So I was free to attend the first day of a week long annual schools rugby festival with my husband and son. It was more wintry than usual but despite that it was good to be able to attend. Two years ago my son was a leading participant, last year he was recovering from a fractured vertebrae and this year he was again participating but as a referee. I find it heartbreaking but he loves still being totally immersed in the game that he loves so passionately.
With out the tension that usually accompanies such tournaments (for me) I had an utterly different perspective.
Firstly I have never noticed that this festival is mostly about creating friendships amongst the boys. Zimbabwe is a small country with somewhere between ten and twelve million people so a sporting event that draws in eighty six high schools is a big deal. I had time to notice and to marvel at a festival that attracts schools from every strata of our society. Schools range from my sons school which is the oldest boys school in the country, playing sports at the highest level for over hundred years to a poor rural school attending for the first time. Coaches from new schools are attached to top playing schools to assist their own development.
Moments in the day ....
- the inspiration of meeting my friend Nikki who had a mastectomy a couple of weeks ago, who usually runs a pitch side medical team (such as the one that saved my sons life twenty months ago) but not being fit enough to do so now promoted to overall management of the medical teams;
- watching my son take charge of a difficult bad tempered game maintain control and keep it safe for the players;
- meeting referee's from Uganda and Zambia and from Bulawayo in southern Zimbabwe
but with out doubt the best moment in the day was the sheer confusion in the announcers voice as he announced the team from Nowhere. He clearly does not know that while many church mission stations in this country are named for saints such as St Ignatius or Regina Coeli or for the areas in which they are situated such as the Jesuit Mission at Chisawasha there are none so quirkily named as Nowhere Mission deep in the bush about five hours north west of the the capital - in the middle of Nowhere if truth be told......
I am still chuckling.
I love it - and I hope they do great!
ReplyDeleteI have a student who writes some of the most interesting papers. Some weeks ago, I asked her where she went to high school, expecting to hear Super Duper Jesuit School of Amazingness, and she responded that she had gone to a small high school in a nowhere kind of place. "I didn't exactly fir in," she said. I suppose not, I thought. I love to see kids from surprising places do great things, as I'm sure she will someday.