On Tuesday I have a 2nd period free, so I was hanging in the teacher's lounge. Some guy that I've never seen before was in there, and when I double checked with the vice-principal to make sure I didn't have class (I had forgotten my schedule at home), he overheard, and motioned to me to come with him and made the motion of kicking a soccer ball. Really? Some random dude wants me to go outside and play soccer with him during my free time while I'm in my skirt and tights?
No, that's actually not what was happening at all. Let me explain. I did not think there were any men employed by this school. The principal and vice-principal are women, and so are all the teachers I had met so far. So I figured any guy walking around the school was one of the repairmen that were fixing things up. It turns out this guy was not. He's the P.E. teacher and he wanted me to go to his P.E. class with him, not play soccer. When I figured this out, I agreed. It was uneventful. The kids did nothing. He sent a couple of them off school grounds to go pump up the soccer ball because it was flat. Like 20 minutes later they came back. It was still flat. They argued with the P.E. teacher for a while, then they left again. Came back. Left again. Came back with a pump. They got the soccer ball aired up. There was 3 minutes until the bell. Fail.
The next day, the P.E. teacher came into the teacher's lounge and told the English teacher to translate for him. She told me the school sometimes has sporting events and asked if I wanted to participate. "What kind of sports?" I asked. He pointed to a printout with illustrations of kids running through tires, going around cones, playing tug-of-war. So I agreed. Then, after school, I went with my sister to the store, and on the way back we passed by the school. My host cousin grabbed me and told me I was supposed to go upstairs to the computer lab. [Note: Any time I say that a Georgian told me to do something, it's not exactly as smooth of a process as I make it sound. For example, in this case, my cousin pointed to the top floor of the school, said something really fast in Georgian, made a motion of typing on a computer, and waved me to follow him.] When I got to the computer lab, the P.E. teacher was there, along with a bunch of students crowded around the computer. They started playing a YouTube video of the sports competition I had agreed to. It was like that old Nickelodeon show I used to watch with the red team and the blue team and they slimed people and they had that cute host named Mark something. For those of you who do not know what I'm talking about, it was a bunch of kids doing weird stuff like bouncing on a bouncy ball around cones, climbing up mats, sliding down slides, and doing potato sack relays. This is what I had agreed to. Oh god. I told myself that at least I was getting involved and I should just pretend I'm 12 and am on Legends of the Hidden Temple. (I'm on a Nick kick now.)
After watching the video we had to have practice. I started to get a little grumpy. I was supposed to be at home eating lunch, and instead, I was hanging out outside the school trying to hold a soccer ball between my head and the P.E. teacher's head without using our hands while running around cones, with the whole school watching.
I was told the competition was today, so I brought my gym clothes with me to school. When it was time to go, we all piled into a marshrutka (mini-bus, word borrowed from Russian) and drove to Sagarejo, about 20 minutes away. When we got there, a 15-yr-old girl who spoke good English became my new best friend, because she was the only one who could tell me what was going on. Some other teams went first, so we watched them. It didn't look so bad. The reason I was recruited for this, was because each team had to have an adult male and female. I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few in the school who is not old, limping, or pregnant, so they snatched me up. Plus they knew I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Easy prey.
As it got closer to our turn, I got nervous. The German teacher figured out I spoke German, so that's one more person at school that I'm able to talk to now. Yay! The principal told her to ask me if I was fast. I think so? Compared to who? Then my English-speaking friend (she had one of those complicated Georgian names that I forgot 2 seconds later) kept telling me to run very fast. Jeez people! Pressure!
We started out with the obstacle course relay. We had to jump over a hurdle, crawl through a tunnel, run through tires, throw a ball at some bowling pins and try to knock down as many as we could, then sprint back and the next person goes. I was second to last to go. We were a little behind, but the adult female on the other team had about 20 years on me, so I felt confident. I took the lead, the last guy went and we won! Then came tug-of-war. Another win! Last, we had a relay race where each person had to do different things while zigzagging around cones. Bounce on a ball, kick a soccer ball, dribble a basketball, hop in a sack, and then me and the adult male had to hold a giant beach ball between our heads (we got to use our hands too) while running around the cones. When it was our turn, the other team already had a pretty good lead, and we ended up losing. But when the total points were tallied, we came out 1st place! Just 1 point ahead of the 2nd place team. This close call makes me feel better about the fact that my left knee is now sore and swollen because I landed on it while diving into the tunnel. Everyone was really excited about our win.
Now we have another match tomorrow, and the finals on Sunday. Gives me something to do this weekend. And I"m hoping that we'll win and go to Nationals in Tbilisi, so that I can be on Georgian television. Oh, the glory!
No comments:
Post a Comment