I never mentioned this before; I am on a basketball team. No I don’t play basketball regularly. I used to play in middle school, but wasn’t by any means a terrific player. I can handle a ball and take some shots, but I would never tell anyone that I’m a basketball player.
However, my friend Latoya who actually does play basketball told us about a tournament that was going to start soon and the only way it can go on is if there is at least one girl on every team. We didn’t think the tournament was going to be serious and so we signed up more excited about the free jersey we were going to get our first game night. Honestly, I thought this was going to be the equivalent of intramural sports offered at the universities back in the states. I was wrong. The guys here take their cricket and their basketball seriously.
So, I go to the first game. Stephan the head of athletics called me that day to make sure I wouldn’t forget. If the girl doesn’t show up the team forfeits. I told him not to worry I’d be ready to play. I get to the courts and check out the crowd. I was nervous. I thought to myself, wow, they are really into this tournament. I felt kind of bad, because like I said even though I know how to play basketball I am not very good. Too late to back out now.
I met my team. They are all over 6 feet except for like two of the guys and two of them are Rasta guys. I looked so small compared to them. I had to laugh when I was in line practicing lay-ups shots and free-throws. I haven’t played in years and here I am with a team of all these huge Jamaican and Bajan men running drills. We even had a coach yelling at us when we missed easy shots. What did I get myself into?
My team’s name is Jammin (thanks to the two rasta dudes) and my jersey number is 4. I find out that night that I have to play 5 minutes of every quarter. I get a little nervous because the quarters are only 10 minutes long so I kind of have to do pretty decent.
The good part was that I was playing a team, which Lizzie is on so it was going to be fun having Lizzie as my opponent.
I was put in at the very beginning. My coach said, stay on the girl (meaning lizzie) and he said get open on the outside we’ll pass to you. Here we go. I can’t get into all the details of the game because really I don’t know basketball talk besides defense, rebound, shoot, box-out, foul, and traveling. I hustled the whole time, got some good rebounds even though I was afraid one of the 6’4’’ guys was going to elbow me in the mouth and did my best. Unfortunately, we lost by 4 points but it was fun to play. At the end of the game, my coach had a ice chest full of beers for the team to enjoy together. My next game is Monday, Nov. 7th at 630. Can’t wait.
This weekend was the Soup Bowl Surf Competition sponsored by Reef in Bathsheba (East Coast).
Lizzie and left Saturday morning after my midterm (yes, you read it correctly I had a French midterm 9am on a Saturday morning). After running across bridetown like two idiots to try to catch the bus, we missed it anyways. But we caught another one 45 minutes later. We had some drinks on the way since the ride would take about 40 minutes and enjoyed the scenery to the East coast. The competition was gnarly. I found out earlier in the week that Kelly Slater, my dream surfer, wouldn’t be at the competition because he is currently in Brazil competing for the world title this weekend. Oh well.
We found our friends and it was one huge party all day long. We watched people surf, tanned, had some drinks, danced to good music and talked with people who were from all parts of the world. There was this dude with a gnarly mullet. I had to take a picture for my friends in Davis. There was a Reef girl bikini contest and other events going on too. At one point my ears perked up when the obnoxious announcer said the name Sean Slater. Could it be? Was Kelly Slater’s brother actually in the contest? I was excited. I couldn’t meet the greatest surfer, but I could at least meet his brother and hang out. He surfed but didn’t do well and got knocked out of the competition. I knew at that point I’d find him at the bar getting wasted because he didn’t do well. My friend Derk sees me walking with the girls to the bar and gets our attention. I spotted Sean and couldn’t wait to meet him. Derk, after noticing who I wanted to meet, says he’ll introduce me because they are friends.
And then it happened. I shook his hand and he bought me a beer. It was rad. After that point we started to meet them all, the reef boys and the other surf guys I have been read about in Surf Magazine back at home are in Barbados. I met Marc Holder who isn’t very nice and Bobby Martinez who is from Santa Barbara and some other Reef guys too. When the competition was over for the day, we went back up to street level to decide what to do for the night. We couldn’t leave. There were going to be parties and even though it was getting dark and no one had a change of clothes or tooth brushes we had to spend the time somehow. We didn’t actually know how though. There is only one hotel in walking distance with only 4 room so we didn’t think there would be any room. We didn’t know anyone who lived in the area, but we saw some tents on the beach and thought well we could always sleep there. But we didn’t worry about it then. Instead we decided to join the block party!
One of the bars on the street was playing Music, the best music. There were tons of Rasta guys dancing in the street like crazy dancing and cheering and when a car had to pass by we’d move out of the way motioning for the car to hurry up then everyone would start dancing again. We had such a good time. My ears perked up again when Derk said that Sean was at the hotel Roundhouse, which is the hotel in walking distance from where we were. I got the group together told them we should get dinner and see if we can crash there for the night, my words “you know, cause me and Sean are friends now.”
I know what everyone must be thinking. Stop obsessing over some old surfer who isn’t even a world champion, but rather is more known for starting with Volcom back in the day and now he’s doing marketing for them. I know, but I couldn’t help it.
So we got to the Roundhouse ordered expensive food and waited for Derk to let Sean know we were hanging outside to join us later. We sat outside and I sat at a corner table with a great view. Sean came out and chilled with us. We talked about marketing some surf stories and how he was bummed about losing today. He told me that he had told Kelly that he’d win this one and Kelly would win the one in Brazil. He then admitted that he hadn’t called Kelly yet to give him the bad news. Then it finally came.
Sean “Where you staying tonight Pegah?”
Me: “Well, we weren’t planning on spending the night. We were going to take the bus home but decided to chill here instead. But we don’t have a place or anything, we were going to crash on the beach”( Keep in mind when I told him of our idea, it was raining and very windy)
Sean: “uhh, I think there’s an open room here you guys could crash in, and some people can crash in my room too I have some extra blankets.” (YES)
Me: “that would be nice if you could arrange that for us, cause it’s raining and we don’t have a tent.”
Sean: “Yeah no problem.”
So the owner came out to have a drink with Sean and he asked him and then I talked to him and told him not to worry because we were good people and wouldn’t make a mess of the place. He was okay with it and it worked out. We took showers, put on the same clothes were wearing earlier and hung out for awhile with our new friend.
Earlier the other surfer guys had ate dinner at our hotel and lizzie made me go with her to tell them to come back to hang out. They said they were staying in a house right up the road and would be back. Lizzie was more excited than I was, and even more thrilled when we went downstairs to get drinks and they were all back. I didn’t spend much time talking to any of them for obvious reasons. They were all single on vacation and I’m not and wasn’t interested in listening to them talk about themselves. I learned very quickly that day that famous surfer guys are very self-absorbed people. So instead I played bones and impressed the bajan guys I was playing against with my skills. I won 3 games and called it quits. I talked to this French girl named Taylor who had been taking pictures with a huge camera earlier that day. I thought of Nich and asked her how long she’d been a photographer and practiced some French with her too. Nice girl. I sat with Lizzie listening in on her conversations, and talked to one of the guys. He’s an Aussie lad, but lived in France for two years, so I started speaking to him in French too. Then he invited us back to there place to hang out and of course all my girl friends wanted to go, and not wanting to be in the hotel alone, I went along. It was okay, I stole their cookies and finished some of their expensive juice and was a bit over sarcastic with one of the guys who seemed to get offended after awhile. It got to a point where I lost interest and wanted to head back. Other came, some stayed and when we got back to the hotel we crashed. I slept on the floor with a blanket and a pillow and got stepped on one too many times by people.
In the morning it was raining but we went to the beach anyways. I decided that I didn’t want to be in the same bathing suit and clothes for another 6 hours and was too tired to function, so I came back home. Made a good breakfast and slept for a good four hours.
I didn’t get to thank Sean or say goodbye, but it was good enough to meet him have a beer with him hear stories about him and Kelly and end the night.
A longer story than necessary, but I have to tell details it’s just what I do. Now back to reality. School, the whole reason why I’m here.
Count down to Cali: 46 days left.
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