Bump Set Spike in Ban Nam Hom

By: Amanda Phillips and Kenzie Mitchell

As many might know the two of us have played volleyball for most of our lives, so you can imagine our excitement as we arrived at the school and saw the volleyball court in the middle of the school yard.  The first day we ate lunch, took a short tour of the school and then it was game time.  We definitely underestimated our opponents when our twelve year old competition beat us 25-17 in the first set.  After that it was on Amanda and I may have become ball hogs, but we did come through with a win.  You could say it was the Kenzie and Amanda show!  We were really impressed with the talent of these girls that have been coached to focus on basic passing skills, which has really payed off.  From coaching this same age group in the states we were really impressed with the skill level, and their coachability.  Even with the language barrier we were still able to communicate and teach these girls through hand gestures, mimicking and demonstrations.  We were also very impressed with how much they wanted to learn and so willing to work hard to improve.   We had lots of fun teaching the girls to snap their wrists when they hit, and to follw through with superman hands when they set.  Then we played with some of the faculty and mixed our team in with them and a couple of the girls.  It was all fun and games until Kenzie, who was having a little too much fun trash talking the teachers, accidentally hit one of the little girls in the face.  We really enjoyed playing every day until the downpour came and were mudded off the court.  You could say we lived every volleyball girls dream playing volleyball everyday in the mud in Thailand, although our feet may still be slightly stained red from it.