Day 28 - Africa, where non-competitive sport doesn't exist

Day 28 was possibly the nicest weather we have experienced yet on our trip. We woke up to a bright and beautiful sunny day and it stayed that way for once!

Coca-Cola spreading some Christmas cheer in Zim

After breakfast we piled into curtain wondervan (our awesome van with electric curtains) and headed down to the local DVD shop to pick up our next purchase for the kids. We purchased 18 movies...yep, 18 movies for all of the kids out at Willow Park. The last movie we watched with the girls could have been narrated by a large handful of girls there...implying that maybe they've seen it one too many times. They don't have that many movies out at the village and of course aren't able to go and purchase a movie as freely as you and I. They watch what they are given and that's all. Things can get pretty boring out there sometimes and these kids are just normal kids and love watching movies! At $3.50 a movie we couldn't go past the opportunity to increase the SJCV movie collection. We also purchased a handsaw for their weekly fetching of firewood and some peelers for lunch and dinner prep. 

The girls with their new DVD collection

Lunch consisted of sadza and beans and then it was time for some netball Willow Park style. We headed down to the 'netball court' and got divided into teams. We quickly came to realise that this was no casual game of netball. We had real positions. We played by the proper rules and it was rough. It seems that a casual or friendly game of sport doesn't exist over here. Alex, Jonno and I were a good laugh for the girls as we strutted our netball skills up and down the field, in and out of positions and places we were apparently not meant to be. Netball turned quickly into yet another water fight. It was a pretty hot day and after an extremely intense game of intense netball the water fight was a great refreshment.

Rhoda with the new peelers

We made it home after a long day and Alex crashed on his bed with no sign of movement. Jonno and I felt that we hadn't received a large enough dose of being dominated by Africans in a competitive manner and decided to try our luck at ultimate frisby once again. If anything the intensity only increased and after 1.5 hours we were wrecked. Jonno had another cracker night on the field with getting names wrong as he thought his fellow teammate (Ezra) was 'Israel' and thus was confidently calling out to a non existent guy named Israel throughout the whole match. It wasn't until we were on our way home having our match debrief where I once again had to correct Jonno about his use of incorrect names. At least he's consistent.

The very serious netball game

Tomorrow we intend on doing our Christmas shopping in true male fashion. We've set aside around 5 hours to knock over ALL of our Christmas shopping. We are in a town where we aren't that familiar with the shops (apart from the donut shop) and there are no big shopping centres or department stores where we can knock it all over in the one place at the one time so it should be an interesting day.

I don't think any of us are that keen to shop but I'm sure there will be some great stories that come out of tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Andy