Manila Spirits

Manila Spirits
Lien and I departed for Manila, Philippines late last Wednesday night and arrived early Thursday morning. The brother of a Filipino guy that plays ultimate in HCMC picked us up from the airport and let us chill at his office for the morning. Since we didn't get a good night's sleep, we made use of his inviting leather couch. We caught the shuttle bus to Clark in the afternoon, which was a coach bus provided by the tournament. It was fun talking to others heading to the tournament, and I met a guy who graduated in the mid-90's from Wisconsin. Once we arrived in Clark about two hours later, we settled in to our villa then met up with the Hong Kong delegation at a pub on base. The tournament, including accommodations, was located at the Clark Air Base where the military and their families lived until as recently as 1991. It was awesome for a tournament because everyone stayed in beautiful villas that were actually homes before being converted into a resort. Furthermore, there was a casino, restaurants, and the fields, of course, all gated in this American suburbia-like bubble community in the middle of the Philippines. It was like "Pleasantville" or "Leave it to Beaver." As a result of most of my mixed team being over 45, everyone spread out between a few villas and had their own bed, which was a luxury. If it was a college team, we probably would have packed everyone into a single villa and utilized all the floor space.

Friday was the women's division and open (men's) division of the tournament in which Lien and I played with an amazing group of women based in Hong Kong. Most of them teach English there and only one of them was actually born and raised in Hong Kong. The others were from the States, Canada, Australia, and Italy. The Australian girl played professional netball previously and now plays, coaches, and teaches PE in Hong Kong. We won our pool-play games 11-0 and 11-2, but the semis and finals games against a Filipino and Singaporean team respectively were neck and neck until the end. We pulled off both wins and claimed the title of Women's Division Champs at the end of the day.

The registration party Friday night was a blast because all the mixed teams had arrived and we received our player packs, which included a jersey, a cleat bag, and some promo stuff. In addition, there were hired face painters at the party. It was fun meeting my mixed team based out of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, celebrating the day's win with the Hong Kong women, and meeting new people from the Philippines (pictured), who were all super friendly.

Saturday was pretty overcast which made for perfect weather to play in. Our team was called "Angelina's Orphans" because Angelina Jolie adopted kids from Cambodia. As a result she's become a national celebrity there and Cambodians just adore her. My teammates do incredible work there and in Manila including but not limited to running an organization that teaches kids about landmines through soccer, doing engineering-centered research for a PhD, and developing cyclone shelters that can withstand the typhoons that ravage the Philippines periodically. Not only are they incredibly selfless, but they were also a ton of fun to play with and spend the weekend with overall. The experience of our team won out over the speed of the young Filipino teams we played for an overall 5-2 record for Saturday and Sunday. We were ecstatic about getting a trophy for being the C-Pool Runners Up (we lost in the C-pool finals). To clarify, there were four pools of eight teams in all, so we finished at 18th place out of 32. Similar to the Hong Kong team, there was no one actually born an raised in Cambodia on Angelina's Orphans. Nevertheless, it was an incredible mix of people originally from the States, the Philippines, Germany, and India. Although the tournament was not unlike those I've played in in the US in many respects, the cultural diversity was a unique experience in itself. I feel so privileged to have been a part of a tournament like this where the level of "spirit of the game" and camaraderie was so high. It gives me hope that programs like Ultimate Peace and other peace-building through sport initiatives could have a profound and positive affect on the next generation because, according to Nelson Mandela, "Sport has the power to change the world, it has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people."

Saturday night was unlike any other tournament party I've been to. There was a Rasta cover band that played for a while before a DJ took over, a photo booth, circus games, and incredible costumes to go with the "circus" theme. Despite our soreness from playing the past day or two, dancing actually loosened our muscles and I was even less sore Sunday morning than the previous morning. One of the only other girls under 30 on our team was a year older than me, from Atlanta (Paideia High School), and played ultimate at Dartmouth. We figured out quickly that we had played against each other a few times in the past four years at various college tournaments although neither of us remembered each other specifically. Most of our team arrived at about 8:15 for our 8am game Sunday morning, yet we pulled of the win against a well-warmed up Filipino team.

After we finished our game, we headed over to watch the A-pool finals game. It was Black Flag, based out of Beijing but mostly comprised of American expats (one of whom graduated from Wisconsin in 2000 and played for the Hodags), versus the Boracay Dragons, the top beach ultimate team in the Philippines who only recently started playing in field tournaments as well. One guy on Boracay, Derek Ramsay, is apparently a model/actor/celebrity in the Philippines, which is potentially why the ultimate community is so big in the Philippines compared to other places in Asia. Unfortunately, he was taken off the field via ambulance because of an ankle-related injury. There seemed to be at least one player taken in an ambulance every round. The culprit may have been the rough, uneven fields or some other factor. A quasi-nutritionist on my team speculated that the Asian rice diet doesn't provide enough calcium or other nutrients that contribute to joint strength. Whatever it was, we were lucky to not have any injuries on Angelina's Orphans. Black Flag ended up winning the finals, but it was an intense game that showcased a high level of athleticism from both teams. It was great seeing a couple friends from Wisconsin/Minneapolis (pictured) who have been teaching English for the past year and a half in South Korea. Although I feel like I've been in Vietnam for a while, two-and-a-half months was nothing compared to all the expats I met that have been living in Southeast Asia for years. It was super interesting to hear about different experiences of those living and working in the region and how ours compared. The tournament was incredibly well-run and super fun, to say the least. I can't wait for the Vietnam Hat tournament in a couple weeks here in HCMC and the Bangkok Hat in February.

Monday in Manila
One of the guys on our team drove Lien and me back to Manila early Monday morning for some sight seeing before our 11pm flight back to Vietnam. First, we headed to Intramuros, an old, walled-city, and admired the district's architecture. It was cool to see how people were living there today side-by-side such areas as Fort Santiago, the 16th century Spanish defense fortress. Next, we headed to the pristine Rizal Park, named after the Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal, whose prison cell and execution site we had seen in Intramuros.

We spent the remainder of the day at Greenbelt Mall, which is one of the biggest malls in the world that is actually comprised of five malls. It was similar to the Mall of America except much of it was outdoors, including a beautiful food court where we had some authentic Filipino cuisine. Lien and I walked around, spent a few hours in a bookstore, and chilled at a Seattle's Best coffee shop. It was refreshing to see so many American restaurants and brands as well as be in a place where everyone speaks and understands English. While the dialects and ratio of Filipino-to-English spoken varies throughout the islands, the two are evenly intermixed in Manila. It was so cool to listen to people having conversations in which they switched back and forth between Filipino and English within each sentence. It reminded me of Cape Town in that everyone is bilingual and have beautiful accents when speaking English.

We finally headed to the airport where we met Rachel and Stephen, the couple on our team who run the landmine education-through-soccer organization in Phnom Penh. They were on our flight back to Vietnam because they were meeting one of their boys who was having open heart surgery in HCMC the following day. They did some fund raising as well as made a generous personal contribution to make it possible for this boy to have his defective bicuspid valve repaired. As said previously, my teammates do extraordinary work and are such an inspiration. While I didn't have a traditional Thanksgiving, I definitely reflected on all I have to be thankful for. While the American political scene, education system, and other aspects of society aren't necessarily in a great place right now, there are countless comforts and conveniences most Americans are privileged by that go under-appreciated.

Lastly, I thought I would get lonely living by myself, but luckily I've had plenty of geckos and cockroaches to keep me company so no need to worry :)

Also, I uploaded more pictures from the weekend on facebook.