Water Four meets the Tucson Roller Derby

This past week was probably one of the craziest so far here in Tucson…but ended with what was definitely a weekend to remember. Of course we did a lot of tax preparation, and then whenever we weren’t doing taxes, we were running around trying to get everything (donations, food, equipment, volunteers) squared away for Community Unity Day.

Then the weekend began. Sun 1 had their Day of Service, working at a Girl Scout camp digging out a pond that had been filled with twenty years of sediment. We had worked a schedule around our tax sites, so that we would all be able to go and volunteer at some point but unfortunately, it got rained out after about an hour of work. Some of us were still able to go though, and we got some work done and got to hang out with Sun 1 for a little while, so that was cool. Although it was too bad for Sun 1’s Day of Service, it did give us a few extra hours to pull together some last minute things for our own Day of Service.

Then Saturday night, we went to the Tucson Roller Derby! Roller Derby is an all female full contact sport on roller skates. None of us had ever been to a Roller Derby before, but I guess it’s pretty popular…there were over 1,000 people in attendance! It was a little crazy, and a very unusual experience—we were pretty much all in awe. They handed out some pamphlets on “Roller Derby 101” which helpfully explained the basic rules. We had a ton of fun trying to learn and use all of the derby lingo, like ‘bout,’ ‘pivot,’ ‘blocker,’ and our favorite: ‘jam.’ At certain points, the lead jammer is able to ‘call off the jam,’ by touching her hands to her hips three times. This phrase/gesture is one our team has taken to using all the time as a way to end conversations, arguments, activities, or even just randomly for fun. After it ended, we even got to meet and take pictures with the Tucson team! It was a truly unique experience that I think all of Water Four will remember fondly for quite a while.

~Jo