For those who only use me for your Balgo news :)

When we arrived back in Balgo from Broome, Yagga sports was going on. Yagga Yagga was a place a bit away where all the people living there left one day (I have heard a few stories about why so not sure exactly) but apparently if you go there, it is still fully built, just empty. Anywho, since a lot of people originally from Yagga now live in Balgo, we hosted their sports carnival of men playing footy and women playing basketball. There were probably an extra 500 people in the community for those few days and because they started a day late, the carnival went late meaning that for a few days, we had almost no one at school. There were a lot of disputes about results, one at the basketball final where half way through the game, there was a protest about a game the day before and there was a lot of yelling and one woman took the score sheet, ripped it up and set it on fire. In the end, the Eagles from Balgo won the footy and Yagga took home the basketball trophy.

This term we have started jump rope for heart with the kids during my P.E. time with them on some days and they are really taking well to it! And some good news, the weather's getting hotter so the pool is officially opening next week! I think I have worked out how to run the two programs simultaneously but we'll see how I feel next weekend.

This week I was given a break from afternoon sport thanks to a Hip Hop dance group who came and taught the kids dance routines and tried to teach lessons such as respect, confidence and taking opportunities to the kids through dancing. The kids absolutely loved it and really got into it which was good because this hopefully will inspire the girls especially to step outside that one dance move they love (da booty).
Last night, they had a big disco where the hip hoppers danced for the community and then held dance battles between crews made up of the kids. They were still a little shy but a lot of them can really dance and I think this week has given them a new confidence.
After the disco, we had the hip hoppers around for a fire which turned out to be a really good night. I even got out the fire twirling pois I bought online which arrived yesterday. We weren't game to light them yet but still provided a good hour of entertainment.

Yesterday, for something like National Indigenous Children's Day, youth workers and community workers came in to the school and we helped them run a sports day for the kids including relays, egg and spoon races, sack races, 3 legged races, tug of war and sprints to find the fastest kid in Balgo. It was a really good day and I am really considering trying to organise an athletics carnival because at first I thought it would be impossible but when I saw how if you got the staff from each class helping as well, it's very possible. I was just discouraged by the difficulty of running sport classes with only one or no other staff members.

So that’s a good wrap up of the past 3 weeks in Balgo :) this was fun. We should do it again some time.