On Saturday I played my first game of basketball here. The Tunisian that we went on our trip down South had a friend who plays basketball, and he got me in contact with him. I called him on Friday, and we met Saturday at 4. We pumped up his ball, and we walked to an outdoor court. There were about 12-15 players there, and the first thing I noticed was that most of the players weren’t Tunisian. Most were Africas, from Benin, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire (I’m guessing), and there were some white foreigners too: maybe Italians or French.
They were good. For once in my international career, I was not considered tall. I may have been the shortest person at the court. They were big, and fast and good at basketball. I could hang, and I made some easy shots, but because I was new, rusty and can’t really talk to anyone (language barriers: although having played in Madagascar, my French basketball vocab isn’t terrible. I know how to say foul, travelling, play (as in “no foul, play on,” or “game on”), shoot, defence, and keep the score), I mostly hung back and played D.
We played 4-on-4 half-court for an hour and 45, until it was too dark to see the goal. It was fun, and I’ll play again there next Saturday, but man did it take it out of me. I’ve been sore for two days now.
In fact, I didn’t work today for health reasons. An amoeba I picked up in Bangladesh is surely flairing up again. I got some medicine from the pharmacy, and I’m sure it’ll work, but I felt quite shitty today.
The good news is that the medicine works, at least it always has in the past.
