White Men Can't Jump
14th November 2005
Christmas is a big event in The Philippines. Not in a
Lets-All-Buy-Crap-From-The-Local-Mega-Mall type a way, but in a nice and
friendly be-nice-to-your-neighbor type a way. Christmas
decorations started appearing on about October 1st.
Tabucan, the Barangay where I live, officially kicked off its
Christmas Fiesta with a basketball tournament. I coughed up 400
pesos ($NZ 10) for my uniform and joined up
with the Dumangas Country Village team.
Practice consisted of 2 hour training sessions every morning at
5:30am. Ugh. The early starts were a struggle to start with,
but I soon got used to it. Habit is a great teacher.
I have yet to see a Filipino person that is taller than me, so I
figured my 6 foot 2 frame would be a great advantage. It is
somewhat cancelled out though by the superior fitness, strength, speed
and skill of the locals. Practice for me generally consisted of
running from one end of the court to the other and looking confused in
between. Heck, sometimes I even got confused which goal I was
supposed to be shooting at and who was actually on my team. *sigh*
Opening day soon arrived. Team members and sundry support posed
for the compulsory team photo. All nine
teams assembled outside the local captain's office
and we headed off for a parade around central
Dumangas. We were accompanied by a cheer leading team
and a marching band, who belted out such classics
as "Achy Breaky Heart" and the Pinoy Big Brother theme tune.
Once we arrived at the recently renovated court, there were several
speeches. I couldn't understand most of them, but the pattern
seemed to be that Official A would acknowledge the presence of Official
B, C, D and E followed by Official B acknowledging the presence of
Official A, C, D and E and so on. They also acknowledged us
volunteers and were rightfully proud of their new court.
A draw had been made the previous night and we, Dumangas Country
Village were up against No Limits. They
got off to a better start, but we clawed our way back to eventually win
64 - 59. I probably played about 1/2 the game. I got a few
rebounds, but scored no points. Dr. Robin,
another volunteer, managed to score a three pointer, much to the delight
of himself and the crowd.
I felt like a bit of a walâ-ulo manok, or headless chicken, when I
was playing, but everybody was very nice about it. Perhaps overly
so.
A week and several practices passed and we were due to play Team
Forest. Despite not scoring any points, I really enjoyed the
previous weeks game and decided to forsake a trip to Guimaras
so that I could play. I think that my team mates took it as a
great compliment.
Team Forest were the top ranked team in our group and, for some
obscure reason, decided to emblazon a Mary-Jane (marijuana) leaf on
their shirt. Once again, I scored no
points, but did manage the odd rebound.
There was a brief stoppage for rain, so I entertained the crowd when my
spectacular juggling skills.
Team Forest lived up to their ranking and hammered us by about
fifteen points.
I think my team liked that I was now the only volunteer playing so
much, that they gave me a lot more game time. I got several
comments along the lines of: "Great game Malcolm. You were
awesome on defense. We would of done much worse without
you." It made me feel a bit guilty, because I am plainly not
very good and feel as if I am letting the team down when I get given a
lot of game time.
Oh well. I think everyone is having fun and that is probably
the main thing. After the game, I had a few drinks with my team
mates. Most of the talk revolved around teaching me new Hilygano
words, which is always a bit of fun.
Questions? Comments? Try contacting
me.
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(c)
2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to
link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you
want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.
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