I learned something very important in my first week in Malaybalay. When you miss a basket, the announcer yells, “Walah!” I am unsure whether this means, miss, or no good, or what exactly it means. But, I have heard it so much this week I may hear it in my dreams. Somehow a miss seems better when you yell “walah” like a magic trick just happened after.
Why am I hearing this so often you ask? No, it isn’t related to me shooting. It is because this week we helped put on the 1st ever Metro Malaybalay Sports Tournament. They had churches bring teams that were half church members and half community members. They had 9 teams play basketball, volleyball, and soccer over the course of the past 4 days to come up with champions in a men’s and women’s division in volleyball, a mixed gender soccer champion and a men’s basketball champion. They also did some testimony things and some small group times to share the gospel.
I ended up keeping the book for the basketball tournament as they were in need and I know how to do that. It was a bit frustrating at times as I wasn’t allowed to play because guys won’t play against girls in the provinces. It seems they refuse to guard girls and if the girls score they just don’t count the basket. It led to me watching a lot of basketball and spending a few hours in the evening shooting to take care of my basketball itch after hours of watching.
I should be thankful that the basketball court was somewhat covered as it rained a fair amount each days so other ended up very wet. We had about an hour and a half rain delay on the bball court as it rained so hard it blew onto the concrete and flooded ½ the court. I never realized that brooms and plywood boards could function quite so well to clean water off a floor until today.
The best part for me was tonight as the tournament was ending, a team called from one of the cities about 2 hours away. The pastor was coming to Malaybalay to speak and heard there was a tournament. He wanted his team to play a game against one of the teams. That turned into an all-star game as everyone had finished playing. I got to select and all-star team from the teams that were still hanging around and be the player/coach. It was a riot. The guys were super funny about it as I felt a bit like the celebrity coach. I put myself in for the last minute of the game to satisfy those who wanted me to play and just enjoyed watching my team win by 13. I’m now 1-0 as a player on the race and 1-0 as a coach.
I think I could only hope to have a record like that elsewhere. Next week there is supposed to be another conference so we will see what that looks like for us.
I am sorry for the lack of pictures late. I have several blogs to post, but either the world race web blog site is having problems or the Philippines internet is not conducive to pictures. Whatever the case, I have pictures I want to share, but have been unable to make it work. Hopefully next time I have internet.
