Boy Overboard

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, racism, and gender discrimination. 

On a stretch of desert in Afghanistan in the early 2000s, 11-year-old Jamal plays pickup soccer with friends. Devoted fans of televised international soccer, the boys use the names of English “football clubs”: Manchester United for Jamal’s team and Newcastle United for the other, which includes Jamal’s friends Aziz and Mussa. Yusuf, a boy who lost a leg, plays goalie. Jamal claims to be skilled but has never scored a goal on his own. While playing, the boys listen for bombing raids and avoid the battle wreckage of the desert: burned-out tanks, trucks, unexploded shells, and minefields.

Playing soccer carries other risks. Though not banned by the government, which has outlawed most forms of recreation, it is frowned upon; Jamal thinks this is due to the Afghanistan team’s lack of competitiveness on the world stage. Now, seeing his friends staring at something behind him, Jamal worries that it may be a government enforcer: “an angry man with a long beard and an even longer swishing cane” (3). It’s something “scarier”: his nine-year-old sister, Bibi, who wants to join their game.