Let the Sports Begin

It has been an interesting last few weeks, Peace Corps is actually turning into a job. I have been writing to people complaining about my new responsibilities, but I guess that is what it is supposed to be like. No more sitting on the sidelines for me, no sir, I am now an active member of the community and trying to get things done. I don’t want to make it sound like I was a slouch before, but it has definitely been turned up a notch in the last week or two.

As one of my last group emails showed, I had to attend a conference in Managua. The picture pretty much describes my agony. We were put up in prison like conditions, housed like sardines, and fed bread a water. The worst part was I was only allotted two hours of rest on the hammock a day. Ha, it was the best type of training I could have ever attended. We stayed at Vistamar, a hotel located on the Pacific Ocean and near some of the best surfing beaches in the country. My hotel room had a nice view of the beach and every morning I woke up at 5am to go for a run along the beach. Don’t get me wrong we worked our butts off from 8am to 6pm during training sessions and I learned a lot, but afterwards I took charge to organize soccer games on the beach and karaoke night. I must say, I am fond of leadership positions, maybe the position befits me. Of course my soccer team one, I don’t want to sound cocky, but I did score over half the goals for my team and I knew how to pick strong teammates. The one downside, or should I say responsibility of such training events is that I am now expected to act on my new capacities. My jobs have increased in town and I am now working at the local high school, my soccer teams have just begun in the local league, and I am giving health charlas with the Centro de Salud.

 

I don’t want to bore you with all of my new duties or jobs, but lets just skim over some of the highlights. I am trying to work with my youth group more. With the help of one of the professors we organized a game in San Ramon about two weekends ago. The idea was that we knew another professor in town who had a team and he would be waiting for us on Saturday morning. I spent the whole week soliciting the Alcaldia for money to pay for our bus fair and the Vica-Alcaldesa was kind enough to help me out. Because this is Nicaragua it changed the night before we were supposed to leave and now we were leaving one hour earlier in the town truck since it was heading to Matagalpa anyways; fine I don’t mind saving the town some money. Well when the truck pulled up the following morning it was filled with about 20 church goers and their musical instruments. I don’t know what they were thinking but the mayor just looked at me and said, “jump in”. Ha, what a joke, I am responsible for 15 kids and they are somehow supposed to squeeze into the bed of a truck with 20 other people… surprisingly, yes and they did. It was the most uncomfortable ride of my life and my thighs were on fire after an hour of sitting in an awkward squatting position. The fun just kept coming however, we got dropped off at the wrong stadium. I don’t know what the driver was thinking since we were all in soccer gear, but he brought us to the baseball stadium. Hmph, not a good start, anyways I gave my contact a call and this is where the fun really starts. He first tells me he is on his way, then after an hour of sitting around I decide I will go to his house. I walk into town with some of my kids and find out that the guy decided to go to Matagalpa for the day and won’t be back until evening. That was nice of him, I went through all the trouble of getting transport, gathering my kids, and this guy leaves us high and dry. I was pissed but I wouldn’t let it ruin our day. I marched my team the 2km down the highway to the soccer stadium and figured we could at least practice. As we showed up we must have been quite the site all in uniform ready to play. Some of the barrio kids came out to see what was going on and I got the bright idea of calling them over and seeing if we could start a pick-up game. I asked the guard if I could borrow his whistle and it turned out to be a  really good game. My team lost, but that was probably for the better because we hadn’t practiced for two months and I didn’t want their egos to be too inflated. Plus, they were a bunch of punks: they weren’t passing, they were playing with their heads down, and were downright lazy. To top it all off some of my players refused to shake hands at the end of the game and that sent me over the edge. I threatened to kick anyone off the team who refused to line-up. I don’t know why it unnerved me so much, but I want to instill in my players the importance of sportsmanship and I hate how they are so quick to think they have always been wronged.

After my eventful morning I had to get out of San Dionisio. My friend in Esquipulas had been sick for the last week and I called her up to see how she had been doing. I decided that I was going to rush up to my house and bake her banana bread. It turned into a bigger ordeal than I thought and because of the bus schedules I didn’t get into Esquipulas until about 8pm, but I had banana bread in hand and I cooked a kick-ass dinner. To top it all off I even made brownies and the best part was just being able to unwind with one of my friends.

 

The final event on the docket was this last weekend. Sunday was the inaugural day of the Futbol and Baseball League in town. All the teams were to meet in front of the Alcaldia and we were to march through town. My youth group was told to come early and the Visa-Alcaldesa handed out new uniforms to my entire team. They were told that they were the official representatives of the town in the infantile league and they looked good. I was proud of them, if I leave anything in this town after my two years I guess it will be my ability to motivate at least 18 kids to form a soccer team. Anyways, we prepared to march and I had to join my team, that’s right, I joined a team and would be playing as well. I was nominated to be one of the directors and treasurers of my team. I think it was because they know I am not so good as a player or they think I am just a gringo and by giving me an honorary title I will be more willing to buy them things. I didn’t care, I am just happy to be hanging out with guys my own age. 

  The parade is pretty much what you would expect during Memorial Day in the States. We all joined up and were told to form two lines. In intermittent spots bands broke up the lines of players and were busy blasting traditional songs. You would have swore you were lining Burnside Ave until a stray pig ran through the ranks or you heard the calls of drunken men on horses. It is funny how sometimes I can forget where I am until a sudden shock such as seeing a malnutrition child or a stray pack of dogs breaks me of my daydream. 

 

Not to toot my own horn, but my youth group team is good. They only got to play a 30 minute game, but they won 2-0 against the high school’s team. To top it all off we had to lend the high school our other jerseys. That’s right, we have not only one, but two jerseys, our own soccer balls, and thanks to some donations, all the players have soccer socks as well. It was a scorching day and I was burning to a crisp. There is literally no shade out by the soccer field and since it all had been recently painted the Alcaldia decided to keep us out there baking for an hour while it went on making political speeches about how great they were. I guess not too different than me bragging in my own blog, but you all are not a captive audience. Finally my adult team was ready to play and I was cast aside as a substitute. I was promised that I would see game time, but I inherently doubted that. My gut proved correct and when the final whistle blew and we won 2-1 I couldn’t help but feel a little apathetic and agitated that I contributed in no way. Yet, I was also secretly happy because there were a lot of people watching and I didn’t want to be responsible for us losing. I just need to be more confident, I dominated on the beach and I guess there is no reason why I can’t do the same in San Dionisio.