Nick Dahlborg
Finally, a late start to the day! We woke up around 8:00 AM to prepare for a day that would be filled with physical activity. We ate breakfast around 8:30 AM at the roof of the hotel, which consisted of sausages, eggs, toast, fruit, and (not so typical) hibiscus juice. Then we all went back to our rooms to prepare for the first activity of the day - soccer.
We left the hotel at 9:25 AM in a typical taxi van. It took us 25 minutes to get to Amaan Stadium, which was a fairly large stadium with both a field and a track course inside of it. We waited about 20 minutes outside of the stadium with soccer balls and so much water that we could have filled a tub. I took out one of the balls and passed it over to a kid I saw standing off to the side with the others. He passed it back, and came over and began to juggle with me. To my surprise, he was the advanced one, and I was struggling to keep up. He taught me a new move, and I taught him one as well. We entered the stadium and saw 2 u16 teams playing at an impressively fast pace. Many of us thought they were anywhere between the age of 12 and 20. There was 1 team wearing a full orange uniform while the other was wearing red and black. The game didn’t produce any goals until late when the orange team went up by 2, and the crowd roared in celebration. While the game was going on, a couple of students met with a dozen or so young girls and did sprints and stretches with them (some of them had ran a half marathon!), as well as learned to count to 10 in Swahili. Meanwhile, Wilson and I met with some of the boys for some more juggling in a circle, and in the end, both the girls and boys built a larger circle for passing.
The larger soccer game finally ended around 11:30 AM, and we were able to get onto the field with the group from CAC (Coaches across continents) for their PE class. It was hot, 90 degrees. The BHS students were wearing shorts and sport tops while the students from the Haile Selassie School were wearing long pants and long sleeves, and in addition, the girls were wearing hijabs. We started with a group stretch and warmups around the center circle (Wilson seemed to struggle with the counting), then transitioned into passing a ball around in a circle in our hands while naming things in English (animals, soccer players, foods, etc.), then did a blind walk with a team giving directions, and finally some keep away. During keep away, each person had a partner that they had to hold hands with at all times, and I met three girls named Kauthar, Fatma, and Juwairiya. After this, we ended the session with penalty shots, in which I gladly volunteered to play goalie. I was pretty impressed with how well many of the kids could kick, and even when I was trying, ended up letting in a few bad goals! We all took some pictures and said goodbye to our new-found friends.
We left the field around 1:00 PM and had a pretty hard time getting back in the van and saying goodbye. After arriving back at the hotel around 1:30 PM, we all quickly changed into swim suits and ran to the beach. We swam out to a floating restaurant on which we sat and rested for a while. As we swam back, we met a group of about a dozen 10 to13 year old girls swimming in full clothing and hijabs. They were so sweet. We said hi, played tug of war with them, had a water fight, counted to ten (in both English and Swahili), and learned their names. Finally we told them we had to leave, to which they all yelled “We miss you!” As loud as they could.
We dried off, took showers, and got ready for our second activity: Scavenger Hunt. We were all sunburned at this point, and had nothing to lose from running around the entire city in groups of 3 or 4 with no guide, just to find different landmarks. It would be impossible to explain every wrong turn and crazy mistake everyone made, but to sum it up, the hunt required purchasing Ubuyu, a dashiki, dancing with locals, singing a song from the band Queen, and more. It even required making a purchase of a fruit that could be eerily be compared to a drug deal. We started at 3, and by 5:00 PM, we had finished and met at Mercury’s Zanzibar to get well needed drinks and to figure out who had won the hunt, which ended up being a two way tie.
To end the day, we went back to the hotel, got changed out of our “drenched with sweat” clothes, and went for dinner at 7:00 PM at the Tapería right next to our hotel. We ate great tapas, and satisfied, returned home at 8:20 to conclude the by far most physically active, sunburnt day.
Finally, a late start to the day! We woke up around 8:00 AM to prepare for a day that would be filled with physical activity. We ate breakfast around 8:30 AM at the roof of the hotel, which consisted of sausages, eggs, toast, fruit, and (not so typical) hibiscus juice. Then we all went back to our rooms to prepare for the first activity of the day - soccer.
We left the hotel at 9:25 AM in a typical taxi van. It took us 25 minutes to get to Amaan Stadium, which was a fairly large stadium with both a field and a track course inside of it. We waited about 20 minutes outside of the stadium with soccer balls and so much water that we could have filled a tub. I took out one of the balls and passed it over to a kid I saw standing off to the side with the others. He passed it back, and came over and began to juggle with me. To my surprise, he was the advanced one, and I was struggling to keep up. He taught me a new move, and I taught him one as well. We entered the stadium and saw 2 u16 teams playing at an impressively fast pace. Many of us thought they were anywhere between the age of 12 and 20. There was 1 team wearing a full orange uniform while the other was wearing red and black. The game didn’t produce any goals until late when the orange team went up by 2, and the crowd roared in celebration. While the game was going on, a couple of students met with a dozen or so young girls and did sprints and stretches with them (some of them had ran a half marathon!), as well as learned to count to 10 in Swahili. Meanwhile, Wilson and I met with some of the boys for some more juggling in a circle, and in the end, both the girls and boys built a larger circle for passing.
The larger soccer game finally ended around 11:30 AM, and we were able to get onto the field with the group from CAC (Coaches across continents) for their PE class. It was hot, 90 degrees. The BHS students were wearing shorts and sport tops while the students from the Haile Selassie School were wearing long pants and long sleeves, and in addition, the girls were wearing hijabs. We started with a group stretch and warmups around the center circle (Wilson seemed to struggle with the counting), then transitioned into passing a ball around in a circle in our hands while naming things in English (animals, soccer players, foods, etc.), then did a blind walk with a team giving directions, and finally some keep away. During keep away, each person had a partner that they had to hold hands with at all times, and I met three girls named Kauthar, Fatma, and Juwairiya. After this, we ended the session with penalty shots, in which I gladly volunteered to play goalie. I was pretty impressed with how well many of the kids could kick, and even when I was trying, ended up letting in a few bad goals! We all took some pictures and said goodbye to our new-found friends.
We left the field around 1:00 PM and had a pretty hard time getting back in the van and saying goodbye. After arriving back at the hotel around 1:30 PM, we all quickly changed into swim suits and ran to the beach. We swam out to a floating restaurant on which we sat and rested for a while. As we swam back, we met a group of about a dozen 10 to13 year old girls swimming in full clothing and hijabs. They were so sweet. We said hi, played tug of war with them, had a water fight, counted to ten (in both English and Swahili), and learned their names. Finally we told them we had to leave, to which they all yelled “We miss you!” As loud as they could.
We dried off, took showers, and got ready for our second activity: Scavenger Hunt. We were all sunburned at this point, and had nothing to lose from running around the entire city in groups of 3 or 4 with no guide, just to find different landmarks. It would be impossible to explain every wrong turn and crazy mistake everyone made, but to sum it up, the hunt required purchasing Ubuyu, a dashiki, dancing with locals, singing a song from the band Queen, and more. It even required making a purchase of a fruit that could be eerily be compared to a drug deal. We started at 3, and by 5:00 PM, we had finished and met at Mercury’s Zanzibar to get well needed drinks and to figure out who had won the hunt, which ended up being a two way tie.
To end the day, we went back to the hotel, got changed out of our “drenched with sweat” clothes, and went for dinner at 7:00 PM at the Tapería right next to our hotel. We ate great tapas, and satisfied, returned home at 8:20 to conclude the by far most physically active, sunburnt day.