Negative?

I’ve been working hard to try and reboot my youth group soccer team. I have been trying hard to get my team to practice again and feel like a group. It has been hard because I am usually busy during the week and can’t attend practice with them. Yet, as usual, I was able to do my usual job of soliciting the town truck and organizing another team to play against. Everything started off pretty normal and I thought it would just be another weekend soccer game. Of course I had to ask several parents for permission and swear nothing would happen to their sons, but that is pretty much standard. Maybe I should have taken that as an omen that this weekend might not be as easy as the lasts. My next big surprise didn’t come until we were all waiting in front of the alcaldia for the truck at 7 o’clock Saturday morning. The surprise was that we didn’t actually see the truck until 8:30, it just so happens that the vicalcaldesa wanted to join us and because she is the second in command, we have to fit her schedule. Fine, I understand how this works and I wasn’t too upset. Please, I am in Nicaragua and I am used to things not going as planned and as for a surprise guest this is small stuff.

Anyways, we get to the town which is about 2hrs away and several of us are pretty shaken up from the bumpy ride. Just to remind you all, we travel in the back of a flatbed truck and none of the roads are paved. This isn’t too bad, but it is made worse by the fact that the roads have only worsened with the rain and I swear our driver thinks he is a formula 1 driver. The team we were to play against was already there waiting for us, but something seemed out of place. I didn’t notice it until I stepped onto the field and my foot sunk. That was it, the grass was too green, we were basically playing in a swamp. The center of the field was a mud pit and the edges were probably a meter high of grass. Not your ideal playing conditions, to top it all off the field was probably 30m shorter than usual. Ugh, I can’t ask for perfection, but a little help every now and then would be helpful. I of course had to be the referee because my professor (counterpart) won’t do jack and our team was winning 3-0 by halftime. Things were going well, I was ready to take back my uneasiness from the problems earlier until the professor told me he was taking off to do errands in Matagalpa and was sure I had everything under control. I wasn’t happy about this, but I also wasn’t ready to make a scene in front of the kids so I told him it was fine. Well we finished the game and walked down to the highway where the professor told us the truck would be waiting. Nope, there was no truck. Hmmm… ok, don’t panic, it probably just went to go buy some gasoline and will be right back. Wrong again, 1 hour passes, 2 hour passes, finally 4 hours later the truck decides to grace us with it’s presence. I don’t want to dwell on it, but it was a miserable 4 hours.

So that enough right there is to ruin ones day. The professor who is supposed to be helping me watch the kid bounces, the truck is no where in sight, and I am on the side of a highway trying to keep 18 kids in order and out of danger. Oh no, it gets so much worse. We all climb into the back of the truck and start heading home. I noticed that everyone going in the other direction has rain jackets... weird. Nope, it was pouring ahead of us, in fact, very practical. We got drenched and pouring rain, high speeds, and exposed skin leads to a very unhappy Jason. I was livid and we still had to pick up the professor. We get to the stop and he isnt there. What the F... I couldnt take it, first he ditches us and now he has the audacity to make us wait for him while he was probably doing shopping. Urrggghhh, well we get him and then head down the unpaved part, ie the last 1.5hrs. It was miserable, I think the driver was trying to help us out by going faster but instead that just made the bumps hurt that much more. I was swearing like a sailor as every bump felt like my tailbone snapping. I was in the fetal position the entire time and I have never in my life felt just so beaten and lost. I didnt want to talk to anyone, acknowledge anyone, and I refused to even look at the professor.

It was all terrible and one week later I am still sick. True, I havent been helping the situation given I have been running everyday, I ran 20km this morning, but still. Yet, something happened at the end that made it all worth it. We were pulling into town and the players started screaming. They were celebrating our win that I had entirely forgotten about. It didnt matter to them at that moment that we were on the highway for four hours, or soaked to the bone, or exhausted, we had won and we were going to let the entire town know. I was so proud of them and I realized maybe I shouldnt be festering all this anger. Stuff happens and if anything people here are great at letting it just roll off your back.