One of the things we have been doing the last couple of years at Tumaini Evangelistic Pre & Primary School in Kiruani, Tanzania is to have a couple of days for sports competitions. The competitions range from Football (soccer), netball, tug of war and various races. While we do it for fun, we also use it to select our team for competitions against other schools which will happen next week. There is very little practice for anything other than football so it is important to also familiar the kids with the rules.

We always need a crowd cheering on the players and Assistant Head Teacher Enifa does a great job of getting the students into making some noise.

Kids having fun throughout the Football match.

Fill the water bottle races which are like a Tortoise and the Rabbit race. The faster kids never win this race, it is always the one who is careful to not to spill their water as they run and pour it in the bottle and not everywhere. These were for the preschool kids.

Next up was some tug of war between classes and then staff.

The pre-Preschool kids had fun as well. Then we had some sack races.

The first day netball games were very one sided. Grade 7 vs Grade 4 was like 15-1 and Grade 6 vs Grade 5 was 20-0. In the photo for some reason the younger girls squatted down and I wanted them standing so you could see the height difference. This would have been similar to a high school basketball team vs 1st year o fmiddle school team. Netball is putting the ball in a small hoop and the defender stands between you and the hood with their had raised. Evenly matched teams like the second day when it was Grade 6 vs Grade 7 it is much more of a game.

The day before the sports day, many of our older students worked hard to spread some soil out to fix soil erosion problems. We had brought in some trucks of dirt plus what was left over from our construction projects. While we paid some guys to help move the dirt around the students used bags to move the dirt fromt he construction to where it would be used. As a reward for their hard work, I bought all the students and staff some sodas.

The teacher’s kids that are too young for preschool getting involved kicking around the netball during a break.

When you train kids right.

Baby class foot race Then a couple of teacher races.

The last one was our housekeepers having some fun. Then I convinced the Head Teacher to race me but we did it in slow motion.

Standard 7 Football team-yes to the far right is Gertrude a girl.

Standard 6 Football Team

Standard 6 won the Football match on kicks. Final time score was 2-2 and they won on kicks I think they said 3-1. This meant they won the goat. The goat was delicious as always.

Various Images from the days foot races. Two weird things from the races. After the race they had the kids lay down on their stomachs and one teacher came and lifted their legs to shake them out. The other thing is they gave the racers sugar (it was listed as electrolyte replacement but the carton on listed sugar) to recover.

Some more happy kids above and below some of the final netball game between Std 6 and Std 7. Standard 6 won.