Harvesting corn and playing sports

On Wednesday there were no classes and the students just harvested the school corn that they grow to make the staple tanzanian food, ugali. Emily and I went down with the teachers, I thought to supervise, but they asked if we wanted to help, so we all went into the fields. The corn they grow isn't sweet corn; it's maize, so it's white, and they don't harvest it until it's all dried out because they just grind it up to make it into this stiff porridge (ugali). So, they shuck the dry corn right on the stalk and then break the ear off. Most of the time I did just fine, but any time I got to a really big ear, I couldn't for the life of me break it off the stalk, and all the teachers and students were laughing at me. I was fine with it because I think it was a sort of endearing incompetence, rather than an annoying one (I'm hoping). But I mean, who doesn't like to feel more competent at something than someone else?

Ok, so that was really fun, but by far the best part of every day is 5pm when Em and I go down to the field to play sports with whoever shows up. One day we taught like 15 boys and a few girls how to play frisbee, which was suuuper fun. I think it was interesting for the boys to play a sport where a girl was better than all of them ;) But they learned really fast. Then on Thursday and Friday a bunch of boys were congregated in the middle of the field when Emily and I showed up with a few girls. The girls started doing laps around the field, and I hate warm-ups so I just ran onto the field to see what was going on. One of the boys came out to meet me and said that they wanted to play soccer today. I asked (in kiswahili) whether the girls could play, and he hesitated. He said that he didn't know, but that he'd seen me, and that i could play (haha). So, I ran over to ask the girls if they wanted to play, and Emily said she didn't want to, so her clan stayed with her.

So, I played soccer for the 1st time in 6 years, with 21 boys, and didn't do completely terribly. Some of them were certainly better than me, but there were enough who were worse :)

Then yesterday I was talking with that same teacher, and he said that it was so great for the girls to see me playing. He said he always tells everyone to go exercise every day, but that he's never seen so many girls come before. And yesterday all of the young teachers came to watch, which he said had never happened before. He said that while maybe some are coming just to see us, once they get here they have fun and start playing. He said it's great especially for the students because otherwise they do nothing but study.

Whew, ok I think that's all I have for now. :)