Spirit of Samoa: Sports Days

A part of the curriculum for Primary School students includes a PE section. To fulfill this requirement, most schools in Samoa hold Sports Days each Friday. All of the students at the school were split up into four teams: red, blue, yellow, and green. So for instance, the red team would consist of 6-7 students from each year with a two Year 8 Prefects acting as coach to the team. Each Friday, the teams compete against one another and whichever team has the highest cumulative score for that Friday wins! There are several different sports that my school plays: soccer, soccer ball throwing, volleyball, and rugby. The most entertaining for me are the rugby matches.

Growing up in America in highly protective schools were when one played football, one played TOUCH football since there was no way the school was chancing a lawsuit if a student got tackled and hurt in PE class, it was extremely entertaining to witness students body slamming each other on the field outside my school. And when I say body slamming, I mean it. They’re out there full force tackling so that they both spin to the ground, grabbing onto shirts and whirling them to slam into the ground, and looping arms around necks in an effort to stop them. The whole while, all of the watching students and teachers are laughing and having a jolly good time. I have to say, it was more fun that I have any other day. The best part is the boys love to do it! It’s their favorite sport to play and they really enjoy (I’m assuming) mitigating out body slams all in the name of sport. Even the Year 3 students who played went full force into the game as even though they didn’t quite know the rules, they all whole-heartedly joined into the body pile-up when someone had the ball. It’s a long ways from the overly protective schools of America.

Here are a few of the better pictures I’ve taken on Sports Days: