Playing Futbol - Blogabond

Tonight we had planned to go to the big Virgin Mary celebration in the Central Park but were too exhausted after playing soccer with the older local kids in San Iganico this afternoon. Even tough Tuesday, tomorrow, is the main holiday and a day off for all Nicaraguans most of the volunteers decided they wanted a long weekend and planned not to work today, Monday. SO we had to cancel summer school for Monday. Instead Ryan and I decided to volunteer to volunteer. We took the morning to do some planning for the rest of the week then went up to San Igancio to play with sports with any kids that showed up. We packed the van with a baseball bat, tennis ball, cones, a soccer ball and water. In San Igancio we drove to the dirt and dirty field (campo) and waited for the kids to come. Not surprisingly pretty quickly after we arrived some kids came out of their house toward us. We started a game of baseball with some younger kids (8-12). For being a soccer happy nation they really like baseball, know lots of the rule and are pretty good at it. It was great seeing them organize them selves: pitcher, catcher, first, second, third base and outfield. They know strikes, foul tip, home run but not so much “ball” throws or walking the batter. I loved watching them yell at each other to manage the game….afuera, afuera (out, out)…no, no seguro, seguro (safe, safe).

A little while later a group of older guys (16-20) showed up. We played a little more baseball then changed to soccer after they were hitting the ball too far for the younger kids to chase after it. The soccer game started off as a fun friendly game but quickly became an intense (still friendly) real soccer game. The younger kids naturally got booted out, kinda unfortunate, but I was having SO much fun playing soccer even though we got our butts kicked. Some of the guys were playing bare feet in the dirt and still running circles around us!! Fortunately though the goals were tiny so we could hold our own. Ryan got about 3 goal attempts and I had 2 slide tackles.

Two hours flew by fast when we were having fun. When we left they kept asking us when we would come back. Tomorrow, the next day. I don’t think any of the younger kids and definitely not the older guys come to the summer school program, so they were all super excited to be involved. Ryan and I were also really happy to connect with the older guys as well kinda like we were gaining respect from them. Anyways, because we have school we don’t have much time or energy to go out there everyday but I definitely want to do it again.

**Bummer…we forgot to bring out camera so we don’t have any pictures of the guys we played soccer with. Maybe next time. ***

written by

ryan & debbrial on December 8, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua

from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas

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