Football and Food

It is the last day of November and as I type snow is gently falling outside.  The temperature outside is said to be -5⁰ C but feeling about -10⁰ C.  I decided to do a brief blog about the football season here at the school.  Bill was assistant coach for the upper school football team.  The football season is short here because the snow can start any time in November and some years earlier and school basically starts at the beginning of September. There are about eight games in the season and to fit them in sometimes there are two games in a week. There are however very few schools that our teams play against so they play each other usually two times.

KCA is a small school, so that means there are not many children of the same age. To come up with between 11-15 boys or girls of the the same age is difficult. The schools they played against are much larger and so have a considerably bigger pool to choose from. The upper school boys team could come just from grades eleven and twelve but for KCA the largest number in the boys team were from grade 9. This made it hard for them playing against teams made up mainly of  boys from grades 11 and 12.   Another factor for KCA was that we do not have a field for the teams to train on.  We do have a field just outside the school but it does not belong to the school and to call it a cow paddock is being kind.  It is not the size of a full field and it is far from level.  There a low patches of grass over a lot of the surface and other than that it is patches of loose sand and dirt. Sometimes Bill would come home from training and his feet even inside his socks would be almost black from the dirt.  Cleaning the socks was almost impossible.  I don't know if they will ever be their original colour again. One of the schools they played against has a state of the art artificial turf field to train and play on (not full size). At times KCA hired a better field to train on but this meant time spent traveling to it so this was another factor. The kids don’t complain about their facilities, they just train on.

There is one boy missing. Five of the boys are grade 9's.
( I think they were told to look very determined but Bill didn't get that message)

The sport here is taken very seriously. The teams would train three afternoons a week after school and also play a match on another day or sometimes two days. Playing football at KCA is very character building.  You learn how to lose graciously.  Last year the upper school boys team didn't win a game and lost most by very wide margins.  This year in their first game they lost 11-0 and everyone thought this year was going to be the same and there was some little feeling of discouragement.  However within a day or so of the loss the enthusiasm was back.  Then for the rest of the season all the games were close.  There were loses of 1-0 and even a 3-2 game.  Scoring was a cause of huge excitement! In one of the last games they were able to outscore the opposition in the second half!  Then came the final two games of the season and they won them both!!!!  I was able to go to a few of their games and really enjoyed them.

Now for the food part of this installment.  We participated in our first Thanksgiving celebrations. We were invited to join with some people we know from church and school.  Three families live close together in a small village on the outskirts of Kyiv.  We arrived about 3:00 pm for a progressive meal.  It was already quite dark just because of the time of year and low cloud and fog.  Dimly through the bus window when we were almost at our destination I saw some people on a large expanse of ice with small poles looking down into the ice they were standing on. I heard later during the evening that this was a lake we were passing over and the people had cut holes in the ice and were fishing!  I had not expected to see that.  It was a cold and snowy day and walking between houses was a slow and for me a difficult exercise.  Inside however it was warm and cosy and the friendship and food were great.  We had the traditional Thanksgiving delicacies of roast turkey and pumpkin pie and hot punch.  It was all very nice. A little unfortunately I had quite a heavy cold so did not taste too much of the lovely food. 

Most of the people here we know from school and some of the children either Bill or I have taught.  I am in the far left corner and was so busy eating I didn't realize the photo was even taken. 

It was great to have a four day break from school for Thanksgiving and return refreshed for the last three weeks before the Christmas holidays.  With the preparations for exams and marking the posting of this is unfortunately very delayed.  :(

On a Friday afternoon the high school classes have a period where they do 'fun' activities.  I have been teaching six girls from grades 6-8 to crochet.  We are trying to make a small cot size blanket for use by a refugee family.  The girls are only learning and so fairly slow so I am trying to make up some squares to help so I was doing some here before the meal was ready.  Bill has been taking some students for chess in one period and supervising and sometimes joining in with ultimate frisbee in the next period. Ultimate frisbee was in the snow the last time just before the Christmas break. The kids had a great time!!