man watching Monday Night Football.  When we returned a few days later for the all-around competition, the Senegalese locals had gotten into it us, booing other teams, gasping at falls, and cheering at perfection.  I ended up seeing both gold medal performances, satisfying my own Olympic spectator dream.

YES! YES! YES!

Four years til Brazil.  Until then, I’ll be here, watching more fat men in diapers.