You want me to do what???

When I first started teaching at Chea Sim, the High School in my town, I had a preliminary meeting with the school director to see the kinds of activities, clubs and general ideas he wanted me to bring to the school.  Obviously English teaching was to be my main focus, but in a close second place was his desire for me to be very active in sports teams at the High School.  Specifically, he was really excited for me to coach basketball.

I am not saying that I am not a "sports guy," but if given the chance to rank my favorite sports to watch or play, basketball would be close to the bottom of the list well behind the likes of curling, croquet and this cool martial arts fighting with electric lances I once saw on an episode of Star Trek.

Also, I know virtually nothing about basketball.

I am pretty sure the thought process for my school director went something like this,

"Who can I get to coach basketball this year...?  Wait, aren't we getting a foreigner to teach English from the Peace Corps?  PERFECT!  He will know tons about basketball, he probably even knows Yao Ming..."

Of the few memories I have playing basketball in my youth (those remaining anyway, most I have subconsciously blocked out due to their painful and embarrassing nature), I recall feeling incredibly awkward dribbling (its called dribbling, right?) the ball around the court (court or field?) not really sure what to do with my arms and hands when I didn't have the ball, and even less sure what to do with the ball when I had it.  I can't help but think that this is a job far better suited to my younger brother - he oozes sports competency and is practically a statistic book pretty much all sport genres.  

All this to say, I am pretty sure I was the worst choice for a basketball coach possible.

Regardless, I have been showing up a few times a week to "help" the dozen or so boys work on plays, run drills and generally try to look like I had a clue.  If nothing else, the kids seem to like hanging out with me and I try to joke around with them every chance to get to minimize the opportunities for actually having to play basketball myself.

Initially, they wanted me to come every day of the week for two hours each day.  I nixed that pretty quickly, while I want to show support and respect to my school director, I have some other projects in mind that I want to leave some time to accomplish throughout the week.

Here are some pictures from the first day of practice I had with them.  Notice their dress, particularly the long pants and shirts and lack of shoes.  I was later told that the school would be purchasing shoes for them to wear during practices and games.

I'll keep you all posted on how this saga turns out...and just because he is adorable, I leave you with a picture of my host nephew in all his camera-hogging glory.