The middle school sized gym turned school's spare bedding storage room had a smattering of students lining the dusty peeling walls and a few too many whistles when I entered with my student to watch an interdepartmental basketball tournament, day two.
It was the Lakers versus the Rockets until I witnessed at least three steals due to the ball rolling on the floor within the first five minutes and I realized that the jerseys were fakes.
It was the Lakers versus the Rockets until I witnessed at least three steals due to the ball rolling on the floor within the first five minutes and I realized that the jerseys were fakes.
I've been realizing things about this place recently... namely that there are a lot of fakes... really good fakes. This not being an example of one of the really good ones. Unlike the Ray Ban shades you can get from the hobo on the street selling them out of his back pants attached on only two sides pocket. Quality.
In class that morning I had been teaching a lesson about syllable variation in simple past tense. It was funny because the word syllable in English sounds like the word sunluobu in Tibetan which means pickled radish. For all the students could figure out I was teaching a very strange lesson about lunch.
I kinda wish I had been teaching about that instead.
Then Kobe Bryant dribbled the ball under his legs and did one of those fake out moves where he looks one direction but throws the ball in the opposite direction... unfortunately for him, there was no one in the direction in which he threw the ball. It bounce rolled off the sidelines and went to the other team.
The day before when I dashed down into Lhasa on a random errand I was trailed by a Tibetan pre-teen asking for money. When I started to speak to him in Tibetan he was so elated he forgot everything about the money, and couldn't stop giggling every time I made a correct answer. Glad to make somebody's day.
At which point a boy in an unlabeled Rockets jersey practically body slammed Kobe in an attempt to make the thousandth interception of the game. The refs were more content to blow their whistles rythmically to some Tibetan pop song than call the obvious foul, they were pretty slack about calling all the traveling that went on that day too. You'd have thought these students had diplomatic passports they way that traveled up and down the court.
For the past three days I have slept enough to make Rip Van Winkle lose his legendary sleepers status. Picture a full ten to eleven hours every night and then at least a two hour midday nap. Lazy? No, just beat.
Finally somebody on the Lakers team did something so heinous as to actually draw the refs attention away from the cute time keeper and call a foul. There they were... lined up... there he was Yao Ming himself at the free throw line... there went the ball... not even close to the backboard. As I prepared to let out my most insulting 'air ball' I froze... due to the most unusual sound... not boos and catcalls... but polite applause and murmers of 'good try' from the audience. Creepy.
Today I walked into my afternoon class, typically the piercing characteristic in my headaches, and all the students were there. All forty of them. A calendar worthy moment for sure since it is the first time all semester that such a phenomenon had occured. Even the boy who the last time I saw him he was slightly drunk outside a bar, even the boy who was told by his other teachers he didn't need to waste his time coming to class because he would fail anyway. It was more beautiful to me than auroa borealis, really.
The game went on... and on. Until I decided that based on my nationality I was the most qualified to be the school's new head basketball coach.
The basketball game was reflective of the way that I've felt about this place the past few days. I mean, I'm amused and all, it's good fun, but truthfully that mess wears me out. Still, I learned a thing or two... and could do to learn a thing or two more.
After my student and I squeezed past what had become a crowd of students in the gym to enter the infintely fresher cool breeze of the outdoors I got a phone call from a friend asking if I needed anything. Like what? Like food, do you need any food? Remember I am your Tibetan mother.
Oh yes. How could I forget?
