Peace Corps vs. JICA Softball Classic (Written 8/6/06)

About once a year during this time, Peace Corps has a friendly game of softball against the JICA volunteers (Japan's version of the Peace Corps) and on Saturday that rivalry was renewed – with a twist. Instead of it just being JICA and Peace Corps, it was decided to also include the Australian and Canadian volunteers that are in the country as well – make it an all star all vol softball game. The festivities were held at Chanel College because we have a huge rugby field that we could play on, it has stands and there was no danger of the ball being lost or us having to leave early because of someone else wanting to play. Fortunately the new group of volunteers were still in town so they got to join in on the action as well. We had quite a lot of people actually show up which was quite impressive (we probably had around 20-30 people show up) and since all the volunteer organizations were represented it was a lot of fun.

But the main event was the Peace Corps vs. JICA game, which was the first game we played. Holly found out that the softball series was tied at 4-4, so this was the rubber match so that one organization could take the lead. Through a sophisticated selection process known as rock-paper-scissors, it was determined that the trainees would face off against the JICA volunteers (Team name: The Samoa 76ers). So the pride of Peace Corps rested on their young shoulders – all of us volunteers were a little nervous about that. In the first inning, our fears were justified when JICA was able to get 2 runs before getting their first out – we were like 'uh oh, this could be a blow out'. When the 76ers came up to bat we thought they might be able to turn things around a bit, but JICA had a pitcher who threw the ball extremely well underhand – I mean that thing was zipping by. So JICA had volunteers that could hit well and a monster pitcher – we were definitely in trouble, and since we were only playing 4 innings there wasn't much room for mistakes. Fortunately the 76ers were able to keep JICA to one more score, so up until the 3 inning it was 3-0 JICA. But then the 76ers had to bring in a volunteer to help, good ole Joshua 'The Pride of Minnesota' Schoop to pinch hit and things turned around. In one inning they were able to score 3 runs, so that when it came to the bottom of the 4^th they were able to tie the score. With John, the manager of the 76ers at base, they were able to score one more run and beat JICA giving Peace Corps the edge in the softball series. So these new volunteers are already helping improve the image of Peace Corps in Samoa, they're definitely overachievers! But it was a fun, competitive first game – the second game was totally different. We mixed the teams together (JICA, PC, Australians, Canadians) and just played a game for fun – not really keeping score and that was definitely a good time. We spent about 2-3 hours playing softball before going back to the FaleSamoa (my front porch) and having a little picnic. Nothing like softball and a picnic to make you feel like you're back home. There was a nice spread of food because all the volunteers brought something to eat which was great – it was like a little volunteer ethnic food festival! Probably the most impressive part of the whole afternoon was just watching all the volunteers talking to each other – we don't exactly get together like this very often, and to see everyone being friendly and enjoying each others company made the whole day that much better. So the Softball Classic is now 5-4 in favor of Peace Corps, can we go 2-0 during my tenure here? We'll find out next year! L8r.