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In a town this small, when something happens, it's usually a big event. Today is the city club soccer championship. About 1000 people turned out to cheer their teams to victory. One of the fans explained that the winner would go on to Abidjan for a regional tournament--and they would get bragging rights.

Now this was no small affair. There was a PA system and lights. The championship trophy sat on display behind the scorer's table.

They also had a dance troupe as pre-game entertainment. These dancers were accompanied by a drummer and performed a traditional West African dance.

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As soon the opening whistle sounds, you know this will be a grudge match. Within the first 5 minutes a player on the yellow team goes down to a hard foul (he stays in the game of course!). The rest of the game is just as rough and intense.

In case you hadn't noticed by now, the "field" they're playing on is actually a concrete basketball court. On top of that, no more than 3 or 4 players--on both teams combined--have shoes of any kind. If you look closely in the photos you can see that they're wearing those old plastic "jelly" sandals. Didn't those slippers fall off while they were playing? Of course. Didn't it hurt? Absolutely. Undaunted, these guys played their hearts out. How many people in the U.S. would do the same?

We hope you enjoyed the Cote d'Ivoire photo journal. If you can't visit for yourself, we hope this is the next best thing. As we travel more in the country we will update the page with new photos. Please feel free to visit some of the other photo journals and the rest of the Virtual Africa section.