December 21, 2017

Surin, Thailand: Mahout Olympics

Sawadeeka (Hello!)

Cheers to another breakout post from Surin! Here you will find my brief description of what the Mahout Games were and you will find out who the WINNER was…MY TEAM, I mean, you will soon find out 🙂

On the Saturday before the volunteers, the project holds what they call the “Mahout Olympics”. The concept is basically teams compete against each other in the set games. The games were like no other I had ever played before. They were basically “street version” games of something we might play in America, before the cellphone takeover. The mahouts and the volunteers were teamed up together. You immediately knew who were the competitors in the bunch – JM was included…and so was I!

Every drew a number from the pile to figure out who was on what team. This time, there were 3 teams. JM was on a team with R and mahouts. L & K were on a team together with mahouts, and I was the solo farang on a team of all mahouts. And I was ready – the winning fire had been set early on in the week when R told us to practice our sling-shot aim. Well, despite “practice”, I wasn’t that good at that, but ended up rocking some of the other games. Each person got a turn at the game – farangs went first, followed by the mahouts. Points were calculated based on the game, both having chances to get positive and negative points for your team. While the games might seem basic, they were quite fun! Good ole competition with some good people – can’t get worst than that!

If you were wondering what the games were, check out below:

Game 1: Slingshot, aiming at empty plastic bottles. The farang (remember foreigner, from my “I’m Backkk post“) would go first. We had to aim for the back, big bottles. If we hit the little bottles, it was negative points. The mahouts had the opposite – hit the small bottles, avoiding the bigger bottles….or else, negative points.

Game 2: “Marbles and Hands”? I don’t even know what to call this game or compare it to. Let’s see if I can explain it well enough. You held 10 marbles in your hand, clenching them in a fist. You had to throw the marbles up and catch them on the back of your hand. From there, you had to snatch them back into your palm. And the amount you caught back in your palm was the number of points you got for the team. This game was muchhh harder than it looked. Try it sometime!

Game 3: “Shoe slide”. You took your shoe off and tried to hit the back plastic bottles, avoiding the side bottles, or else….NEGATIVE POINTS! (Everything had negative points consequences.) It really was as basic as sliding your shoe across the floor – haha.

Game 4: Mini Putt-Putt. This was the closest to putt-putt golf – hit a wiffle ball at one back plastic bottle, avoiding the side bottles … negative points, you got it! Again, it was as simple as that.

I didn’t mention what happened when you lost? The winners (MY TEAMMMMM!) got the first choice of snacks/goodies. 2nd place got second dibs. Well, the losing team…JM and R’s team….well, they got smeared with baby powder and did the chicken dance – at least the equivalent to the American chicken dance. It was definitely a sight to see. Everyone got R the most. I am sure he wouldn’t mind me sharing the pictures from this! In order of who got it the worst, R, JM and then all the mahouts.