"Sahhhh-port" (Sport) Day

On Wednesday the 6^th, our school was preparing for its annual Sport Day(s), two days during which Thai students play sports and cheer for their assigned color teams. They had been practicing dances, cheers, and obviously sports for weeks upon weeks prior to the event. The class schedule was even altered to afford them practice time. Mind you, I was blown away by these practices. I watched in awe at the 2^nd and 3^rd grade girls' scandalous dances that could skirt away as cute because well, they're cute; and the fact that during these 40 minute-long practices in the sweltering heat, hundreds of students sat still as they watched their color's representatives practice their drumming, or cheering, or clapping, or scandalously cute dancing. Getting kids to sit still, as I've learned, is a miracle. But heck, if I were in second grade and saw my second grade girl friends shaking their butts and shimmying their shoulders like the Korean pop stars I'd seen on TV, then yeah, I might be a tad mesmerized...

Anyhow, it's unknown to me how students pick, or are assigned, their colors, which were purple, blue, green, yellow and pink. But I simply loved that each color was comprised of a fair mix of students from grades one to nine. Yes, ninth graders – 14 year olds mixing with five year olds. I especially loved this aspect of the teams because I have grown up around young cousins mostly all my life, and I believe that as an adolescent, this maternal, big-sister-like interaction I had with children manifested characteristics of love, patience, and a warmth that are often hard to learn elsewhere. I have seen how this interaction with children has also affected my brothers, who turn into mush and are pretty good role models when around my young cousins.

I recognized this type of a relationship as I saw tall ninth grade boys drumming out a beat and watching paternally at the five, six, and seven-year old dancers. Or when the eighth grade girls took it upon themselves to fix the little girls' costumes or line formations, clapping along encouragingly when the dancers got their groove wrong. I'll have to admit that one day I was feeling a bit reflective and emotional at the thought of leaving Thailand, and when I saw this Sport Day practice, I teared up a little bit. The preciousness really got to me, it was THAT cute.

Anyway, Sport Day was a huge event. After walking the town, representatives from each color paraded into the school, led by an elaborately dressed girl in traditional Thai wear, as the rest of the students sat in their decorated stands and as proud parents huddled in the shade with their cameras poised and ready. Linnea and I took far too many pictures, but it truly was a spectacular sight to see the entire school in the courtyard, a colorful mess of Skittles, cheering and dancing and waving flags as the sun peeked out under the clouds. I was scared it might rain.

But by noon, the sun did not only peek. It shone down hard. With beads of sweat dribbling down my forehead, soaking through Mr. Wayne's white turtleneck (he chose to wear a neutral color so as not to upset the students by declaring a loyalty; I, on the other hand, threw on the most decent shirt I had, which was pink. Go pink.); and threatening to turn many of the girls' heavily made-up faces into Picasso paintings, I watched groups of students perform dances in the middle of the courtyard, facing the headmistresses and other top admins.

I mention this lattermost fact because these admins are like, in their 60s and 70s. But some of the ways in which these kids were dancing were not fit for grandparents' eyes. Hip Hop breakdancers (dressed in horrendous gangsta attire that even Dennis Rodman, I'm sure, wouldn't wear) and slooty cheerleaders – some of whom were token lady boys (I KNEW one of my students was a lady boy, by the way, and seeing him in his team yellow's cheerleading dance confirmed my suspicions) – entertained us for a good few hours until the games began (one of the Scrabble Club champions, dressed in a track suit, even ran into the school with a torch in his hand as he lit the oil cup on fire – total Olympic style, very legit). We stayed around for a few hours to watch the girls play net ball, which actually seems pretty fun and I'd like to learn it sometime, and as the teams were about to play soccer. The whole time, each section was drumming, dancing, and bobbing along in the stands to their team's respective cheer.

I remember in elementary, middle, and even high school, participating in school plays and thinking I'd had the biggest responsibility in the whole world to do my part well, like when I was tasked to be the first dancer in a line of an ensemble to the “Chinese Tea” act of my elementary school's play, “The Nutcracker” (I wonder if I was asked to be the first dancer because I was short or really because I was the only actual Chinese student...hmm...)., which is why I understood why Sport Day was just so special to these kids. Now, when I see some of my students (Sport Day dancers, by night!), I ask them to teach me their dance. Lately I've learned Team Yellow's dance, which requires me to do the John Travolta and slide peace signs across my eyes as I shake my hips. Oh, and sing/mutter a Thai song about mythical fish – at least that's what I've gathered from the limited communication and my third grade students' elicitations of “Nemo! Nemo!”

So that was the first half of Thursday. Sport Day went on for all of Thursday and all of Friday, but Linnea and I were told that we could take off early on Thursday and skip Friday if we wanted to. So we did.

By Thursday, 2pm, we were on a 10 hour bus to Chiang Mai.