Sports day, TVED style!

Last Thursday and Friday, at the end of three weeks induction for the applicants, and after two months of heats for the others, TVED celebrated its intra-murals, an inter-course sporting event, which, having see, I hesitate to translate as sports day, which somehow doesn't seem to do justice to the scale of the event.

Launched by an opening celebratory mass in the chapel followed by a procession to the gym complete with marching band, the opening ceremony lasted the whole of the first morning. Photos can't do justice to the olympic (or intramurals) torch lighting which absolutely blew me away! We had been invited to judge the team mascots and the mass dance competition, a job we had accepted without giving it much thought, but after the opening speech and oath of conduct I was rather feeling the pressure about how important this was turning out to be.

The rest of the two days was taken up with the semi finals and finals of a wide diversity of games and sports: those you might expect, like football and basketball, and those you might not, like scrabble and chess. Everybody was engaged in something: playing, watching, or singing karaoke in the classroom! Other than the diversity of activities included, I was perhaps most struck that all this happened with virtually no adult supervision: matches were organised, played, refereed, and scored by the students: and it all just happened.

The event closed with an all night party: shared meal, prize giving, karaoke, disco and games. And then when you'd think everyone was too tired to take much more, the applicants were congratulated on their acceptance on to the courses, and invited to commit to their membership of TVED, and in particular to affirm their support for each other: and after three weeks like this, why wouldn't they?