March 28, 2009

On March 28, 2009 our school had Inter-Kunda Sporting Competition. 'Kunda' means 'house', the school is divided into four team and each team is assigned a color: red, blue, green and yellow. According to the color, the team is named Yellow-Kunda, Green-Kinda, etc... The teachers are divided into Kunda-masters and are in charge of their Kunda's trainings and preparations for the competition. I was a kunda-master for green-kunda.
The competition is divided into 2 parts: actual sporting event during the day and disco at night. It is a big deal and all the children are looking forward to it.
We trained the entire week leading to the competition - running, long jump, high jump, bucket balance, etc. The day before all my girls came to my house and we cooked tasty refreshments for the athletes: baobab juice, cous and sour milk, panketos and other things.
Here are my girls:
The next morning flags were waved and sun was shining. The Inter-Kunda began.

The event was held at the big football field 1 km away from my school. Kundas were placed at the four corners:

Yellow-Kunda:

Green-Kunda:

Blue-Kunda:

Red-Kunda:

In the center was the music set with enormous speaker - for announcements and hip-hop music (Shakira, Shakira!). The judges - high officials from the regional office - sat at the center, enjoying the shade structure and recorded each kunda's points on the big score board for everyone to see.Left to right - principal of our school, our two sport masters.
I am telling you, those kids can do sports. They run fast, jump high and party hard.

High jump Blue-Kunda:

Our school got about 60 football jerseys donated from USA. I struggled to bring all of them from Kombo packed on my bicycle in time for the competition. Unfortunately, we were donated red jerseys, blue jerseys, yellow jerseys and purple jerseys... My kids were pretty upset, but then we figured that purple jerseys are better for Green-kunda then no jerseys at all. So when you see Purple - think Green! High jump Green-kunda:

Lime-on-a-spoon competition for the smallest kids. You put the lime on the spoon and run with it - whoever makes it first to the finish line without dropping the lime, wins. There was was trouble with this event involving one smart boy, one hidden piece of chewing gum strategically placed on the spoon and one upset Blue-Kunda master - but it all got figured at the end. Sports competitions are always prone to cheating, are they not?

Three-legged race. Pretty hilarious to watch. There were also bag race, but I missed recording it.

My favorite - bucket balance! Pretty unbelievable stuff. I cannot imagine how they do it. Fatoumata, below on the picture, is our best student in the whole entire school. Exceptionally bright, polite, well-behaved. And she got us the first place in bucket-balance run!

And on a side there were a lot of dancing, cheer leading and having a good time. Here are some images from our Green-kunda.

Group shot with teachers. This is already the middle of the day and we are all pretty tired. All that cheering...

It was one happy day for me at the school. I enjoyed the celebration tremendously and, although we only got the 3rd place (red got the first, those cheaters), I felt like we won! At night the speakers scared all hyenas in the radius of 50 miles, there were dancing, tasty treats and a lot of hookups among older students. Just like prom, but in savanna. Teenagers are all the same, no matter which hemisphere they live in.