Sports Day

First of all i'd like to say a huge overdue thankyou to Mr. Paton and all the teachers and parents who organized and ran the many track and field days at Crestwicke while i was there! Until yesterday i had no idea how much work and energy it actually took!!

Yesterday was Sports Day at Sakeji, a.k.a track and field day. I was quite willing to help the kids practice the events leading up to the day and i signed up to do various duties throughout the day and i was quite content with that. Then Sunday night Mrs. Ronald approached me and asked if I would be willing to oversee Sports Day as Mr. Ronald was back in bed sick. Sigh. My first respose was to shout "no!" but instead i just hummed and hawed a bit before relenting. I was able to talk Michelle into helping me. We looked at the schedules from the previous years and threw together a rough schedule of events the rest was done by 'winging' it.

The students were so wound up i was worried we'd never get through the day! they couldn't wait to get the day started! the students are split up into 4 teams and every ribbon they win is put towards points for their team. this encourages the kids to cheer on the rest of their team mates. They are surprisingly good at encouraging those who don't place as well. it's kinda cool to see them pull together as a team.

the day started with a long distance endurance race. we made it a little shorter then it has been in past years as they didn't have as much training this year. once the first ribbons were given out the excitement was over the top! they couldn't wait to get to the next event to prove themselves! we quite literally raced through the races. i was shocked things went so smoothly but the kids knew what to do and were often ready at the starting line before they were even called.

Over all the day seemed to go fairly well, with very few injuries. I managed to get a sunburn on my face and scratch my back on a rusty fence (thankfully i've had my tetnis shots) but made it through the day in one piece. There were the usual cuts and scrapes but the most serious injury we had was a boy who jumped the high jump and missed the mat, landing quite hard on the ground. THe ironic thing is that this is the first year they've had a high jump mat to land on. normally they land in a sand pit and this is the first year (that anyone can remember) that we had an injury. We were a little concerned that he might have a concussion as he hit his head quite hard, but he seems to have made it through ok.

We were very short staffed as not only was Mr. Ronald sick, but a few others staff members were as well. Thankfully there were lots of 'volunteers' around (people from the farm, and Kalene) so we made good use of them! we pulled together and got it all done. :)

By the end of the day i was exhausted! I felt like i'd been competing in the events as well! thankfully i didn't have any duties after supper and was able to go home and crash. i slept quite well last night for the first time in a few weeks!

today, although still feeling the effects of the sunburn i'm surprisingly well rested and ready to take on the rest of the week!

only 10 more days of classes!