Who are we? Olympians!

The Olympic spirit has reached Noah’s Ark! Here’s how it happened: I did not follow the Rio Olympics. To be fair, I never follow the Olympics when they are actually happening; I have always relied on our family in Iowa to record the events I like to watch and then I get to enjoy them over and over again for the next decade. Here is what I know about the most recent events: 

Two runners fell and helped each other to the finish line. 

Some blind runners had faster times than the ones who could see. 

There was a very short gymnast and a very tall volleyball player. 

Americans won a lot of medals. 

Those are based off two articles and a few photos I saw on Facebook. However, I saw them at an opportune time, just as I was brainstorming and preparing for our second term holiday. As I was making a list of games and activities, I added “Olympic events” to the list. Eight sloppy pages and two hours of brainstorming later, I had an arrow to that note that said, “Could we make the whole holiday an Olympic event?” and three pages of notes on exactly how we would do that. So we did. 

I divided fifty primary school children into eight countries, chosen by how easy it was to pronounce the capitol and how few national languages the children would have to remember: China, Tanzania, Germany, Holland (I know it’s not a country, but the children here never call it the Netherlands), America, Brazil, New Zealand, and Kenya. Because our kids are not very familiar with the Olympics, we used it not only as an opportunity to keep them entertained for a few weeks, but also to teach them about a world event. 

We began with our first Olympic Craft, where the olympians (as we referred to them all holiday) made flags for their countries and bandanas to wear to the events. Some actually recreated their country’s flag, while others got creative and did something totally different. As long as they worked on it together, they were fine. 

That Wednesday evening, we held our very own Olympic opening ceremonies to get the children excited about the event… and it worked! We showed a video clip of this year’s lighting ceremony in Olympia, and then I lit our official torch (my kerosene lantern) with a sparkler. I made sure to look the part of the women from the ceremony by wearing Christian’s kanzu (official Ugandan dress for men) backwards and tying the arms around my neck. Turns out I can be Greek in a pinch. 

We also showed them a video from this year’s opening ceremony and some clips from different events to give them an overall idea of what the Olympics are about. The country leaders took part in passing the Olympic flame around, we gave some general guidelines for the games, and they left that night with a newfound enthusiasm for their countries. They also began the mantra, “Who are we? Olympians!” that carried on through the following weeks. 

On Friday we had our first competitions. Some teachers organized field events and countries participated in ball passing, climbing, rope skipping, javelin (frisbee), hurdles (shoe boxes), and two different relays. 

We boosted the Olympic spirit by painting the Olympic rings on as many cheeks as possible in those three hours. It was a good start to the games!

The second week of holiday, our event was a night scavenger hunt. Different adults hid around the compound and each one had to make the sound of a particular animal. The countries were each given a paper with the animals written in order. They had to find the animals in that order and get a sticker from each one before the other countries returned or the time ran out. For some, it was a good lesson in working together as a team. For others, is was an eye opener to me of how poorly some people work as a team. So we gave them more practice. 

As our craft that week, the participants worked together to make the Olympic rings. They decorated small yogurt containers in the five colors with paint and paper, and I strung them together with twine, using chopped-in-half toilet paper rolls to space them out. (That idea came from the two huge sacks of yogurt containers I had sitting in my house and a craft I found online on how to make a dragon out of paper cups.)

As we got to go swimming this holiday, our olympians also had competitions in the pool: swimming, a water relay, and not breathing. Swimming was a mix of running and swimming since not many of them actually know how to swim. In the relay, they had to run in waist-deep water while keeping their hands on their heads. I asked them beforehand if it was easier to run in water or on land. Most said water, so they had quite a shock when the race began. Not breathing was to see who could hold their breath the longest. No one drowned, so we were all winners! 

Of course not everyone is good at sports and games, so the events in the last week were brain games. They practiced spelling in an old-fashioned spelling bee and math in a counting game with dice. 

Throughout the holiday, I had been giving them facts about their countries, such as population, on which continent it is found, famous people from the country, and what languages are spoken. On the last day of holiday, they took a quiz to see how much they remembered from what had been given them. I was quite impressed with the results! Apparently they listen better than I thought. 

We always hold a disco on the last Friday of the holiday, so our final event was a dance-off between the countries. It is fun to see the ones who are too shy to dance, the ones who know how to dance well, and the ones who cannot dance at all but sure think they can. The last are by far the most entertaining. 

To wrap up the Olympic events, we held a closing ceremony. We gave gold medals to the country leaders for each event while they brandished their country flags for the last time. (Sometimes I wonder why people donate certain things to orphanages in Africa—like plastic medals—but it turns out they come in handy!) After announcing the winner of each event, it was time to tally up the overall scores. I have no idea how they do it in the real Olympics, but I gave the countries one point for every bronze medal, two for every silver and three for every gold and the country with the most points was the overall winner. We fashioned a winner’s podium out of picnic tables and chairs to celebrate their achievements. In the end, New Zealand took bronze, Kenya took silver, and China brought home the gold. As is tradition, we played the Chinese national anthem (which of course the children had never heard before) and as is not tradition gave them sparklers to hold (not too close to the grass roof) to symbolize the extinguishing of the Olympic torch. 

All in all, the children had fun and I would dare to say the Olympics were successful. 

As a bonus, a few days after the holiday a representative of the UN who is also on the Olympic Committee came to visit Noah’s Ark. We hung the rings again and the schoolchildren had another morning of competitions to show him some of the local games they like to play. He was enthusiastic about our program and it was good for the children to meet someone who has actually been to the Olympics. 

Now I am getting used to hearing sentences from the staff that begin with, “When we do the Olympics next year…”