Baseball in Another Time Zone - Danny

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Being at the school today was an exciting one for me. Ms. Mills brought a wiffle bat and ball to the children. Considering baseball is my favorite game in the entire world, I was so happy to have the opportunity to teach the children how to play when they were not in class. Until I saw the children grabbing the bat and ball, it never really occurred to me that most of the world is unfamiliar with the game that we once called America's Pastime.

So teaching young children how to swing a bat couldn't be that hard, could it? I would say that so far it has been the most difficult teaching I have done since we got here. First of all, I had to show the students that a wiffle ball is thrown with the hands and not kicked with the feet. Then, we had to go through the tedious task of teaching each child how to hold the bat and swing it. Some of the children picked up the swing pretty quickly, and others probably need a little more work. So many children wanted to play that a giant line of students formed. Unfortunately, it only occured to us later to rotate the line 90 degrees in order to get the students out of the line of fire of a batted ball.

A few students got pegged pretty hard by their fellow classmates. I was surprised, though, upon seeing how tough the Kilimanjaro students are when pain is inflicted upon them. I remember that I used to cry as a little kid every time someone tapped me. The students here are tougher at 3-7 years old than I am now.

I just hope some students remember how to swing a bat after today. Now, we need to teach them how to run around the bases.

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