Conquering the Clod

Jan. 6, 2009 - Guest Blogger - James Buscher, Carroll College, Helena, Montana

Today was epic. The center pillar in the hole was toppled like your ego right after your girlfriend says "I just want to be friends." It was a Titanic feet, requiring all the man (and woman) power we could muster. After a few minutes of chopping at the solid base of the pillar, we lassoed that sucker and played the most one-sided game of tug-of-war ever to be played between twenty humans and one very large dirt clod. The humans won. With the mass of broken dirt carpeting the floor of the hole, we all felt the thrill of defeating such a huge and ominous inanimate object. 

With that surge of energy coursing through our dirt clogged arteries we headed just down the road to swim in a pool at an oddly located hot

el known as the Lukenya Getaway. Once there our Kenyan partners told us that most of them did not know how to swim and over half of them were afraid of water. So we did the culturally sensitive thing and shoved them into the deep end to learn through emersion. Not really. Actually we held a small swim lesson that ended up resembling a class on the art of drowning, rather than any form of swimming school. After a few pointers though, our Kenyan friends were racing each other across the pool, and while none of them would ever be mistaken for Michael Phelps, for multiple reasons, they certainly held their own

 considering for most, it was their first time in a pool. So as I said, today was epic.