Sports Day

Last Friday Ryan and I had the opportunity to attend Sports Day with our students. Admittedly, we thought sports day would not be anything special. We expected it to be disorganized and frustrating. How wrong we were. Our principal picked us up early that morning. Our students were decked out in anything they could find to wear with white and royal blue (our school colors). They were more excited than even seems possible. We sang all the way to the event field. Ryan and I couldn't believe how awesome the field looked. Large tents were set up for each of the four schools participating in the event. The lawn had been mowed into distinct lanes for races. 

We helped the kids get organized and ready for the day's events. As soon as we lined up, we could see how nervous the kids were. Ryan started dancing and slapping high fives with the kids to help them relax a bit. Watching opening ceremonies, Ryan and I quickly saw that our wonderful little school were the underdogs of the day. We were by far the smallest school with the fewest resources. All the other teams had uniforms and banners. Our team had white people. Ryan and I spent the whole morning cheering as loud as we could for each student competing in each event. Luckily, our tent was right near the finish line stretch, so kids could hear us loud and clear. Pretty soon, the whole team was into cheering. We quickly became the loudest team. It was so neat to see our students work as such a team. Older kids would pull younger kids aside to give them a little inspiration and hold their hands when they cried because they lost. We were a unit, singlehandedly taking on the larger teams. Soon, we began to overtake events. We dominated hurdles and field events. Soon, parents also started cheering for the kids. This was a turning point in the day. The kids glowed in the praise offered up by parents. The day became all about supporting kids to do their best.

Our entire village came to the day's event. We got to spend time playing with our students, chatting with women, and conversing with the men. At lunchtime, many mothers thanked us profusely for coming and helping their kids feel so successful. It was the first time we were at a whole community event and just really got to be ourselves and enjoy without over thinking things. We really felt like a part of the community.

After the finals, Ryan and I strapped on our back-packs to prepare for the long walk to town. We were meeting our friends there to bring them back to our village. When the women asked what we were doing and we had told them, they quickly had a town pow-wow. One minute later a woman came forward and told us she was taking us to town. It was such a wonderful treat. We sent them on their way with a couple of cold cokes and all was well in the world :)

Here are a bunch of pictures from the day!

Getting ready for the day.

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Like all social events, men and women are seperate. The men sat behind our team tent, and the women under. Since Ryan and I are both teachers, we were told it was okay to be together with the kids.

  

Having a wicked awesome time under the tent.

  

  

  

Ryan calls our principal Tevita "the happy warrior." He is such an amazing man. Every day Ryan and I feel so happy to work with this man. Here he is giving the kids some encouragement before the finals round.

And finally, here is Ryan with his new girlfriend. Her name is Sela. She is in our church family. It has taken her about 6 months to get used to us, but her and Ryan are now fast friends. Both now routinely get scolded at church for playing around while the priest is talking. Ryan is a wonderful influence on the youth here :)