Olympic Fever

Johnny Walker, the whiskey should never be confused with John Walker, the runner from New Zealand who won an Olympic gold medal at the 1976 Montreal Games and in 1975 broke the world mile record in Sweden.

We were there to watch him line up for the 1500metres during the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, which turned out to be an iconic race remembered to this day. Well, maybe not widely. The nation was expecting John to win, after all he was our hero, but a young Tanzanian, by the name of Filbert Bayi pipped him at the post!

As long as there are no drug cheats, many of us enjoy the spectacle that is the Olympic Games and just a few days before they begin in Rio de Janeiro, I was reflecting on the different experiences athletes have before they have a chance to qualify for the Games. Their country of origin is a big factor. I remembered Gifti at Makumira Primary School.

The school ground is flat, dry and hard with stubby yellow-dry grass that is never cut by mechanical means. The area is grazed off with occasional visits by herded cows or goats, but mainly the tropical sun dries out the grass to make it unpalatable to livestock.

To side-track - one of the teachers’ housegirl was bitten by a black snake on the school sports ground but hoping he did not have to spend money on treatment or at the clinic, he delayed, but watched her condition until well after dark to finally ask me to take her down to the clinic! Luckily she was fine, but it illustrates the wildness of the ground.

Schools like anywhere else in the world hold their sports days and the winners go to the district day, and winners there go on to the regional, and then onto the national event.  That’s the way all sports-people work their way to Olympic glory, only the more affluent countries have better facilities and have the opportunity to compete in events other than those few opportunities found in third world countries. During seven years in Tanzania, I never saw athletes training other than a few cyclists and long-distance runners who were obviously in the Tanzania team. Certainly at school level all success depended on natural ability.

Each year we went to watch the school’s event because we were part of the community and I had carried out environmental and tree planting work with the kids. Few other parents turned up to watch but the kids had their favourites and barracked loudly. Each student had to do at least one event and some were not athletes at all but nevertheless they were encouraged. Nobody was laughed at.

It so happened that the district school meet was at the Makumira ground and again we supported the event, and again we knew the visiting teachers and students because I worked with those schools too. Again few parents attended the day and only athletes with teacher support came from the other schools, so most of the barracking was for the local school because it was a day off for them.

It was a typical summer Makumira day, with bright sunshine, just standing was enough to bring out a sweat. We and the kids stood or sat in the full sun because there was no shade, some of the kids still wore their blue sweaters, while others covered their head with them. The patience and tolerance of the heat displayed by the kids always astounded me. Nobody carried water. The glare off that parched field was hard on the eyes, but we wore no sunglasses as a show of empathy, but I did wear my usual sweat stained cap. I think they all recognised my cap more than my face!

The teachers do their best to run the day’s events as professionally as possible and senior students had marked out the four hundred metre course with whitewashed rocks, and used whitewash to mark lanes for the one hundred metre course. We stood on the two hundred metre mark.

Each competitor wanted to win, for their school, but personally too, because the winners’ reward would be a trip to Arusha or further afield, kids don’t get that chance very often.

The starter used a handkerchief which he held high then dropped his arm at the same time as calling, ‘Go!’ Two senior students held taunt the twine that was the finish line. The impression I had was of a colourful fun day.

Except for Gifti!  None of the kids had running gear, just school uniforms and bare feet, some of the girls had long skirts. As a girl grew, the skirt became shorter. Likewise for the boys, shorts were always below the knee when new.

Anyway, Gifti lined up with the rest of the eleven-year-old girls for the eight hundred meters, her skirt was about knee length. The flag dropped and off raced Gifti, but it was a false start, the only one of the day! So the runners were called back. But Gifti out in front didn’t hear the call and she ran flat-tack around the four hundred meter track, only stopping at the start line when it was obvious to her the rest were not running. For her ‘indiscretion’, she received five strokes of the cane! She didn’t have to bend over, it was just whack, whack while she was standing – and she just stood there to take it. Presumably the reason was for holding up proceedings.

After the thrashing, the girls lined up again, and again out raced Gifti right from the start, twice round the track to the cheering of the crowd! We cheered too! Gifti won the race by at least an hundred metres!

Filbert Bayi would have been proud of her!

Explosive

There is a rhyme that refers to beating a walnut tree to make it produce more nuts – I’m not writing it down though because it doesn’t belong here. Nevertheless, Henry heard the rhyme long ago and beat the tree in their backyard! It didn’t seem to make any difference but the scars lasted a long time – like the scars of that rhyme! (If you know what I mean.) Anyway, he was sceptical when Bert advised him to use half a plug of gelignite under his greengage tree! Henry had complained about the lack of fruit on the tree and Bert assured him that the gelignite trick would work. Well now, Henry had his shot-firer’s ticket, a requirement for a Forest Ranger on a small forest, so he took half a pug home with him plus a detonator and about thirty inches of safety fuse. With a crowbar he made a hole big enough for the half-plug and about two feet deep, set it all up and lit the fuse. It was a good boom, not affecting the tree at all but probably shattering the soil below. Sure enough from then on the tree produced copious amounts of fruit!  

Bert came down to the forest headquarters for help. Henry wanted him to level off Road Ten, The Larches, but large rocks on the surface made Dorothy the grader bounce around, unable to dig them out! The solution, according to Bert was to shatter them with gelignite! Trouble was, the compressor was away, borrowed by another forest, so although the jackhammer and drill bits were there, they couldn’t be used.

Bert was an old hand, used to doing things the hard way and was going to give Henry a lesson. There was a rock drill in the storeroom, a three foot cold chisel, which Bert sharpened on the grinder. He mumbled, pipe-in-teeth that the edge would soon be knocked off, but the faces of the chisel were not steep enough. He then took a foot or so of number eight wire (the old-time farmer’s friend) and bent one end to make a rough handle and the with other end, he bent the very end half inch at right-angle to the ‘shaft’. That half inch end bit, he put on the anvil and beat it flat with a hammer, which turned it into a little, flat spoon!

With the rock drill, sledgehammer, spoon, a Gerry-can of water, five pugs of gelignite, a box of detonators, a broom handle and a roll of safety fuse in the back of the old Commer, Henry drove up to Road Ten. He held the rock drill, ‘you have to hold it straight-up-and-down, and after each strike with the sledgehammer, you give the drill a quarter turn!’ He eyed Bert, wondering how safe his fingers were! After twenty swipes with the hammer, the drill had gone about half an inch into the rock, so Bert poured a few drops of water into the hole and using the spoon, dragged out the wet rock dust. It was Henry’s turn to use the hammer, and he found that twenty swipes was any amount at a time because they were going to do this for most of the afternoon.

The rocks were not that very large and sometimes the drill went right through them, but for the rest it was only necessary to drill eight inches to a foot deep. It was certain that the rock fragments were going to fly, especially the ones that the drill went through, likely the whole rock would be blown out of the ground!

Bert liked big bangs and wanted to fire off five plugs at a time, well actually not whole plugs, a quarter was enough in most holes, but by varying the length of the fuse, it was possible to have five blow at the same time! But Henry pulled rank! One at a time seemed safer to him because he had assumed Bert had matches, after all, he was a pipe smoker! But no he only had a lighter, which Henry was aware of. With safety fuse, you cut it at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and place a safety matchhead on the powder in the middle of the fuse. You strike the matchbox against it and the hotter burst from the matchhead igniting causes the powder to start more easily to burn. With the lighter, the lighting is not so reliable.

The process was to break off the bit of gelignite required, on a blunt end of safety fuse push the detonator on and crimp it [Henry had a gap in his teeth that was ideal for that], with a wooden skewer, bore a hole into the gelignite to fit the detonator. Now, by regulation, you were supposed to tie string onto the plug, so that if it fails to go off, it can be extracted – bugger that, Henry had another method! Once the plug with detonator and safety fuse hanging out was in the hole, clay was dribbled in on top and tampered down using the broom stick. This way the rocks were prepared one by one.

Bert had a shot-firer’s ticket, which had expired, but his eyes shone like Fagin counting his riches, so Henry watched as he flicked his lighter into action and the fizz of the fuse started. Bert wouldn’t run to water if his arse was on fire! So it was just an amble to safety. Henry didn’t want to look less brave, so while every instinct was to run, he curbed it and ambled alongside him.

As the afternoon progressed, Bert’s enthusiasm didn’t falter and from time to time bits of rock landed close enough to make his cheeks rosy with excitement and all the time he was like a Cheshire cat!

The last rock sounded different to Henry and he realised it was one that the drill had gone right through! As they ambled making distance, he looked around and saw the rock, about as big as a football, sailing up, and its trajectory was squarely in their direction!

‘Look out!’ called Henry, walking backwards with an eye on the projectile!

Bert’s pace did not change, nor did he look! With a thump, the rock hit not more than three metres away from him and then it rolled to within a meter of him.

Only then did he turn, he place a foot on the rock, rolled his tobacco, filled his pipe, fired it up and puffed with satisfaction. He pushed the rock over with his foot, still bright-eyed and flushed, said to Henry:

‘Nup, me name wasn’t on it!’