Welcome to The Hive

Andrew* and I** discussed this prior to him leaving for Malawi, and both feeling semi-warmly to writing we figured a personal blog would be a nice touch... Few if any will ever truly have the ability to experience the culture and surroundings as well as understand our thoughts on how over 20 years of experience in the City of Champions would translate. After being thrusted into all new societies in Hong Kong and Blantyre, Malawi (it's coming up) respectively, you really don't know what to expect. At over 10,000 and 15,000 kms away from Edmonton respectively, you'll never forget about Edmonton but the new chapter of life takes place in this new locales. I still remember the day I left Edmonton, you'll never forget something like that. I was cleaning my room the other day and thought to myself... I can't believe I picked it up and left. Here I am two years later yet feeling that I've survived long enough to return back to a comfort zone that resides in Edmonton. I can't speak on behalf of Andrew, but moving away to a place you've had little to no experience since childhood is more then just a daunting task. But for real, time to get somewhere. I'll never ever talk shit about Edmonton, yet at the same time your own personal desire for achievement trumps the relatively microscopic world of E-Town. I've traded it the numbing cold of Edmonton winters to sweating my sack off 9 months of the year. Sometimes I need to stop myself before my words become a complex jumble with no direction, but then's a double-edge beauty of the blog world. Despite the hyper-connectivity that manifests itself in the present-age, we're lucky to have the ability to share ourselves amongst friends and family alike we'll probably rarely ever see. Oh and for the name... We figured what's black and yellow... obviously a bee and then it "Segway'd" into The Hive.

-Eugene

*Andrew Alinafe Mataya (born 11 May, 1984 in Lilongwe, Malawi) is a Malawian footballer who currently plays for EDSA Division 1 side Southwest United in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. After 21 years in Edmonton, Mataya recently decided to return to the country of his birth to pursue a career in medicine-- a move which he feels will allow him to "enrich his personal development and fulfill his life goals to their fullest potential." Mataya departs for Malawi on Monday, November 10th, 2008 so his final match for United will be one week earlier, on the 3rd against KC Trojans Reserves.
Although acquainting himself to his new surroundings and taking care of his scholastic responsibilities will keep Mataya's plate quite full for much the foreseeable future, he does not consider his move a retirement from competitive football. "I'll play until I die," he has recently remarked. "Consider this an indefinite leave [from football].'

--This biographical article related to Malawian football is a stub. You can help expand it by contacting one of this blog's contributors (seriously, If you have something to add, let us know and if it's good, we might post it).

**I moved to Hong Kong after graduating university to play soccer (pay sucked pretty bad ahah). Knowing full well it was only to mess around after school, I fell into the internet blog world and was lucky enough to find a job at Hypebeast.com where I currently reside as a Managerial Editor. Unlike Andrew, I quit soccer and just lift weights in prepration of winning 2009 Mr. Hong Kong.