The bus carrying the Zambian under-20 soccer team drives away from their last practice before a game against Spain. Four people carrying cameras are just a couple of metres away.
They're all Zambians who now live in the Lower Mainland and came to support their team.
Vancouver resident Mwaka Sibongo says she never thought she'd get a chance to cheer any Zambian team in person after moving to Canada, "Because Canada is hockey, so when I heard the FIFA U-20 World Cup was going to be here and Zambia was going to play, it took a while to sink here … are they really coming?"
They really did come. And Sibongo is taking every opportunity to show her support.
"It's like a dream, more than a dream come true, I just feel like we're living a dream," she says. "We went to the hotel. We bought all the papers, every day with all the clippings and made a scrapbook."
Sibongo explains why this team's appearance in Burnaby is such a big deal for anyone who has connections to Zambia: "As a country and a nation, we suffered a very big loss, 13, 14 years ago."
She's referring a 1993 plane crash that killed most of the Zambian national soccer team. At the time, the team was on the verge of qualifying for the 1994 World Cup. Zambia fielded a rebuilt team but failed to make it.
"We lost a whole national team, so for us, just any athletes out of the country, any athletes to us, especially soccer is a big deal."
And Sibongo is proof of that.
The Zambian soccer team has been a big focus in her life for the past week.
"I went to bed really late because we hang around the hotel with the officials. I slept for four hours, went to work, and finished working. I wasn't going to come but I heard this other coach, Kalusha Bwalya, who used to be one of our best stars, and my friends said we just had to go. I just got home from work, didn't have dinner and just picked up my bag and came."
Sibongo says she and hundreds of other Zambian-Canadians plan to attend every match they can, savouring the chance to see their beloved "Copper Bullets" in person.
