Let The Games Begin

Last week was Youth Week.  Although, youth week is just a name because it has really been a month long.  There have been activities going on for some time now.  But yesterday was game day and it was great!

Pastor Shao asked me to give a short speech at 8:00 a.m. to start the day.  Here I am giving my short speech at about about half past noon.  (Nothing runs according to schedule here.)

I was telling a story from my track days and none of these kids knew about hurdles.  So I set two kids up as "hurdles" and then (in my skirt) I hurdled them.  While I successfully hurdled the kids, I'm not sure I could still get over actual high hurdles!

Then I was asked to kick the soccer ball.  Think of it as the ceremonial throwing out of the first pitch.  I kicked it and the kids all cheered.  It was great! 

Then it was time for tug of war.  John got to be the official whistle blower.  There was controversy to be solved right from the beginning.  The same team kept winning every time, so they had to determine that the teams had to switch sides every round.  There were some intense moments, but eventually everyone was satisfied.

I had the idea that we should have three Americans against three Tanzanians, thinking the three American's would not include me, but I was wrong.  We quickly learned why one side was winning each time.  One side was grass, the other gravel, on the gravel side your feet could get no traction.  So in our little American's against the Tanzanians competition, we won because in a best 2 out of 3, we started on the grass side.

On to the 200 meter dash.

I probably don't have to say much about this.  You can see from the picture the intensity with which the girls ran this race.  These games were one area of the Uswaa village "Mamba" against another area "Uswaa" and each team was out to win!

They had several heats, then after that all of the winners ran a final race to determine a winner.

Now we come to netball.

Netball is something like a cross between ultimate Frisbee and Basketball.  The girls play this and they are serious about it.  They have referees and everything.

John was asking some of the boys why only the girls play netball.  Their response was "because the girls are too rough."

Yesterday we were watching the game from the balcony of the church and that the girls play "rough" was putting it lightly.  This one sweet gentle girl who works at the church quite often - who is usually so soft spoken and kind - was the most fun to watch.  She was a bully out there!

Today was a big football game (soccer).  John was the referee again.  He reported that this again was quite intense, they were on top of him for any questionable calls.  Some spectators did report that he counted two offside goals.  But in the end it didn't matter because he gave one to each team!  In the end the score was tied and everyone had a great time!