Track & Field

Friday was Athletics Day at Temasco. It’s an annual track and field competition pitting the four houses against one another. The boys and girls are each divided into four groups, or houses, based on their dorm of residence. The houses are numbered (1-4) and each has a color (red, blue, yellow, green). Apparently they also have formal names but I haven’t figured that one out yet (I’m like a kindergartener here – I can handle numbers 1-4 and basic colors, but give me proper names and I’m all confused). I digress.

First thing in the morning the houses came out to the athletics field to set up their house tents – their home base for the day of competition. I was assigned a role at the event: Chief Official of the Field Events (can you see me puffing out my chest). So, as the students prepared their areas, some staff worked to set up the sound system, and the day’s sponsors (Cowbell – a dairy company; and Tigo – a mobile phone company) erected their banners and various advertisements (yeah, schools here are government run but to an unsuspecting American they would appear private – kids pay fees to attend and the schools seek corporate  sponsorship for many events), I moved from field event to field event making sure each of the judges had the necessary equipment. I helped dig a trench to sink the long  jump takeoff board. I decided to switch the discus and shot put rings to avoid any high jumpers getting killed by an errant disc (I know, I’ve always been partial to those high jumpers). I notified each house of schedule changes to the field events. Bottom line: I was the man! :-)

Seriously, it gave me the freedom to walk around and snap a lot of pictures during the day. You can see the entire collection here.

 

Students here accomplish the most with the least:

There is one boy’s shot, and one girl’s.

There’s one discus for each gender. 

There’s one javelin.

There’s one pole vault pole.

There is no box to plant the pole vault pole. Instead they used a handle-less pick axe to chop out a box-shaped hole in the ground.

Temasco actually has a high jump/pole vault pit (mat) which many Ghanaian schools do not (It’s that yellowish block-of-cheese-looking thing in the picture). However, can you see an American child jumping on that? Or, more accurately, can you see the parent of an American child allowing the child to jump on that?

There is no track. There’s a field into which someone has hand scraped 9 concentric grooves demarking an 8-lane, 400m oval track. It was an amazingly symmetrical feat of human determination.  

Few students own or wear athletic shoes. some compete in socks. Most compete in bare feet.

It was 97 degrees Friday and humid as a jungle.

Students started setting up at 6 am and the day ended after 6:30 pm.

I did not see a single student being tended to by a paid athletic trainer, a coach (there are no coaches), or a parent. I saw no student icing his shins, or complaining about her various cramps and muscle pulls.  

I saw a few students limping after their event. And I saw a few others pick splinters or who-knows-what out of their bare feet.

I also saw 3,000 smiles, 1,200 handshakes, 400 hugs, 3 traditional dances, one student drummer, and no one complaining. 

It was a good day.