At low tide, the white sands of Mombasa’s northern beaches stretch nearly half a mile out to sea. The shore is framed by palm trees, run-down hotel buildings, and wooden stalls selling fried cassava chips and cold Coca-Cola; in the distance, the vivid blue of the Indian Ocean is painted with the faded colors of tiny fishing boats anchored in the shallow water.

In my hometown of San Diego, California, a beach of this size would be crawling with toddlers in floppy hats, skinny girls in skinnier bikinis turning on their towels like meat on a spit, and hairy men dozing in bright trunks.

In Kenya, the girls are fully covered and the men play soccer.

I sit at the periphery of a game of local boys and watch with an eye to join. The field runs about 40 yards along the beach, sticks standing upright in the sand marking the goal posts at each end. Width is determined by the tide. There are thirteen players, meaning one side is a man short. This could be my ticket in.

There are strategies to joining a pickup game and rules to abide by. You have to size up the teams and the style of play—are there designated positions? Is the action mostly passing or dribbling? How seriously are they taking the game?

Most importantly: am I going to get my ass kicked?

There’s an additional factor when you’re a girl attempting to join a game of men, especially in a country like Kenya where serious women’s sports are still something of a novelty. Being among the conservative constituency of Kenya’s predominantly Muslim coast doesn’t help either. Context, I conclude, might be working against me.

It’s a position I’ve been in before. In college I played in a regular pickup game with a crew of guys from Iran, Japan, Argentina, Scotland, Ghana, and a dozen other countries—many of whom hadn’t realized that girls could play. Although they were skeptical to begin with, my background on a national championship team served me well, and I soon earned a place on the field.

Now, as I sit on the warm sands of the Indian Ocean coastline, I weigh my status. It’s been over a year since I touched a soccer ball. My current aerobic capacity, to put it generously, is somewhat lacking, considering my greatest exertion the past month has been running to catch a departing matatu. Plus I’ve never played in deep sand like this.

Even so, I’ve been watching this game for twenty minutes, and I think I can hold my own. I’m taking mental notes on which players seem to be on the same team, which ones have skills, and which ones have already cast a curious glance in my direction.

Someone takes a shot and it goes wide, sending the ball rolling far behind the goal line; one guy jogs after it. As the other players mill about, I decide to make my move.

“Hey,” I offer to a defender idling close by. “Is this an open game?”

He gives me a blank look. “You want to play?”  Read More...