Today was just amazing! The school decided to enter some of the kids in an inter-school athletics competition, with the other 5 independent schools in Arusha. We really didn’t know what to expect. We needn’t have worried! Our kids took places in nearly every event they entered, and that was with never having done them before.
One of the boys in secondary, who had never high-jumped in his life, won the open division. And after he had won the event, the officials just kept raising the bar to see how far he could go. They only stopped when he had managed to jump higher than his own height, still without knocking off the bar! The young lass in the open girls’ high jump came second, with an equally plucky performance.
Then the races started, 1500, 800,400, 200 and 100 metres . In vain we tried to tell the younger kids not to go out too fast initially but to pace themselves, but that fell on deaf ears. They took off like young rabbits, mostly with bare feet, racing their hearts out and most of them got places! I felt so, so sorry for the U12 boy, Victor, who was running his first 800 metres. He must have checked with me about 10 times how many circuits he had to run around the oval, and at the second time around, I thought he was going to actually win! He was miles ahead, but then as he came up to the last 50 metres, he started to flag and didn’t notice the big American kid coming up behind him, who put his elbow out to just pip Victor right at the finish line! Poor Victor, he was mortified and went away by himself so no one could see his tears. I really felt for him, but hey! What a magnificent effort! He beat a field of about 12 other boys who had no doubt all been training for the event, who were twice his size and who actually knew what they were doing.
Apart from the wonderful display of raw talent that we saw, what was also brought home to me very forcibly was that, while the other students and officials treated our kids with respect and growing admiration as the day proceeded, our kids seemed like fish out of water. They were painfully shy and found it very hard to mix and socialise with the other students who were trying to engage with them. They seemed overwhelmed and didn’t know what to talk about or how to interact. The students from these other much more privileged schools will be their peers when they leave school; they will be the ones our students will be competing with for jobs and places in the community. Giving our kids a wonderful education is the beginning, but we will also have to make sure that we prepare them socially to take their places outside school. We do our students a disservice if we don’t prepare them to mix confidently and as equals. They don’t have many opportunities to mix with other people from more privileged backgrounds. And it occurred to me that athletics will provide such an avenue for our students to socialize “on a level playing field”, as it were. Would be great if we can get them up to speed and get decent training facilities for them so they can be confident sports-wise and socially too.
Great day! I take my hat off to them all for their big hearts, determination and fantastic results.
