Grand Canyon University Athletics
Daniels' Championship update, day two
7/30/2010 7:40:22 PM | Dominique Daniels - BMX
Daniels recaps her 2nd day in South Africa.
The world knows of Daniels talent and it isn't uncommon for people to approach her for an autograph or maybe even a photo. However, on her second day in South Africa she was approached by a member of a tribe's royal family with a very interesting request...
Hey guys, Dominique Daniels here again! Keeping you up to date on all of the things going on while I’m over here in South Africa. So lets start by opening up with day two of the BMX World Championships.
From the start of the morning I was anxious with excitement of the upcoming race day. But first to start any day, breakfast, one of my favorite meals of the day. So the hotel serves breakfast for free. You have your eggs and bread with little amenities like butter and such. What is not on a typical Denny’s breakfast menu in AZ, however, is liver. Unfortunately, I found this out slightly too late. As the liver is covered with a nice broth, it came to look like that of breakfast beef, which is just beef (like sausage) with some local spices. On the other side of the menu you have the same old drinks, typical coffee and juices, but how about instead of apple juice and O.J., why don’t you challenge your taste buds to watermelon and cantaloupe juice, topped with a blend of a mango looking fruit called narinjee? Sounds yummy I’m sure to some of you folks who are into that kind of stuff, but there is a catch. Foods in other countries, such as the one I’m in right now, don’t taste the same as they do at home. Most of the food here comes straight from local farmers, including the fruit. Needless to say, foods taste different in its natural, “unaltered” state, which until you experience it for yourself, is something that we truly aren’t accustomed to. So after a nice meal of scrumptious eggs and toast with, ahem, water, it was on the way to the track.
As soon as I got to the track I knew it was going to be a good day. I didn’t know quite how interesting it was going to be until the end of practice. I failed to mention that the BMX World Championship is taking place in the Royal Fairgrounds. But now that that is out of the way, I can move on to the interesting proposal that I was offered after I had finished my practice. I kid you not, I was approached by a Prince of the KwaZulu-Natal National who asked me if I would marry him. Despite being flattered, I had to decline. There was no way that I was going to move to another country and give the life I had in the states to a supposed proposal of happy marriage when the guy hadn’t even asked me out on a date first. Besides, I was more than certain that my dad would’ve said no anyways when, and if, I had timidly brought it up.
After that interesting segment, I received a congratulatory gift from women dressed in ceremonial fancy gowns of such mystic tropical jungle colors. Most of it contained fruit, another part, some lavish soaps. I had an idea of whom the gift had come from in such a short time and by such lovely ladies but again, I was steadfast in my answer that I would not be becoming the princess of a country that I had only been in for a week.