Sports Workshop

(Workshop participants with their new baseball gear)
I’m just getting back to Pele here after a great workshop that Javi and I put on in North Efate. As I wrote in a blog a few weeks ago, the workshop was a combination of training in Sports, First Aid, and Adolescent Reproductive Health directed at primary and middle school teachers in North Efate. We had been planning this workshop for some time, and just in the last couple months got the funding to do it. It looked as if we were all set to go about a week before the workshop, but then we got sent on somewhat of a roller coaster ride when dealing with the logistics of the workshop.
First, we found out that the budget that had been previously approved by the donor was now going to have to take a significant pay cut. So we tweaked a few things, and hoped a couple other things would line up to make it work. Then the organization that was going to do our First Aid training told us that they could no longer do the training. We found another guy to do it, but he couldn’t officially certify the participants, but could train them. We were all set to go with this option then the original organization called and said they could do it. Javi was set to call the unofficial trainer and tell him we no longer needed him to train when the certifying organization called again and cancelled. After this back and forth fiasco we finally went with the unofficial trainer, Johnson, and were set to go on that.
The workshop was to be held at Onesua College, a boarding high school in North Efate, and this was arranged by one of the higher ups with the Ministry of Education. The Ministry also chipped in for transportation which really helped with the budgeting. In line with the pre-workshop fiasco, we also found out a week before the workshop that the Ministry had a North Efate primary school headmasters’ workshop set at Onesua on the same dates. They double booked and didn’t tell us. Ugh! We were counting on some of these headmasters to come to our workshop too! This was resolved a few days before the workshop, though, when the headmasters’ workshop was cancelled due to a lack of funds from the Ministry.
So with these shaky things somewhat holding I set out for Vila on Thursday, a few days before the workshop, to do last minute stuff with Javi. We had planned to work in the Peace Corps office making phone calls and revising our workshop materials and packets and then printing them off. When we got to the Peace Corps office we found that the computers weren’t working, we had no internet, and the phones were down as they were in the process of moving. We also got the news that Friday was a public holiday and the Peace Corps office would be closed. We had only Thursday and Friday (the only days the Peace Corps office is now open) to get all of this done so it was a little hectic. Somehow we worked it, and were given a stroke of luck in that a few Peace Corps staff had to come in on the Friday holiday to work on some stuff. Friday evening we were just finishing printing the last of the packets as Rodney, a PC staff member, was closing down. Phew! We just made it. I then joined a couple volunteers on our way to a fundraiser my village’s stringband was putting on in a neighborhood nearby. I relaxed, had a couple shells of kava, and did some stringband dancing.
Saturday Javi and I decided to take a break from the craziness and headed out with a bunch of volunteers to an awesome river spot just outside of Vila. It was a welcome relief, and the place was beautiful. There were waterfalls running down into clear pools and caves roofed with stalactites. There was also a rope swing that dumped you out into a pool that made for a lot of fun as well.

(A couple shots of the waterfalls)
(A stereotypical Peace Corps trekking picture. Can you imagine it on a brochure?)
On Sunday we got picked up by the Ministry of Education truck and picked up teachers as we headed up the East side of Efate. Each of the the 16 primary schools (11 Basic Schools: class 1-6, and 5 Center Schools: class 1-8) were to send one male teacher and one female teacher. Most teachers were to arrive today with a few coming early Monday morning.
Once we arrived at Onesua they showed us to the dorms we would be staying at. All Vanuatu schools were on two weeks holiday so they put us up in the girls’ dorms with men and women workshop participants in separate buildings. It kind of felt like a middle school summer camp as we entered our dorms and magazine cut outs from gossip magazines were posted on the walls. This “camp” feeling was only intensified once all of these teachers got together and gossiped into the wee hours of the night. Lights off was at 9:30 but many teachers continued with their pillow talk, much to the annoyance of Javi, who has trouble falling asleep as it is. I was able to sleep easily enough and I had my headphones to ease the process.
Poor Javi was also plagued by another disturbance near his bed. The guy that slept right near his was one of the most flatulent people I’ve ever met. This guy was ripping off farts left and right and loud ones at that. He was also the appointed class clown of the group and had Javi’s and my vote for Dirty Old Man of the Year. The latter award given for his foul mouth and toothy, shady smile as he tried to flirt with the younger women teachers. On one of the nights this guy ripped one off and Javi, fed up, said something like, “Jesus man!” To which the guy pulled him aside and said in a serious tone, “Javi, I know you want baseball development to go ahead in Vanuatu, but if you really want it to take off you’re going to have to deal with my farts.” And followed with the toothy grin. This guy had me laughing my ass off for the whole workshop.
On the first day of the workshop, Monday, we had the remainder of the participants show up with a total of 30 participants in attendance. We were more than happy with this number as we had expected around 20 (people tend to not show up to workshops). The last 4 or so participants were late to show up and they were all from where my site is at, the Nguna and Pele area. Before they arrived, and after the workshop had already started, the ZCA (like a school superintendent) turned to me, knowing I was from there, and asked where my Nguna and Pele guys were at. I told him I didn’t know, and that they had said they were going to go. He grunted and then asked me for their cell phone numbers. I gave the numbers to him, he dialed the Pele Headmaster’s number and said to me as the phone was ringing, “The students are on holiday but this is not a holiday for teachers. This is why I’m here today. I’m seeing who did not come to this. Those that don’t are going to get docked pay.” He then turned his attention to the phone as someone picked up the line, “Hello! Willie…” I gulped. I like these teachers from Nguna and Pele and I probably wouldn’t have given out the numbers if I knew he was calling them to give them a good ass chewing. Willie or Marias as I know him is a good friend of mine in the village too. Yikes! I was redeemed though when the ZCA hung up the phone and said that the truck had just picked them up. I later apologized to Marias for giving out his number and told him I wouldn’t have done it if knew the ZCA’s agenda. Marias laughed and said it didn’t matter. As far as I know nobody got docked pay for not attending, but there was one school, Ekipe, the village where Javi and Krissy were at before moving to Vila, that was surprisingly a no show. We still don’t know why.
Before we started the session on the first day we did an icebreaker activity. These may seem corny to you as readers, but they absolutely love them here in Vanuatu. Javi led them in the pirate ship game where he yelled out one of four activities and people had to hurry to get into a group number (1, 2, 3, or 4 people) that corresponded to the activity and then making the activity. For instance, “mess hall” was where a group of four had to stand shoulder to shoulder in a circle, heads down, and fake chowing on food with both hands. If they failed to get into a group of the size needed and make the activity within a short time they moved to the side to join the others who lost already in a chorus of “Yo ho ho, a pirate’s life for me” with a rum jug swilling arm motion. Lots of fun and good laughs for all.
(Groups of 3 doing the “Land Ho,” two people making the crow’s nest, and one looking out to shore)
(The losers singing “Yo Ho Ho”)
The first session was on adolescent health and Joe, Javi’s Ni-Vanuatu counterpart at the Ministry of Health, facilitated and gave a great presentation touching on key issues adolescent health issues in Vanuatu like teenage pregnancy.
(Here’s Joe giving his presentation to the teachers.)
After lunch Javi and I did our first training on how to teach, coach, and ump baseball. We did a short overview in the classroom and then went out to the field. The teachers picked it up pretty quickly and Javi and I have gotten pretty good at teaching the game over he last two years. We also had the aid of our Bislama baseball rules guide, complete with diagrams and pictures, that we were able to distribute to all the teachers. Once out on the field, we gave some more instruction and started playing a game.
There were some good hits and defensive plays. One young woman slid into home having never seen a baseball game and doing so before we even instructed on it! It was cool to see coaching tips take hold so quickly too. One woman ran up a quick two strike count as she was trying too shyly to place the bat on the ball and missing. I pulled her aside after the 0-2 pitch and basically told her to trust her eye and let her hands do the work. She nodded, and then the next pitch she had a great level swing ripping the ball through the middle on a line drive that got her two bases.
After the game we showered up and had supper. By the way, all the food at the workshop was great and we were in heaven with getting heaping, beef stews and curry chicken plates for lunch and dinner. After dinner we showed a Brewers game, one of few a friend of Javi’s burned to DVD and sent to him. We had pre-screened the games before to find one with good elements of a game, and came up with one where it was suspenseful until the last pitch in the 9th Inning. The teachers had a good time watching it, and one particular teacher was really fired up about North Efate baseball after a day of baseball and watching the DVD. In his eyes, he said, he foresaw North Efate as possibly becoming the baseball hub of Vanuatu.
Apparently, this teacher had previously developed rugby in Ifira, his small island off of South Efate, by explaining to his fellow islanders that they would have a lot better shot being on a future national team for rugby than making the national team for soccer because nobody else played rugby at the time. Soccer is widespread in Vanuatu and the competition to play on the national team is high. Well, sure enough they developed rugby in Ifira, and now that there is a Vanuatu national team, half of them from Ifira.
His pitch to North Efate teachers was that if they do the same thing with baseball in North Efate they too will reign supreme at the national level for possible national adult and little league teams. It was an angle that we hadn’t used before to promote the sport, but Javi and I both really liked it. Basically, if North Efate works hard to develop baseball they will own baseball as badge of pride in Vanuatu. We really hope they take this idea and run with it.
On the second day of the workshop we started the day with another icebreaker, “Two truths and a lie” where each participant writes two factual statements and one false one, and then the others have to try to guess the false one. Some teachers were definitely better at hiding the lie than others. One guy, Simon, started one of his statements, “I was swimming one day and I saw a lion shark…” and was abruptly cut off by the peanut gallery. “Lion shark?!” they cried. “You mean a tiger shark!” And for the rest of the workshop people referred to Simon as Lion Shark. Sorry dude.
For the sessions held before lunch for this day and the next Johnson gave the Fist Aid sessions so Javi and I just relaxed and watched at times. He was kind of a monotone speaker that would have put us to sleep, but many Ni-Vanuatu are able to pull through. How? I do not know. It seemed the teachers got a lot out of it though, and it’s really good have at least a couple teachers at each school trained in First Aid. This is especially good for the all the teachers present who were all also in charge of sports activities at their schools, and with this short training could address some sports injuries quickly. Here’s some shots of the First Aid training:
(Teachers checking their pulses, probably after a long lecture)
(Women practicing the recovery position)
(“Lion Shark” Simon fake yelping in pain as teachers put him in a splint)
(Ailing teachers)
After lunch on the second day we had some more baseball training. This time we started out by teaching some coaching drills like long toss, pop flies, Fungo-ing the ball to the defense, etc. Then we played some more baseball. This time around we had some of the teachers ump which was pretty funny at times. Timothy, a teacher from Emao Island, knew the sport fairly well already so we started with him. I told him how you yell out “Play ball!” before play starts. So we were all set to go and then Timothy pulls his mask down and yells out, “OK, Play boy!” thinking this is what I had told him, and having no knowledge of what Playboy is. Too damn funny.
(Here’s a picture of them playing with Timothy umping. The girl batting here had, on the previous day, ripped a shot to left center, doubled on the play, and then later on another play slid into home.)
Another thing with the umping that had me laughing was when two women were huddled close in a line behind the plate, one umpire and one catcher, and they looked like a two-man bobsled team. They both were afraid of the ball so they ducked when the ball came in, and they both were wearing the same color shirt and same red helmet. It was like they were ducking down as they entered a turn. Here they are:
(Vanautu, we got a bobsled team!)
We closed out the day and then Timothy, the chairman of NEPSSA, the North Efate Primary Schools Sports Association that Javi and I have been working with a good deal, called a meeting for all the teachers present. NEPSSA was started last May and unfortunately, we haven’t had more than six teachers at any one meeting. We decided this was a good opportunity to discuss some issues with the organization, and that it was. Things got heated for a bit as some teachers, whose schools had never attended the meetings, told out their gripes with the organization on things like last year’s tournament prizes and other perceived organization failures. The meeting eventually cooled down and the rabble rousers soon realized that the reason that many of the failures happened was due to a lack of support and involvement from many of the schools, including theirs. Basically, too few individuals have had to carry an organization that depends on input and work from many. It was a great meeting, a turning point for the organization as many schools “woke up,” and we were glad the workshop was able to facilitate the process by bringing all of these sport teachers together to talk about this stuff.
At the end of the meeting the teachers also voted to have another day of baseball training. The original plan for the workshop was to have 2 full sessions of baseball and 1 session of Ultimate Frisbee training. However, after two days teachers decided that they needed another day of baseball as they were still unclear on some stuff. Better to know one sport well that to only half understand two. So on the third day after First Aid was finished we had some more baseball training and games. One of the teachers we had pitching was doing really well. This southpaw even inadvertently threw a couple breaking pitches.
On the morning of the fourth and last day of the workshop we had the last session of adolescent health led by Joe which, once again was really good. They talked about how to introduce topics like sex, STIs, and condom use in schools and in a society where talking about these things can be very taboo.
They also had a section on gender and gender roles which got a fiery debate going, men vs. women, and this was intensified as the activity divided them by sex on opposite sides of the room. They were asked to present what their perceived roles were of their gender and what roles of the opposite gender they could also take on. Joe did a great job facilitating though, and turned some of the heated comments into a constructive discussion on gender. My favorite part of the discussion was when the men and women were countering one another when discussing what gender roles their sex could also take on. One woman would yell out, “I can build houses!” only to have a man on the other side of the room counter, “You think I don’t know how to sew or weave baskets! I can weave baskets!” It was good to at least get some of these things out in the open in a nation where gender roles are very divided, yet are changing quickly as the nation itself is rapidly changing.
After Joe’s session and lunch Javi and I started our last sports session that dealt with sports challenges and opportunities in Vanuatu. We had the teachers outline what the challenges are to sports activities and development as well as what positive things sports (in and of themselves and current sport activity infrastructure) have going for them in Vanuatu. For one of the challenge topic presentations we had a group specifically focus on gender challenges in sport, and got some good discussion rolling with that. For example, one woman sports teacher outlined how even though she is very knowledgeable and interested in sports it can be hard for her to get her male students to respect her.
After the presentations on challenges and opportunities we moved on to talk about positive and negative pressure in sports that comes at children from teachers, parents, and peers. For this section we led a discussion on what these positive and negative pressures were, and then had the teachers act out scenarios involving these issues with short discussions afterwards. In the scenarios there was the overaggressive coach, abusive parents, teachers showing favoritism towards athletes, etc. The discussions and suggested resolutions for these problems were great, and most teachers were able to point to examples in real life where they had seen these things happen.
Throughout the workshop the discussions and interest we saw in the participants was really refreshing after doing so many workshops in villages in and around my site. This is not to say that there haven’t been great discussions and workshops out at site, but rather that these teachers, who are naturally leaders and well educated were able to produce great conversation and ideas on introduced topics. When doing workshops in the village these good ideas come out here and there, but many people are too shy to step out and say them as a few big-headed people in most villages seem to dominate discussion. Also, when good discussion or topics are raised in the village it usually takes some time, patience, and craftiness on the part of the facilitator to get these things to surface. In this sports workshop, we had barely gotten the topic described and you had hands flying all over the place with people eager to give their input. The participants, themselves, are a huge reason why the workshop went so well.
Before we closed the workshop on the last day we were able to pass out all the baseball equipment we had donated to us last year. We had been waiting for this workshop opportunity to give out the equipment so that all the schools knew how to us it first. The Center schools, schools that go up to class 8 (5 of them), were given most of the equipment as the focus group for baseball are kids class 6-8. We also didn’t have enough gloves, catchers gear, and helmets to give to every school and it just worked out that we had enough to outfit the Center schools. The other 11 Basic schools (class 1-6) were each given a couple bats and tennis balls. We really want the Basic schools to teach baseball as well, laying the foundation for class 3-6 students before they go to one of the five Central schools.
Many of the teachers have asked Javi and me to give additional sessions at their schools, and we are going to try our best to fit them in before he is out in June and me in July. Time is against us though, and we’re hoping that in September one of the PC volunteers put in the North Efate area will also be interested in baseball.
Thank you again Hannah and Ruth for all your hard work and all the equipment donors!
After the handing out of equipment we were set to make the official closing of the workshop, but this was kind of a mess. The closing of the workshop was supposed to be done by the ZCA or a member from the Ministry of Education, but neither were present. Also, the host representative, the Headmaster of Onesua, is usually supposed to give a speech but he was in Vila. Finally, the NEPSSA chairman was supposed to give a speech, but he was also not present. But, we did have the deputy Headmaster and the Secretary of NEPSSA present, both of whom really did not want to give the speeches, but did it anyway. So with some deliberation, Javi and I worked with a teacher to make a closing program and then the teacher put the program on the white board.
We were about to start the program then this teacher informed us that he had just accidentally written the program with a permanent marker instead of a white board one. So, with all the teachers waiting impatiently me, Javi, and this teacher set to work for about 15 minutes trying to scrub all the writing off the expensive white board, laughing at the silliness of this whole closing ceremony mess.
We finally gave our speeches for the closing, and the last one was to be made by a leader of the church as is custom in Vanuatu (all things are opened and closed with prayer). So, Paul, a participant at the workshop, recited a verse out of Romans, and then gave a small speech. In this speech he explained, “These two white men sitting before us have come to help us out and share information. And we are lucky that The Light came to us here in Vanuatu (coming of the missionaries) over a hundred years ago. If not, we probably would have eaten these two guys.” To which I turned to Javi and said, “Sorry friend,” and we all had a good laugh over it. The workshop closed and a bunch of us went out for kava to celebrate the end of a good week.
The next evening Javi and I went out for a few beers and pizza with some other volunteers and cheers-ed the completion of a great workshop. There were many times we thought the workshop wasn’t going to happen, but we did it and it went well.