Update July 8th ,2006

It was a cloudy and rather cold morning today for a Kindergarden (they say reception here) and First grader (they say standard one) sports day but Auntie Michele put on her sock hat, coat and scarf and started up the Landy to attend our God daughter's very first sports day. Since Sue, her mum is one of the teachers, it would've been rather difficult for her to manage since she would be involved in getting the other kids ready while wanting to support Emang as well

I was glad to be of assistance and I knew that underneath that happy face, Emang was probably really nervous about he first sports day. You can see that Emang was part of the Yellow team. There were four teams, yellow, blue, red and green. (I think you will also notice that this sports day was at one of the private English medium schools, a lot more posh than the local schools but a really nice mix of Batswana, SouthAfrican, American, and a few other Neighboring countries represented in the bunch).

It was so funny, in the first race the reception kids (kindergarden) didn't stop running after they crossed the finish line, they just kept on racing and all the teachers on the finish had to run after them, they are so cute.

Poor thing, Emang, in her first race let the bean bag slide off the paddle and was half way to the finish line before she realized it was sitting on the ground. In pure frustration and embarrassement she threw up her hands and threw down the paddle and began to cry. One of the other teachers grabbed the paddle and the bean bag and quickly wrapped her arms around Emang and coaxed her to the finish line. Before she had had ample time to pull herself together it was time for the bucket/bean bag relay. You see her teacher helping her get ready to recieve the bucket from her team member. She looks a bit apprehensive, she did manage to get the bucket though and through the tears she even managed to race to the bean bag, put it in the bucket and run back to her teammate.

After the kindergarden races where over I went over to get Emang. She was feeling a bit put out, but we decided to watch the other races and on the way to our seats we saw that one of the families had brought their puppy. She went to pet it and then some kids where sliding down the rails of the stadium benches and after a few good slides, Emang, was truely over the previous tramatic events. If only puppies and slides worked as well for adults too. Maybe they do, I'll have to remember that.

Just a side note, Emang is named after her Dad's Mom and in Setswana it means to stand up.

love,

Michele

Jeff and Michele Royce
c/o Flying Mission
P.O. Box 1022
Gaborone,
Botswana
Africa

http://www.flyingmission.org/
http://jeffandmichele.blogspot.com