Of Aunties, Uncles and Volleyball....

On Thursday, a friend called me up and said she had read about some volleyball tournament during the weekend. She had called up to ask whether we could take part even though it was past the closing date. And oh ya! Did I forget to mention that she said we were a ladies' team. She was told that they could accommodate us and the teams can be a mix of men and ladies.

So she proceeded to get the players. I was the first to say okay. But I felt it might be difficult to get the minimum 6 as there was so little time. The matches were to be held the following morning. Then again, with a bunch of die hards like us, we managed to get 5 and 2 spouses. 8)

This was yesterday! When Kim and I got there, this sign was hanging at the gate. Oops! Young Malaysians... I think we hardly qualify. The oldest among us is past her 50s. The youngest is just shy of 40, with the rest of us all sporting the figure 4 ahead of the next number. But oh well! We could still be young at heart! LOL!

It was raining as I changed into my shoes... well, outdoor volleyball, rain or shine, the game continues... unless it rains cats and dogs! And we were 'siao' enough to brave the rain.

Then the next bomb shell... the rest of the teams were all guys... with teams made up of young guys from the Kolej Perubatan and school kids. We took comfort that there were 2 teams made up of senior men... Calling our team "Out-of-the-Line' in Mandarin, we were really standing out like sore thumbs in a field of the XX-es.

But then, since we were already there, we thought we might as well carry on. Waited for more than 2 hours for our games... the rain came, went, came... followed by the sun... interesting weather you could say.

We finally played... the first team we played were school kids... they looked like 15-17 year-olds. How can a bunch of aunties and uncles compete against young and lithe kids??? But we were still foolhardy... even though we knew we were like a herd of cows waiting to be slaughtered.... BTW, look at No. 8 play. Aunties also can do that!

In we went... and played... expecting to lose.. but we played our best. The youths must have been quite confident.. after all, the net was set at the guys' level which meant that we were kinda short in front of it. Spiking was out of the question... not that we were that great spikers! But after a few points, the kids were looking kinda jaded cos these aunties with the help of the two heroes were able to return ball for ball... we ding-donged throughout the game.

Everyone expected us to be easy meat... we lost... 19-21, 18-21! But looking at the score, I think they must have felt really bad. Later we played another game with a group of men too.. oldies like us.. we lost too. But considering we were a bunch of aunties (and 2 men), with a total age of 300 years for 7 players... being able to hold out against the stronger sex was a good feeling.

On a weekend which saw us braving the rain, forgoing the usual Friday stuff that we do for a crazy swing at our youth... it wasn't too bad. Years from now, I guess most of us will look back and remember this, one, crazy weekend, of pitting ourselves against all odds and coming out of it not too badly scathed! LOL!