Going Pro?

Ooooh mais la…. So I believe it was Wednesday when I received a text from my Brazilian capoeira instructor friend, Mc. (the following is a loose translation) ‘Volleyball this weekend?’ 'Sure, sounds good to me.’ She’d been talking about a beach VB tourney that happens once a month so I had assumed that is what she was referencing. It seemed slightly bizarre that I should need to bring two photos and a copy of my national ID, but hey, who knows? The next text didn’t go quite as well… I made out the part in French, but got to a couple key words and was at a loss. Google translator was also no help. I asked my colleague, being the resourceful person that he is he then called our intern instantly ‘it means jersey, like a team jersey for sports, but it’s Jula’ (in the top 10 most spoken tribal languages around these parts). Great… so now my Portuguese speaking friend, who’s learning French (better than myself) though with a thick Portuguese accent, is slipping in the occasional only slightly obscure local lingo..

After what seemed to be an overly complicated arrangement of getting my documents to an Ivorian friend of Mc, M. Isaac, we were finally able to meet this morning at the Snackorama (the best conserved 70’s relic I’ve seen to date – left over from the glory days it was originally a bowling alley with an ice skating rink?? Billiards and, of course, a snack bar (restaurant really) where they serve cheval burgers (this translates as horse burger… I’ve been assured this is somehow not actually horse, but just what it’s called, which is not always the case with rat burgers…) I digress.

So Mc and a friend of hers from Belgium and I arrive to a sports complex at which point the friend from Belgium and I are taken to a side room and given official cards (sorta like a license to play) at which point we sign the freshly made documents and receive a medical clearance stamped and official. There is a certain expedience to rules being mere talk, at least when you’re on the benefiting side and/or you are considered above the law.

We are then taken past a couple tennis courts, between a worn down basketball court and a well kept soccer field to two outdoor VB courts. We are handed jerseys and (much to my chagrin white jersey shorts, the shiny kind I wore for basketball when I was in 5^th grade…the kind that never fit, the kind one should not be wearing striped underwear with…) So here we are. Apparently Belgium and I are now a part of one of the 8 national women’s volleyball teams (Mc is out with a bad elbow). The games are every Saturday and there are three practices a week (which, unfortunately, due to work I can not make but one).

But please I would like to return to this experience yet again, in case a couple facts were not duly noted. 1) I haven’t played competitive VB since I was 16. 2) I haven’t played outdoor court VB since I was 12. 3) though I am learning French and have played some VB since arriving, it has actually been with other English players and Brazilians just for fun, so my VB lingo when not English is Portuguese…not particularly helpful with this team. 4) I returned from California last week, and while it was lovely it is also winter there. The equatorial sun is especially special when one’s match starts at 1300… by game two I was sucking wind, not a lot of rotations given we have only 7 players, but hey, lots of play time! Oh yeah, play to 25, best 3 out of 5 - Mon Dieu!. Lost the first 2… so yes, we played all 5 games… this explains my lovely dehydrated sun induced headache. But hey, just another adventure. And somehow the guys in the stands knew I was American… maybe they read between the lines…