Volleyball Match

It's a while since I last wrote so apologies if that distressed you although I doubt anyone looks at this regularly enough to care. It's Monday again, my usual blog writing day (my day off!). It's been a great weekend. On Saturday morning we had a visit from the Dakar Academy (DA) senior volleyball team (our main rivals) and we played a friendly match against them in our sports hall. DA is a much bigger school than BCS and some ex-BCS-pupils go there for post-GCSE studies; as a result, their senior team is made up of year 12 and 13 boys who are quite tall. In contrast, our senior volleyball team usually has two year 11s, a boy and a girl (one of which is currently ill), two year 10s (one currently recovering form illness) and a bunch of younger kids some as young as year 8. DA practice daily for several hours, BCS practice weekly and play very little outside of that. Despite this obvious disparity we put up a good fight and in the first game we went several points ahead early on. Unfortunately this didn't last and we were quite well beaten by the end, although we put up a good fight. Most of the school was in the hall to support our side. There are some crude stands on one side of the hall which were well packed with spectators of all ages and we made a lot of noise (I took a drum in with me which was fun!).

The afternoon's activities were meant to take place at the beach in Popenguine (including the birthday of Immanuella, a Nigerian girl in my dorm), however the weather was pretty dismal which meant we spent the afternoon in the dorms playing games which was great fun. In the evening we played hide and seek in the dark which the kids really enjoyed. The boys from the Korean dorm joined us and the youngest attached himself to me whilst searching for the other kids as he was afraid of the dark. On Sunday we had our usual whole school meeting in the chapel for which I was able to play the Djembe and then my team was on Sunday lunch prep and Lesley and Franziska made stew and mashed potato (very tasty) whilst Margrith made a delicious yoghurt and stewed apple flan/pie/cake thing for pudding. After siesta we had the first adult intermediate level French lesson which was fun (although rather basic, being the first lesson), after which we had a big football game outside, Aunties and boys vs. Uncles and girls (school staff are referred to as Auntie or Uncle, so I'm Uncle Andrew). We won 4-3 even though Uncle Adam became an Auntie half way through to even things up a little. In the evening we had FIX which is a monthly-ish worship event which this time was based around the opening of the new prayer room which was set up over the summer. The kids had spent most of the afternoon decorating it and it looks really cool. Hopefully they'll take ownership of it and it will be a really great focal point for prayer for many of the kids (and staff too). I've probably written enough I think, off to the beach later hopefully...