Saturday, July 7, 2012

Saturday, July 7th, 2012

What a day!  We ran a "TT" tournament today at the PAHS dorms.  "TT" is slang for table tennis or ping pong.  TT seems to be a popular sport here in Nepal as we've seen many outdoor tables on our bus rides around the city.  The idea of running a TT tourney came about early this week while we were talking with some 1st batchers about what types of hobbies/leisure they like to engage in during their spare time and TT was brought about numerous times by both males and females.  We found this very interesting because our own student lounge at UBC lies a thoroughly used ping pong table.  Perhaps there's something about TT and medical students that is shared across the world?? Back to the tournament, we had only 1 table to work with at the dorms so we decided to organize a double's tourney that hosted men's, women's and co-ed brackets.  Considering the size of the venue, participation was modest but worked out well.  We had 10 men's teams, 7 co-ed teams and 4 women's teams.  All games were well-played and accompanied by sincere sportsmanship!  We also had a small turnout of ping pong fans who provided big crowd support!!  With only 1 table, there was a lot of lag time between games so we also played some volleyball and badminton on the side.  5 hours later, champions rose from each division: *enter drum roll* from the women's bracket our gracious winners were Srijukta and Rosa; from the co-ed bracket, the dynamic duo of Purnima and Bijay; and last but not least from the men's bracket, through a hard-fought final Abishkar and Nepolean were crowned champions!

Our prizes were a modest new pair of TT rackets and a set of TT balls.  We also brought "North American" snacks that included Oreos and Pringles which are undoubtedly part of a med student's nutritious diet (kidding)! Needless to say, the snacks were popular.  Champion and group photos were taken.  Check in for a photo update shortly.

Namaste.