Athletics Part II

Thursday was our cluster athletics competition (cluster is a group of 4-6 schools nearby) to decide which athletes from each school would represent us at the regional level. It was pretty much a repeat of our inter-school althletic competition, except there were more kids, and it was a little better organized. There were running competitions, long jump, shot put, discus, javelin (although I never actually saw this…), and high jump. My job originally was to be the announcer, but the announcer has to know everything that’s happening and try to organize everyone—a job I was not cut out for given how much time I spent being confused about what was happening. I mostly just hung out, cheered, and watched different competitions until one teacher from another school started giving me a hard time for not helping, so I jumped in and helped measure long jump distances. It was at this point, that I got incredibly, painfully sunburned. At about 2 o’clock I started to feel miserable… I was sunburned, bored, confused about what was happening, dehydrated since someone had taken my water, and hungry. But I powered through and at 4 we went back to the school so that the teachers could all have dinner together, which was pleasant. Sorry the explanation is brief, but it was rather unenjoyable so I'm trying to just move on..
The highlight of the day for me was the arrival of one of the other schools. As everyone was milling about, disorganized, they pulled up in a giant pickup (imagine half pickup- half semi) with all of the kids in the back. Every child was wearing matching red uniforms and they were doing cheers, all in unison. It was incredibly intimidating. They then proceeded to win every single one of the long distance races (the first events). Hard core.
Right now, I am sitting in Tsumeb, where I get to see all of my friends. I will probably report more when the whole weekend is finished, but it is sooooo good to see everyone and really fun to all be together again.