Once again, we take a trip back in time…

Before we moved to Niamey, I was informed that our Embassy had a softball team: The Niamey Sandy Sox.  I could hardly believe it.  It’s the middle of Africa, how in the world could softball be a part of this life?  Well, it is and I couldn’t have been more excited.  Our first tournament was in October and even though we didn’t win, it was a fantastic weekend.  Here are some action shots:

With the constant turn around at this post, a few of the people in this photo have already headed home which makes our team rather like the Bad News Bears.  But there was never a dull moment!  The name of the tournament was NUTS: Niamey Universal Tournament of Softball…it was totally nuts!

This field is at a local Christian school and the grass is REAL!  This, of course, is right after the rainy season.  

Yes, that is a giant turtle crossing the outfield.  We have a few at our school too and I’m sure you will see more photos of them in the future.  We kept playing like it was a normal occurrence but I was glad we were up to bat rather than in the field.

The winners get to take home hand crafted trophies of camels!  We’re very classy here in Niamey.

The tournament banquet was held at the American Rec Center (the second playing field was there too) and it was a fabulous evening.  I got to MC with my colleague Mr. Oumarou and they even made me draw the raffle tickets (in English and French).

The second tournament of the season was in Burkina Fasso and this time the Embassy didn’t have enough people for a team so I played for the school’s staff team.  However, three days before the tournament I decided to pass a kidney stone.  Yeah, it was awful.  But our team won the whole kit and caboodle and I can’t wait until we face them again next year!