Tennis is something that I have been into for about five years now, so I decided to observe the courts here. As I walked to the courts, I noticed they were all empty. There were no practices going on at this time, but I decided to just sit and wait to see if anyone would stop by. I waited for about a half an hour until I saw two people come walk toward the courts. There was one guy and one girl. They walked onto the courts, and the girl walked to the other side. As she was walking, the guy was bouncing the ball against the ground. The guy starts the rally by bouncing the ball on the ground, and then hitting it with his racket. The girl hits is back and the guy tries to slice it back, but the ball did not make it over the net. He starts up the rally again, and the girl hits it back but they can’t seem to be able to hit the ball back more than once each. The guy hits the ball over the net and yells to the girl, “Get it!” as the girl races to hit the ball. They finally are able to get a good rally going, and you can hear the ball bounce back and forth slowly and inconsistently. The guy ends the rally by hitting the ball into the net and the girl cheers for not being the one that made the mistake.
They take a break to gather up the balls, because they only had three to begin with. The guy picks up a ball, and randomly hits that ball over the fence as a joke. The yellow ball flies over the fence, and the guy runs out to get it. There is little interaction between the two when playing tennis. The girl starts the rally, and the yellow ball goes over the net and bounces near the guy, so he swings, but misses the ball completely. You can hear the ball bouncing off in the distance; hit the fence, and drops to the ground. Along with balls bouncing around the courts, the sound of shoes shuffling can be heard. Their shoes squeak when preparing to hit the ball correctly over the net.
The guy and the girl mess around with the yellow tennis balls for a little while longer. They decided to call it quits, because it was hot outside and they were tired. They collect their three tennis balls and their water bottles. They walk to the gate, and as they open it, the gate screeches and they walk out. The guy walks out after the girl and turns around to shut the gate. The gate again screeches. The courts, once more, are empty with only the wind being heard.
1 comment:
This is incredibly rich description here. It looks as though you have begun to identify the culture of the place you are describing as well.
Some possible directions might be to look at the context of the court: what is around it, what makes it stand out, what is it juxtaposed against.
I am not sure how to look at the cultural aspect more deeply...perhaps identify people who frequent the court regularly...talk to them. Maybe look up the history of the court itself: when was it made, what is it made of, etc. Is the court something that everyone should be happy (or indifferent) about, or is the location of the court some cause of distress for someone, possibly?
This is the challenge of ethnographic writing: to bring in an aspect of culture that captures the reader's interest. that is to say: I am interested, but how do we get to the next place?
Very good. Perhaps the peer review will get some more ideas generated.
Thanks
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