Life on the High side

Gotta love Malawi. The biggest basketball game I've ever gone to was at the KEY Arena in Seattle. Someone had offered my roommate and I free tickets to watch the now defunct Seattle Sonics play the Portland Trailblazers. I felt like I needed a telescope to watch the actual players because our tickets were not so expensive so our seat numbers were way, way, way up in the Arena. I had to content myself with watching them on the floating screen.

Here in Malawi, apparently, our biggest indoor arena is at the College of Medicine. It's elusive, I've never been there for any game so far. So it's ABC that offers a good gym that's available for public games (there are other places but they are either small or outdoors, I read in the papers that govt. is commencing construction of a big sports complex in Lilongwe next year, that's good news). So anywho, ABC gym is not so large, matter of fact, I'm amazed that not only can I see the actual players down to the laces on their sneaks, but I can hear the coach-players yell instructions clear on the other side of the court. The advantage there is that fans feel part of the game and can actually interact with players, the perks of not having to pay an arm and a leg just to sit courtside like Jack Nicholson... Another thing to love about Malawi.

Ofcourse, the game must not be so big in this country if a full capacity crowd for the just endend National Club championship is like 1,000 +/- What's Chichiri/Kamuzu Stadium seating capacity down in Blantyre? 50,000. Eish. It's Christmas season, I'm happily putting myself in hibernation until 2009 (God Willing). Where am I? pa vepi!!

Eish

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