Is this statement racist? Maybe. Is this statement sexist? Maybe. Is it stereotypical and does it generalize an entire nation and gender group? Perhaps. But is it 100% true? Absolutely.
I went to a Muslim secondary school in Basse today, to talk to a man who’s excited about the prospects of having somebody come and train his students in basketball, or as the Gambians call it, “basket”, and in volleyball, as the Gambians call either simply “volley”, or adorably, “volley-volley”. Through an informal meeting with him in the library, soon it expanded into a committee of interested school officials, including the vice principal, the librarian, two PE teachers, and for some reason, a cook.
One of the PE teachers is kind of a head honcho in the sports world of the URR (my region of The Gambia). I’m pretty excited to work with him more, and he was equally excited. He invited me to speak on his sports radio show… I promptly asked what in the world I would talk about, and he asked me to share some of my expertise… I told if he gave me a list of questions and gave me time to prepare, I would love to have my voice float over The Gambia on the airwaves… if you have any ideas on what I could possibly talk about, let me know.
They showed me a letter that the PE teacher was about to send to the Regional Education Office, which detailed their need for materials, which I promptly informed them I probably can’t provide. The letter also asked for people with expertise in sports and training. They asked me what skills I had, and I told them I had played basketball and softball all my life, played rugby for a while, run some, and played volleyball recreationally… Suddenly, they all start exclaiming about how Allah has answered their prayers and provided them with an expert to solve all of their sporting woes.
The PE teacher had a basketball lesson in about half an hour, so they invited me to stay and watch. I was excited to see what he knew, and also a little nervous, since he was carrying around a photocopied piece of paper with a diagram of a court on it and he had highlighted only “Naismith”.
So he gathered the students and brought them out to the court. It was his introductory lesson, so he showed them the ball, the three point line, and half court, and then told them that they couldn’t run with the ball, they had to pass it to a friend. One person asked if they could kick the ball, and he said that, no, that would be a foul. Then he said, OK… let’s go. He chose ten people, and sent them to the court to play…
Thus the madness ensued. Now keep in mind – these students have never seen a basketball game on TV or in person. It’s doubtful that they’ve ever seen anybody playing basketball correctly, and since the teacher trained in Physical Education thought that Naismith and “don’t kick it” were the only things students need to know, my expectations were low. But not low enough.
The PE teacher brought the ball out to center court, and said, “We start the game by throwing the ball up in the center”. Everyone gathered around, and leapt into the middle when the ball went up. No one can catch the ball. Attempts at dribbling were ridiculous affairs involving players throwing the over-inflated ball at the ground as hard as they could, and then it, in line with the laws of physics, hurtling back up into the hands and/or faces. I’m pretty confident that at no point was anyone actually holding the basketball, it was just tipped and tapped and kicked (even though it’s against the rules) from one player to the other. No baskets were scored, and I’m fairly certain no one hit the rim.
Also, side note. One end of the court had TWO HUGE piles of donkey crap in the center of the lane. I thought somebody would clean it up before the game… but no. It was like an extra defender for that team, which I think is a worthy strategy.
When the ball was errantly traveling around, sometimes students instincts kicked in, and these instincts are all football related. I wanted to create a rule just for this particular group of people, called “high kicking”. I’ve never been worried before that someone would get kicked in the face during a basketball game, but it was one of my prime concerns in this contest.
At the end of the game, the PE teacher had the students gather around me. He introduced me as a sports expert. Then he asked if I had anything to say to them… I had so many things to say, but what I started with was, “You have many things to learn… but you’re all very athletic!” Sigh.
I have another meeting with them in two weeks, to go and see an actual practice with actual people who are actually interested in playing basketball for the team. Hopefully, some of them will know something, but if not, it’s going to be challenging, exciting, kick-in-the-face fun.
basketball is a 'western' athletic thought. so i wouldnt expect kids in the rural villages of the gambia, who have very little exposure to such thought would endimically know the quantum physics of 'basket' ball. The endemic sport would be football incorrectly called 'soccer' by the westerners, and whose own 'football' is also veraciously backwards and unknown to the gambia. i suppose we couldn't expect such fascination with a sport that is relatively unknown in that region. i'm sure as they are exposed more to it, that will change.
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