Yesterday we were invited to watch the boys football team in their 3rd round match of the Pokhara region school's cup. We gathered, on a small, concrete stadium stand, very grateful of a the shade because the sun was beating relentlessly on the pitch. On the other side of the dusty football field, young men training for the Gurkha soldier entrance exams ran up and down the steps of the other stand (no shade there), with weighted baskets on their backs. I was chatting to one Gurkha hopeful in the stand and he said that among other tests, they have to do 70 sit ups in two minutes and run 800 m in under 2.45. There are around 4000 applicants each year for 63 places in the British Gurkha army.
Eventually it was the turn of our school to play, and they put up a sterling performance in the 30 minutes each-way game. The other team were bigger and stronger but our boys made up for it in skill and strategy, comfortably winning two - nill. They were also helped by a large supporting crowd of particularly vocal girls who probably did some long-lasting damage to their vocal chords and our eardrums! Next, it's the quater finals, and if they win the Pokhara contest, they enter the all-Nepal competition in Kathmandu.
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