Rugby

Rugby

            As you may or may not know, I played for the Bowdoin Men’s Rugby Football Club all four years of my time at Bowdoin. The team was really my only steadfast activity in my time at Bowdoin. I participated in a multitude of other interesting and stimulating activities, but the BRFC was the only group that kept its hold on me all four years. A lot of that had to do with the guys on the team and the coaching staff. I cannot imagine a more supportive, enthusiastic and fun group of guys. Coach Scala and Coach Dave were important figures in my time in Brunswick and will forever be remembered as BRFC legends. From day one of practice freshman year all the way until the last inter-squad scrimmage my senior year, I was, and still am, proud to call my self a member of the BRFC.

             I consider myself to be a relatively quick player, but strength was never my strong point. My speed helped me flourish on the B-side, scoring prolifically in my Freshman year, but, due to high school disillusionment, I never spent much time in the gym and therefore never really got stronger. My skill level definitely improved over time but my role on A-side remained relatively unchanged throughout my four years with the club, largely my own doing. I also went abroad during the fall season my Junior year and missed a great opportunity to work my way into the squad, but getting experience in Africa seemed a more pressing calling. Also, with Connor Gallagher, the Rhino-like Center, David Bruce, the effeminate fly-half with boyish good looks, and Bobby Shaw, our relentless but injury-prone captain, all having lockdowns on the positions I was angling for, I became a super-sub, and loved it. It meant I got to play with the Killer-B’s and have a damn good time every time while also sometimes getting to play with the A-side, not a bad deal.

            Upon graduating, I assumed my rugby career had reached its end. I didn’t know if rugby was a big deal in Kenya, but I brought my cleats and shorts anyway, just in case. Two weeks ago, I was talking with Amal, a math teacher at school. Amal is a fascinating character, a true man’s man. He plays rugby. We got to talking and he mentioned he had been playing with a local team at the Mombasa Sports club, a mere five minutes from AKAM campus. He asked if I’d like to come along, and, of course, I said yes.

            The club itself is a fascinating place, racially and socio-economically that is. The club is located in south central Mombasa. It is a private club that charges very high membership fees, especially for Kenya, somewhere around $400 a month; that’s most of my monthly paycheck. The club is enclosed in its entirety by a ten foot tall concrete wall topped by barbed wire. It’s not a welcoming place from the outside. The British colonial roots are never far from the surface around here and it doesn’t take much imagination to envision Khaki-clad Englishmen tromping around the grounds of the club discussing the state of the Empire whilst sipping scotch and enjoying a nice cricket match. Today, the members of the club are predominantly men of Indian descent who make up part of the wealthy upper crust of Mombasa.

            The rugby team however is a different story. The rugby team is composed entirely of black Swahili Kenyans. None of them could ever afford a membership to the club… so why are they here? Why are they allowed in?

            The answer lies, unsurprisingly, with money. None of the aged Indian men want to play rugby, yet they have beautiful facilities. A bunch of these Kenyan men want to play rugby, but they have no pitch to play on. And so a partnership is formed. The club grants the team access to its facilities and bestows upon them its name, and when the team has a match, the club reaps the benefits as people pay admission to watch quality rugby and then imbibe at the bar further adding money to the clubs coffers. Win win?

            The team used to be professional, meaning, obviously, that the players were paid to play. Unfortunately, most of the other teams are in Nairobi, an eight-hour bus ride away. The Nairobi teams grew tired of the expenses and travel time they had to devote to playing the team from Mombasa and, from what I understand, in a somewhat nefarious way, the league conspired to dump the Mombasa team.

            But the team still lives on. The current season is Sevens season. For the uninitiated, standard rugby is played with fifteen men a side, it’s a very physical game with lots of rucks and scrums and contact. Sometimes the ball moves down the field very slowly. Sevens is a whole other beast. On the same size pitch as standard rugby, you now only have seven men a side which opens up the field. Basically what it boils down to is that Sevens requires a lot more running. And where am I? Oh right, Kenya. What do they do well? Oh, right, run!

            On my first outing I performed admirably well (I think). I generally held my own, but after the first half of our scrimmage I was sucking wind, struggling to catch a breath. I hate to add credence to stereotypes, but Swahili men, at least these guys, are FAST.

Most of the guys are between twenty and thirty years old and I have to admit I don’t know what their professions are. I am going to keep going back for sure and I hope to get to know some of the guys well. They were all incredibly welcoming and happy to have some new players on the team. Most of the have a hard time with English, but anytime any one started talking in Swahili, they would shout him down and demand he speak in English because Amal and I couldn’t understand. Nice of them, but I think in this situation it is I that should learn Swahili, and not them who have to work on their English.

It made for an entertaining scene to see a bunch of paunchy Indian men, clad in their country club whites, power walking around the compound while they either ignored or cast nervous glances towards the Kenyan men darting around the pitch.

Below I have included some pictures of a recent visit to Ft. Joseph, a costal park area that has stunning ocean views and some gorgeous rock formations. A great place to go with a book and simultaneously appreciate nature and a good read. I’m currently reading “Out of Africa,” a jarringly western memoir from a Danish woman who lived in Kenya during the colonial era. Interesting to read but it sometimes brings me to a standstill with comparisons of Africans to animals and as people that need civilizing and guidance. An interesting read nonetheless to get a sense of how the country used to be.

Descent into a really cool cave that gets completely inundated by the tide

Down the rabbit hole

-Mzungu currently rekindling his passion for Rugby in scenic Mombasa

Life Update and the Haircut (More interesting than it might sound!)

Hey Folks,

I just completed my first five-day workweek! Previous weeks have either been cut short by school holidays, religious holidays, and, of course, the riots. Speaking of which, after all that ominous foreshadowing I played up in my last post, nothing happened. I was on duty over the weekend (as a residential dorm parent I am on duty every so often) and we didn’t allow any students to leave campus, cancelled school on Friday and waited with baited breath for any news. The streets were apparently swarming with police officers and Kenyan army troops and they were able to squelch any inflammatory activity before it started. The city is now back up and running as if nothing happened.

            This week was loooooooong. It’s amazing how much more work an extra day can feel like after having adjusted to a four day workweek. That sounds remarkably lazy of me, and admittedly it is. But good work is getting done! I’ve been grading year 7 memoirs that are very well written and insightful and listening to Junior Oral Presentations which are sometimes insightful. I’ve also been working with the University Counseling office, which has been a blast; I’ve been reading personal statement after personal statement and I have come to appreciate how much work my college counselors had to do back at MBA. Mr. Giffen and Coach Klausner, you have my eternal respect and admiration.

            The week concluded with a House Assembly on Friday. AKAM has adopted a house system to encourage excellence in students across all aspects of life at the academy. There are four houses that are identified by color and mascot: Red (my house) Hawks, Yellow Eagles, Blue Ravens (or Kestrels) and Green Falcons. The competitions among houses vary from athletics, academics and debate to lip-syncing, public speaking and a quiz night. At the end of the year, a house cup is awarded to the winner of the most points. I have been informed that Red House is unique in that it historically loses every competition. Apparently their chosen House Chant at one point last year was “At least we aren’t in fourth place!” That soon changed… I have been encouraged to take up the mantle of House Leader for Red House on the grounds that I am “fresh blood,” which I can only take to mean that I have yet to be disillusioned by constant crushing defeats that Red House teachers are used to experiencing. I’m hoping I can bring some fire to the mix…

            Our first competition this year was a senior school wide Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament. We split up into houses and had an elimination tournament to determine the winner of each house who then were able to challenge the other house winners for the title of Champion and 10 points for their house. Our challenger lost in the semi-finals but had a chance for redemption in the 3^rd place match. One, two, three, go! Their rock beats our scissors. One, two, three, go! Their scissors beat our paper. And in glorious fashion, the Hawks reclaimed their place at the bottom of the house rankings! We can only go up from here.

            I have been here for about five weeks now and life is slowly settling down. I just opened a bank account and I have a checkbook and debit card. Opening a local bank account has always been my strongest indicator of permanence in a place. I had bank accounts in Nashville, Brunswick and now Mombasa. Looks like I am here to stay!

            My being here for five weeks also means that my hair had reached a point of, shall we say, shagginess. It was so bad that I was informed not only my year 9 tutor group but also by my incredibly kind and respectful year 7 English class that I had developed a nickname amongst the students: Blonde Bieber, as in Justin Bieber the teenage idol and, I hesitate to say, musician. This moniker was not foreign to me as my floor mates last year were unforgiving about my hair whenever it got too long and would berate me for my Bieberesque hair (if you don’t know who this is then a. I applaud you and b. Google image search his hair).

            The final straw was when some younger students told me I looked like Shaggy from Scooby Doo (the scruffy half-beard didn’t help). Game over, time to get my hair did.

            I headed into town with a recommendation from Jason, the head of security and transportation. I didn’t know what to expect. Last time I was abroad for more than a month at time, in Uganda and Rwanda, I never had a haircut; I just let it grow out. My hair is just never something I even remotely considered while abroad, it was always assumed I would just get it cut when I get back, not so feasible in my current situation! It’s also a strange subject to inquire about. African hair is just simply different than mzungu hair. And the male hairstyles here are predominantly shaved head or Afro, two looks that I either couldn’t pull off, or simply cannot do with my hair! So I had to poll the expats about the places that know how to deal with our somewhat unique hairstyle choices.

            I was sat immediately and Joseph, my new barber, went to town on my mess of hair. He clipped, snipped and shaved away layers and layers of hair like the pro he was. He paid attention to every miniscule detail, holding a razorblade and shaving off every stray hair on my neck and face. My once uncontrollable mass of hair was soon reduced to a clean-cut, manageable form. Joseph then told me that for the price of the haircut I got a “wash” as well. Couldn’t turn that down! Little did I know what I was in for!

            He took me to the back of the salon and handed me off to a woman in a blue uniform, an apron and formidable arms. She had me sit down, close my eyes and relax. She worked the shampoo into my scalp and washed it all down, pretty standard. She then told me to go back and sit in the chair. Slightly confused, seeing as the haircut was over, I complied.

            She came over to the chair with a bottle of massage oil and squirted some into her hands. She took hold of my head and began rubbing my neck, my scalp and my face. She massaged my ears, chin, nose, cheeks, forehead, everything! She then reoiled and massaged my shoulders and back all while I was just sitting in the chair. She then grabbed a bowl of water and added an orange scented oil and washed off my face and shoulders and then grabbed a citrus scented oil and washed me all over again. By the end of it I was as relaxed as I could possibly be and smelling great!

            When it came time to pay I found out it only cost me 500 Shillings, about 6 bucks. Bargain of the century: A great haircut, a shampoo, and a massage for six bucks. I will be back.

Thank you all of you who are reading my blog. I really appreciate that you have taken an interest in my life here and I hope I am keeping it entertaining and informative. If there is anything you want to hear about in more depth or that I haven’t covered shoot me an email at chase.b.taylor@gmail.com. Or leave a comment at the bottom of any post. I’m planning on covering Food and what I am actually doing at school soon. I hope all is well wherever you may be, thanks for reading!

In closing, a little shout out to Fhiwa, Michele and Ryan, my costars in the recent release of the Google Street View of Bowdoin College. Two summers ago, we were all working hard at Bowdoin and frequently took lunch breaks out on the gorgeous Bowdoin quad. One fine afternoon we noticed a man on a bicycle pulling a strange device. Turns out it was the Google Street View mobile taking in the sights at Bowdoin. If you go to google maps and check out street view at Bowdoin on the quad you can see Fhiwa, Michele, Ryan and me enjoying ourselves on the quad. It kind of fun to think that even after I am gone from Bowdoin, I exist, even if only virtually, on the quad, permanently enjoying a beautiful Maine afternoon.

-Mzungu currently well groomed and smelling good after his first full week of work