So this week has started my intensive language studying. I've got at least eight weeks of learning language between five and six hours a day, six days a week. I basically study three hours a day on my own and then meet with my tutor for about two hours. I'm learning a local language which is only oral so we do a lot of pointing at pictures, I write down how I think it sounds, and then reviewing the audio recordings that I've made. I'm studying with the guy I stayed with during the first village trip so I've been out to his house a couple times this week. It is a little far but they usually feed me while I'm there and it has been good to get to see them and spend time with Grandpa and the baby. As strange is it sounds, it is a lot like visiting friends (granted they are friends I can't really talk to. . . but they are still friends). I've also discovered the gym in my apartment complex. My apartment is right behind the basketball courts and the gym is right next to that. It is actually very nice! I mean, I've been working out in the Anson Field House for the last four years, so I'm not very picky, but this place is way nice for being out in a small rural town. So I've been going up there every day.
Basically my day looks like: wake up and read/eat breakfast/read, then study for an hour or two, go work out, lunch, meet with my tutor, then study a little more and then basketball at night. I've noticed this week that there are a bunch of guys that play basketball every evening from about 6:45 until it gets too dark to play (around 8:30). So I've been out there and played with them a few times this week. They are actually pretty good for being out here. I've played a decent amount of basketball in this country and most everyone here is horrible. Most all of these guys have some concept of how to play though, and a few of them are actually good. I kind of have an edge being a good four inches taller and forty pounds heavier than most all of them, so that helps with getting picked on teams. One of the guys I played with one night picked me on his team and we won a lot (it helps that he is one of the better guys out here). After playing together for a couple hours he starts talking to me in English. I was thinking 'You speak English! Why didn't you bring this up sooner?!?' It turns out his English is actually really good. So he is kind of my first friend out there. We played together over the next few nights and he told me that we have an apartment complex team that plays on the weekends just for fun, and I got an invite to play with them this weekend.
So today was our big game. I got a text last night telling me that we were meeting at the basketball courts at 2 pm and taking a taxi to our game. It turns out we play away games, and our game today was in a town about forty minutes away on the other side of a mountain. So we load up into this really nice Jetta and drive out to this big complex with a large iron gate and an armed guard (which kind of jumped out at me since guns are illegal here). I'm quickly told that we are playing a military base. We go out and start warming up and then this whistle is blown and about sixty men in uniform come marching out in formation chanting and carrying stools. My friend who speaks English says 'look, we have an audience.' It is a little intimidating being the only white guy at an away game against the military (especially of a country that you're country doesn't always get along with) and then having a pretty large audience all packing heat. But once the game started it all kind of faded away. Both teams had coaches, however I didn't understand any of what mine was saying, refs and score keepers. We jumped out to an early lead and were winning 23-10 at the end of the first quarter. I'm pretty sure I had the most muscular guy out here I've ever seen guarding me. Then in the second quarter some other guys showed up and my guy was replaced with an even bigger guy. We were about tied at half time, then were down in the third and pushed ahead in the fourth. We ended up losing when the other team started hitting a lot of threes at the end. I think the final score was 100-94 but I'm not totally sure. They used some kind of weird scoring system and wrote it in chalk.
I did okay in the game but constantly had about three guys guarding me. Their basic game plan on defense was to stack three guys in the paint on me, have one guy guarding the ball, and then have another guy waiting down court for a long pass and an easy fast break basket. For some reason our team could not figure out how to defend this. It also didn't help that they didn't keep track of fouls and when you got fouled there were no free throws, you just got the ball out of bounds. So I got fouled. A LOT. I think it averaged out to once every two trips down the court. So I had some kind of messed up stat line. I think I had a couple steals. I had three or four blocks, including one where I chased a guy down on a fast break and threw it out of bounds when he layed it up (all the military guys yelled). About eight points (remember the foul thing...), and at least twenty-five rebounds. The team we played was pretty good though, so I'm not too worried about anyone else we'll face. And I honestly think if we played them again we would win.
After the game we left pretty quickly because all the military guys dispersed and later formed a line. I noticed that they all had guns and my friend who spoke English said 'look they are about to shoot their guns.' That was about the time I got the hint that we should leave. The coach and five of the guys were taking the car back to the school to study so that left the four older guys and myself to find our way back to our apartment complex. We had to walk about half a mile back to the main road and then were going to hitch-hike back to town. We were about to get in the back of a cargo truck when a minivan taxi pulled up and we all jumped in that instead. It is funny how sports bonds guys together. After the game it was like we have all been best friends forever. We joked about the game and how the other team played dirty and how we should have won. After we got back the guys took me out to dinner at the front gate of the apartment and we spent a couple hours hanging out. Somehow I always find myself in these random kinds of situations when I'm out here. Don't get me wrong, it was a great day. . . just random. But since these guys are about the only ones I know in this country I'm sure we'll all be hanging out a lot over the next few weeks.
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