The Nervigs go down fighting

So it's badminton tournament time at the Embassy. Y'all might remember my tough talk last year regarding my badminton skills.

Anyway, there are 3 competitions: men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed doubles. All organized by our CLO extraordinaire, my sexy wife.

I was the first Nervig to compete, as I teamed up with Tom, our neighbor and the security officer here. Now, first off, in a badminton tournament in Laos, two white guys playing together are a bit like a circus side show. Yeah, it's kind of interesting to watch, but in the end you wonder just what the heck is going on. And we definitely are the B (or C) team when put up against the Lao teams in the tournament, especially against the Embassy guards, who seems to work, sleep, and play badminton.

Anyway, we put up a valiant effort, and the guard team we played against kept us in the game by playing very kindly (they were playing against their boss, afterall...Tom, not me). However, in the end, we lost, 2 games to 1.

Katherine debuted in the women's doubles tourney today. She and Claudia, her partner, and a non-Asian, were also up against two dominating Asians, Sililack, an ethnic Vietnamese Lao and Naiyana, a Thai-American. Suffice it to say that, Katherine's heroic play notwithstanding, the non-Asians went down in defeat 2-0.

I've got one more chance to redeem myself, as I am playing in the mixed doubles tomorrow with Naiyana. Unfortunately for us, I'm a white guy, and we are playing against an all Lao team that includes an Embassy driver (only slightly below a guard in the badminton skills hierarchy).

Updates as warranted.