Sports Square Off

Friday has never felt so much like a Saturday before; despite it ostensibly being a school day, the students, teachers, and volunteers were more likely to be drawn to the field.  That’s because Pommern Secondary School and three other secondary schools from the surrounding provinces were set to square off in football, volleyball, netball, and other games and occasions.

In typical mzungu fashion, the volunteers arrived at the football pitch with punctuality; in typical African fashion, we were the only ones around. 

Boredom turned to improvisation as the volunteers moved from Sharks & Minnows, Foxes in the Hen House, and an altered version of Death Ball to pass the time.  As the sun climbed its way higher into the sky, more students and teachers began finding their way to the pitch.  Later, minibuses filled with students also arrived simultaneously with great hump-backed cows.

Volunteers found different ways of taking advantage of the atypical day and beautiful weather.  Spectating the well-received football matches was a popular choice, but one not so humorous as paying “Nina dubwana mzungu” with sportingly innocent watotos.  I myself enjoyed documenting this so much that I turned my lens and feet toward the school; I wanted to illustrate to friends back home my routes, offices, and classrooms I’d taught in.  While there, I was quizzed on Obama, Jay-Z’s connections with the Free Masons (hint: there are none), and freestyled & beatboxed the afternoon away.

Friday presented the group and its individual members with special opportunities to expand horizons and immerse deeper into our hosts’ cultures, and we took advantage of it in equally special ways.  African field day was a blast.

-Michael