Clear the Bench

Volleyball is relatively new to this country and they have this professional men's league. One of my neighbor friends is a scorekeeper and so we go to the games together on a pretty regular basis. Tuesday night there was an all-out brawl. It started with a bad call, then the fans were messing with the players on the bench, another bad call and all the sudden the benches and stands have cleared and the entire gym floor is covered with men just beating each other. So they paused the game, waited for the riot police to get there, then began again b/c, for some reason, they just had to finish this game. The first set of riot police consisted of one guy with a gun and a tree branch. At first I thought it might be the regular stick thing that police carry but upon closer inspection it did, indeed, have leaves. I leaned over to my friend and pointed out that the he was carrying a tree branch and she just said 'yah, so that he can hit people'. I said 'no, I understand that much, but it's an actual tree branch, from a tree'. She didn't ever really see my point.

After about 30 minutes the floor clears, they don't kick anyone out and they start playing again. Another bad call ends the game and all the sudden people are jumping from the stands onto the coaches and players on the bench. They're throwing chairs and water coolers. They actually knocked the referee off of the stand and started hitting him. Mr. Tree Branch was nowhere to be seen and people were just having at it. Then more riot police showed up and they closed and locked the doors to the gym...b/c that makes sense, people are fighting so instead of splitting them up let's force them to stay in a confined space! After another 30 minutes they TURN OFF the lights!!!! Yep, that's right. They did at least open the doors but, with the lights off, it was a little chaotic...not that it wasn't chaotic already.

So now everyone is in the parking lot but they have that locked too! People are trashing cars and fighting still, it was crazy. Finally after about 30 minutes out there they started letting people go 1 by 1. My friend told me that was so that they could see everyone and catch the bad guys. To that, I responded 'every single man in that gym was fighting, they're all the bad guys'. We finally got to leave.

This sounds like it was a dangerous kind of situation but it wasn't. There were about 10 other girls there and so we just stayed in the stands off to the side and laughed at the situation. Seriously, these old men in jalabiyas and turbans just throwing chairs at each other. It wasn't young guys, it was old men! There were a few guys from some of the other teams and they would have gotten thrown off their teams if they had fought so they 'escorted' us to be sure that we were ok. chivalrous.

I must say that I was a little disappointed in the riot police. Their reputation is that they're ruthless, breaking up peaceful demonstrations by shooting up the crowd, throwing tear gas into church services, etc. There I was standing in the middle of an all out riot and the police just stood there in their helmets and shields and watched it play out! I've heard that the people in the Sandbox are passionate about 2 things and 2 things only....religion and sports. Well, I've seen 'em both now and I must say that they are pretty passionate. Life here seems to be getting more exciting as time goes on!