Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got

One of the highlights of working at the school was recess. It was amazing to watch all the children play without the significant amount of supervision children are accustomed to here in the United States. For the most part, the girls and boys played separately, although they all wanted us to play with them. The school grounds were interesting. Girls played tag and parachute, while most of the boys played soccer on this super thick clay field, that if it rained enough could suck the shoes right off your feet or basketball on the oddly placed basketball hoops hanging from every wall and building. I didn’t know why these kids wanted to play on these small hoops that were attached to the school, when there was a perfect full court basketball court behind the school. When I asked one of the students about this he simply replied that it’s boring back there. I guess he was right. Crazy stuff was going on all over the place. I was playing some two on two basketball with a couple boys when I noticed these cute little Ethiopian boys slinging pebbles at each other. My teacher instincts must have kicked in because my first reaction was to get in-between them and stop the rock fight before someone got hurt. Instead I became their new target. In a desperate attempt to divert their attention, I started shoving rocks in my pants pockets in hopes that the sheer oddness would add as a further distraction. I guess it worked. At first they paused and looked at me like I was crazy, but all of a sudden, they began grabbing rocks by the handfuls which they graciously inserted into every one of my pants pockets. Since I was wearing my trusty AmeriCorps BDU cargo pants, I had a good four rock pocs going. When the bell rang to go back in, I was still struggling to empty my pockets.

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