Once a year we had a very big rugby day at our school. All play offs.
Each team played 20 min on a side and after every time the winning team would play against the winners of the previous game. This lasted until the last two teams were playing to see who the winners for the day would be.
This was always a lot of fun because all the teachers were there and we had lunch together and chatted about the sport we all enjoyed very much.
These days also made the school a lot of money as you can imagine what the tuck shop had to stock to satisfy all these children.
We did give them food packets, but we all know that children never get enough to eat, and that they like buying sweets, which we bought especially for this occasion because our tuck shop only sold food for children in normal school days. I have told you about our program in a previous blog.
Everyone had a lot of fun, and as you can imagine the competition was very strong between us. In a friendly way as fun was sometimes needed when you teach. This can be a very tiring job and it does sometime take a lot of patience.
These fun days just made it a more enjoyable way of communication between teachers from other schools and the children learnt how to make friends with these other schools.
Children get to find out that they are not the only ones with problems and everyone was enjoying these days.
Some even spoke about school work that they were struggling with and other kids would say yes we have the same problem, or we have a wonderful teacher and find it easy.
So there were more to these days than just rugby.
When it got to the end of the day, we had to play against the last team as the winner would be us or them.
Fortunately we were far ahead otherwise we would have lost. The reason for this was that I had a boy in my first team that was born to play rugby. He was one of the few that I aloud to play the way he wanted to because rugby was in his blood and he just knew what to do and when.
I was very proud of him because he loved playing and he was just a treat to watch.
In this last game we were standing on the other side of the rugby field when we heard a sound that was unbelievable hard. It actually sounded like a gun shot.
You will not believe what it was. It is the child I am telling you about. He was tackled and broke his leg the sound came from that break, nobody could believe that it was possible for a child to break a leg like that as we are used to children braking bones but normally it is just a break that can heal easily, but this was a break that nobody could believe.
Luckily we had a doctor there and the ambulance was there in a few minutes.
This child had the most terrible break ever. I went in my car with the mother, behind the ambulance and followed them to the hospital.
When he was taken to x ray’s they said that they had never seen such a bad break in a child.
He was very sad as it meant that he could not play rugby anymore.
They were very sure of this. But this child had a will that I cannot explain to you for six months later he started exercising again.
I must say it was very sad seeing him sit next to the rugby field watching the other children play, because he really missed his rugby.
When he went to high school he was ready and the day he got place in the first team he phoned me to tell me how happy he was. I was just as happy because as I told him when he broke his leg, everything happens for a reason. Sometimes we do not know what the reason is but we will find out in time.
I really tried to make him feel better and told him to work hard at getting better which he did and succeeded.
When he left high school he started playing for a provincial team and did very well. When he phoned me the day to tell me he was playing his last game I drove more than 200 km to go and watch his last game. He was so surprised to see me, and he said if it was not for me he might just have given up after the bad break, but then he would not have been happy at all.
I felt so good that the break did not ruin his life but taught him that to succeed you just have to keep trying and carry on.
Today he is a Lawyer but he still phones me from time to time.
