Happy Anniversary...to us! from Becky

Saturday's practice
An opening energizerIt is hard to believe, but it has already been 4 weeks since we first arrived in Nicaragua! It seems like just yesterday we were sitting around a table at Dartmouth looking at pictures from Mary’s trip last year, talking about the possibility of coming here. Now, here we are, immersed and invested in our lives here, with so much to do before we leave in March!

Friday, as Hubs’ mentioned, we had a game after our afternoon practice. We played the team F.C. Carita Feliz (the team from the Sports Academy that we visited a week ago – for more info on Carita Feliz see Hubs’ blog from last week!). Unfortunately, most of the game was spent with the ball out of bounds. With no grass, uneven fields, and lots of wind, it was hard for anyone to keep control of the ball and we literally spent half the time waiting for people to fetch the ball so that they could throw it in. After 60 minutes (short game) the score was 0-0 and I think I had touched the ball 3 times, if you count knee balls. Not too exciting.

However, Friday night was much more exciting! Myra, Hubs, and I tagged along with Chepe, Cesar and Martin to watch the Granada Tiburones (sharks) play baseball. The stadium was about a ten minute walk from our street, and entry cost just 10 cordobas (about 50 cents). Granada won the game, but we enjoyed the atmosphere and experience more than anything else (crazy bat boy dancing between innings, drunk excited men cheering their hearts out, chomping on churros and bonbons, and sharing in the excitement when the Tiburones hit a homerun).

Saturday we had our morning practice with just the girls. Numbers were up a little from last week, but still lower than we want… we’re hoping that once we start going to the schools the numbers will increase. Despite the low numbers, spirits were high and the girls were energetic, attentive, and had a blast. We worked on defending and were able to get through a lot of beneficial drills and games, and the scrimmage at the end was the best we’ve seen yet!

In the afternoon Hubs and I played another game, while Myra, taking care of her strained quad muscle, went to the office and organized ALL of the equipment. Thanks to so many generous people, Myra had a lot of cleats, shin guards, and other equipment to sort through and get ready to give out. Two kids have already earned enough points to pick out something from our “store,” and many other kids are just one or two points away. We’re excited to give the kids their hard-earned equipment and hope that by the time we leave all the kids at practices can have cleats on their feet instead of flip flops or no shoes at all. We thank all of you who are doing so much to help us achieve this goal!

Last night, we had our first dinner out on the main street in Granada. We had been avoiding the touristy area but we figured it would be a nice way to celebrate our four week anniversary! We were right. We enjoyed the street entertainment of jugglers, break dancers, musicians, and crazy woman with really hairy armpits in Hubs’ face, but most of all we enjoyed the good food!

The four week mark served as a reminder to evaluate our achievements thus far, as well as reexamine our goals for the rest of our time here… and of course it called for a minor celebration. Overall, I think we are proud of what we have achieved so far, but even more excited to get things done this next month – finish the office, head to the schools and teach gym classes, clean up the field (next Sunday), begin the life skills curriculum with weekly “girls nights” in the office (scheduled to start this Wednesday), and get everything ready for the big spring break camp in March!