This is a lesson I've learned time and time again, but each time I think, "This shouldn't take that long, I can probably go do this or that after." No, it never works that way! Things always start late and last longer than you think!
Today we had a volleyball and football match against another school called TTC. Actually it was supposed to be 4 games – the boys' teams and the girls' teams for each sport.
It began at 10am, the girls and boys played wonderfully in the volleyball matches, but alas, TTC was victorious.
They also had a much more energetic fan base. But for us, this is the first time we've done this. This is the first year that St. Mary Dominique Mazzarello Secondary School exists, and so of course all the kids in 4th form are still getting comfortable with each other. For being our first time, I think we did pretty good. Now, the football matches were the real problem. We reserved a field a bit of a distance away.
Sr. Rose had to drive packed-in carfuls (actually Land Cruiser-fulls) of people, taking 3 trips. Well, our girl’s team arrives there at noon, our reserved timeslot. The fans and food-bearers (we brought some passion fruit juice and ndazi for after they finished playing) came later, as space in the vehicle allowed. Well, I was in the last car trip, and we learned that at about 1:30 pm when we arrived, TTC had not showed up.
Our players were hungry and tired, and we decided that TTC forfeited. As we're discussing this situation, now close to 2pm, the other team arrives. It turns out the referee had told them to go home and eat lunch and to return later. But he never passed this information onto us. Innocent, one of our profs who is also the teams' coach, was livid. There was intense, heated arguing going on between Innocent and the referee, and between our team members and TTC members, and between Sr. Charlotte and somebody from TTC. I had no idea what anyone was saying, but there was certainly anger in the air. Miscommunication + hunger + a well-fed team happily sauntering in ready to play = an unpleasant mix. So Innocent sent the players to the other end of the field to eat their ndazi and juice. Meanwhile he and Sr. Charlotte and the TTC coach made arrangements to reschedule the match for Wednesday.
While everyone was eating their indazi, there was of course a small herd of children near us. These were really poor kids, very dirty and wearing very torn clothes. Some of our students would give them a piece of their ndazi, and the kids were really happy about that.
But on a few occasions, one of our players would make a game out of it, tossing a chunk of bread up into the air and smacking it like a volleyball serve. The little kids would run and chase it down like a pack of dogs. I was disturbed by this, but the kids seemed to be really enjoying it. They had big smiles on their faces as they played fetch. But still, these are hungry, impoverished children and we are tossing them food as if it is some kind of joke. I could tell, though, that these children weren't starving. They didn't fight over who got a piece and who didn't, nor did all of them flock to the bread-giver like paperclips to a magnet. They kind of accepted that whoever got bread got bread, and whoever didn't, didn't.
I was happy to finally pack back into the car and drive home to eat. Innocent, the Sisters, and I had not eaten anything since breakfast, so we were hungry. And I was fortunate enough to be invited into the first car-load home. The other started walking and Sr. Rose drove back to meet them on the way. I can't imagine being so tired after playing volleyball, waiting in the sun for our opponents, arguing for an hour, and then having to walk home.
The resilience of these people continually amazes me.
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