tug-of-war and water balloons

since my last entry was about how normal life is here, i thought i'd share about my afternoon yesterday. it's nothing too weird, but just not the go-home-take-a-nap-arabic-lessons afternoon.

so i was sitting at my desk and ala' (one of my co-workers) asked me if i knew about the bbq for lunch. i said no, so he told me that all the students, faculty, staff, and administration were invited to beit alaqa (the house of joy) for a bbq. so i said, hey free lunch, i'll be there.

well, it was not just a bbq. it was a field day. like you have in middle school. or freshman orientation. we did get to eat, which was very good food, and then the games began.

the students at bbc are divided into five groups with teacher sponsors. they're like small groups. so then all the volunteers/internationals/random people from the media department got thrown together on a team. i was going to just eat and run, but andrea, a lady who teaches english classes here and is a new friend, volunteered me for the team. so i played.

our team was pretty dominating. we did tug-of-war, electricity, water balloon toss, peg the sponge at your teammates face (i don't know the real name of it), shaving cream and bamba (peanut butter cheetos), sack race, mummy wrapping. i'm pretty sure we won each event, but we were only against one other team the whole time. i don't know who won overall. by the end i wasn't very concerned about it either.

it was fun for the most part, but then all the water fights made me feel like i was a freshman in college again. and i liked being a freshman in college, but i'm not anymore. also, people were very concerned that i was participating in games like tug-of-war (which i did not really try to hard in), anything that involved running, anything that involved throwing or catching anything, and anything that involved hopping because i'm pregnant. it was funny at first, and then i realized that i have another six months of this ahead of me and it was not quite as funny anymore.

anyway, it was a fun afternoon. it was fun to meet new people and see how the students were getting to know eachother. it was fun to see the teachers enjoying the time with the students. it was fun to make some new friends. it was even fun to try not to be a party-pooper and think that i'm way to old for this kind of stuff.