Winning Smiles

Winning Smiles
Samohi SAGE Team Wins National Competition in Cincinnati Ohio

7.26.2008

News Flash: Team USA Santa Monica Places 3rd in World Cup Competition

















































It is late and details will be posted soon but we wanted everyone to know that the Santa Monica team has received third place this evening. Team Nigeria placed 1st and Team South Korea placed 2nd with Team Singapore receiving 4th place.

The competition was very tough and many teams were deserving of a place in the final four so we were thrilled when our names were called. In addition, Team USA Santa Monica received the second place award for SAGE World Cup Environmental 2008 recognition for the team's efforts to ban plastic bags in the City of Santa Monica.
The closing dinner, competition and awards ceremony were held at the Sheraton Hotel. All teams had to go to the dinner prepared to present since the final four were not announced until after dinner. One team at a time was announced, they then had five minutes to set up and then it was ready, set, go! After the judges finished scoring that team, then the next one was announced. That way no team had the advantage of having additional time to get ready. It also kept the suspense going up to the very end.

Follow-up Details: Friday was a long day. Today was the 2nd set of national 1st place teams along with the two national 2nd place teams that qualified to compete with the 1st place teams. Fours teams are to advance to the final four; two teams from yesterday's competion and two team's from today's competion.

Again the day was running on Nigerian time so this last round of teams presented much later than scheduled. The teams that presented today were very strong teams. Team USA New York presented and had tweaked their presentation to an even higher level than when they presented the previous day in the national 2nd place round competition which advanced them to the 1st place round.. Team Singapore consisted of three young men almost as diverse as the Santa Monica team. One was from China, one from Malay and one from Nigeria. It was quite an interesting mix of accents when they presented. The Nigerian team was terrific. Yesterday we presented after Nigeria’s national 1st place team but we think this national 2nd place team is even better. It turns out that this “2nd place” team is last year’s SAGE World Cup Champions! They are so young!! They range in age from 12 to 15 years old. Because of the high poverty and low percentage of children attending school, their high school is more comparable to our middle school. Brazil and Ghana also presented. The Brazilian team speaks limited English and spoke from notes. During the judges questioning they were given additional time to use a translator to respond to the questions.

After the final teams presented, we finally had lunch. Originally we were supposed to be at the Hilton for the final four event, then we were told the finals would be here and dinner would not be part of the event, then we were told that we would be going to the Sheraton, have the finals and then have dinner. What can we tell you but that we are in Nigeria and “everything will be ok”.

Before it was time to head out to the Sheraton, our team got together and decided to amp up our presentation just in case we moved to the final four. This is something we wanted to do on our own so only students were in the room working on it. We worked hard and then asked the our teachers and Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Strahn to see it. Mrs. Harrison gave each of us pins that said "Imagine, Believe, Achieve" and said that we had already done all of these whether or not we placed in the final four. She started to cry and then when we all held hands before we left the room, we shared what the experience had been for each of us and then we all started to cry!

The teams started loading up the buses at 4:30pm in the pouring rain which was the first significant rain we’ve experienced during the day. While we think LA traffic is bad, it will look pretty good after Abuja. Rush hour traffic, the pouring rain and Nigerian drivers combine into an exciting thrill ride. There are almost no traffic lights, lane markings mean nothing and it seems to be one long game of “chicken” with horns blaring constantly. Cars pass within less than an inch of each other. When it’s time to make a turn, there may be 10-12 “lanes” of traffic all weaving in and out of each in 4 or 5 directions, all daring each other to cross their lane. With all of that, we have yet to see a traffic accident or fender bender on any of our trips out on the roads. Since it was raining and our bus was packed we soon noticed the windshield fogging up and wondered if there was a defroster. Just as we were becoming concerned, the driver took care of it by wiping off his part of the window with his hand!

When we got to the Sheraton, all cars and buses were inspected and wanded before they are passed through the gate. As we entered the lobby all hand articles are put on a security screening belt and we must pass through a metal detector. The room was very large and set for a giant buffet. Turns out the food was pretty identical to the food at our hotel with the addition of lamb, roasted potatoes and roasted chicken. Dinner was now to going to be served first with the final presentations afterwards. It was hard to think about eating with everyone so nervous but soon the room was alive with the buzz of hundreds of voices mingling, celebrating, taking pictures with other teams, exchanging email addresses and business cards, etc. Again we are in Nigeria so there was lots of time before dinner. We would periodically think that dinner was about to start because the music would stop, we would be ordered to our seats, we would all return to sit for 5 minutes and then the music would start up again, nothing would be happen so we would all get up and start mingling and celebrating again.

After dinner and lots and lots of speeches, the finals began. They pulled the final four names one at a time from a bowl. Only 2 teams from each day would advance so when they announced on the first pull that South Korea would be presenting, we were sure we would not be making it to the final four because we were sure the national 1st place team from Nigeria would also advance out of our first day competition round. It was disappointing but we all began to relax. After South Korea presented they pulled the next team which was Team Singapore from the 2nd day. When they pulled the 3rd team they announced Team USA but didn’t say which one and we assumed it was New York since they presented on day 2. When they finally announced Santa Monica, we were so surprised that we shrieked out even though we had vowed not to do that because in many countries it is considered inappropriate to be demonstrative. We quickly set up and off we went with no power or equipment failures!!!! The judges questioning afterwards was quite challenging and one judge was critical because he insisted that our store and cafĂ© were not a “continuing business” (one of the critical SAGE criterion) because it had been established before SAGE was in existence. He did not know that the criterion for creating a new business each year came about largely because in the original start up of SAGE, only already established school based business enterprises were part of the SAGE project. We saw the judging card afterwards and that judge and the judge sitting next to him gave us zero points in that category. Oh well, while it’s frustrating, with so many judges, one or two judges can’t really determine the final outcome. The last team called up to present was Team Nigeria, (last year’s World Cup champions and this year’s Nigerian 2nd place team). There was definitely a “home team” atmosphere of jubilation in the room as their team took the stage. They are amazing. The term "tiny but mighty" definitely describes them. After they completed, the judging cards were collected and we heard more speeches and special presentations and awards while the tally was being done.

You’ve already know the results from the earlier post above so we won't repeat them here. After a few more photographs and exchanges of congratulations and best wishes, it was time to quickly board the buses and return “home”. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the Sheraton and only about 10 minutes to return, the difference being no rain and no rush hour traffic since it was after midnight. We were all exhausted but caught our second wind when we got back and stayed up way too late on our computers in the lobby sending messages back home.