Back to Uganda 2015: Sports Competition, ice-cream ...bike, and a burnt face

Today (Saturday) I changed my program so that I could go with the school kids to their sports competition.

It was nothing like I expected, I have NEVER seen so many children on a playing field, there must have been almost two thousand people from over 30 primary schools.

Our kids have been training for a few weeks on our school field but clearly the other school took it a lot more seriously. I don't think we were prepared for the size of that track, it was at least three times the size of out school field.

Therefore the stamina and training our kids were used to was nowhere near enough. The first races were seven laps around the track and our kids practically collapsed and fainted after the races... We were often the last in the races, and very worn out but I was SO proud of the kids, the tried extremely hard and didn't give up or get disheartened when they were clearly not winning. I introduced some team spirit, some songs etc to support their school as well as encouraging them to cheer on their team mates. It was so nice to see everyone fanning the person who had just ran, and just all getting along with eachother.

All the kids using their skirts to fan a
very tired Jennifer after her race

Plus we had the best sports kit of them all and looked so smart and team-like haha.

I also burnt my face as the sun cream I put on that morning obviously didn't last as long as the bottle told me it would..

And this amused me - a javelin event held IN THE MIDDLE of the running track... DURING a running race. Just one of those things that's completely against the health and safety rules at home. Luckily noone died and this was the one even our school actually won! John is now representing the area in a regional competition :-)

Javelin in the middle of the track...

This is Uganda's version of the ice-cream van: a bicycle with a freezer box strapped on the back with a little horn that plays typical ice cream van songs! Very refreshing in the heat, and costs about 5p for an ice cream and cone...