Yesterday, I ticked off one of the boxes of things that I hoped to do before leaving Malawi. As a former British colony, Malawi has inherited its rugby tradition and culture. Though it is not a sport of the masses on the level of football (sorry, soccer), it has a strong following that is apparently growing. I have been getting acquainted with the sport by playing "touch" rugby Thursday evenings at the Blantyre Sports Club. Liam's teacher, Mr. Staines, and the school's PE teacher, Mr. Ferguson, invited me to come along last fall and I've been slowly trying to improve my game. Most of the guys that show up have been playing most of their lives in various places of the British commonwealth and they move naturally and can huck the ball around with ease and accuracy. I felt that playing an actual full-contact rugby match would be out of the question and that these experienced players wouldn't want a rookie American on their championship squad. Well, they needed bodies on Saturday and felt that I was finally ready for the big time.
This, of course, set my cautious son (Liam) into a week-long fit of stress certain that I would be maimed and quite possibly killed. I guess I had some fears along those lines as well. There are some big dudes that play rugby and Mr. Ferguson had recently dislocated his ankle as a fresh reminder of the sports' violence. The guys placed me in the second line of the scrum. I won't get into the rules of the sport, but my focus was to push as hard as I could into the right buttocks of a 270 pound (or so) Malawian behemoth nicknamed "The Beast". Very quickly you get acquainted with the players on your team as you grab and hold and lift and pile on top of each other. That is me #22 (above) pushing behind The Beast. Liam's teacher, Mr. Staines, is #9 and he plays the equivalent of a quarterback once the ball pops out of the scrum.
At the end of the day, we lost the match to our division rival comprised of teachers and students from Saint Andrew's High School. This was a championship game for the 15 aside season and the BSC team was down players, thus my playing opportunity. Seeing those high school boys run around with so much speed and power made me recall my very distant youth. There was a ton of testosterone and lots of big hits. Plenty of exhortation (I'll just keep it at that). One guy was carted off and there were several injury stops. Fortunately, I only came away with a black eye and sore everything else. The 7 aside season starts soon and I'm hoping to get into some more action. Sorry, Liam. (=
We had a big laugh as a family reading this peanut packaging. There must have be something lost in the translation. If someone can figure it out, please let us know!
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