Saturday Success- from Becky

Practicing at Escuela Bertha Pacheco

The alarm didn’t even need to go off to get me out of bed on Saturday morning. We were all so anxious to see if any of the girls from the schools would come to Saturday practice that I popped up like a daisy and threw on my SWB t-shirt ready to go. Some of the girls at the schools were confused about the location of the field so we told them that we would meet them at the big Cathedral in the center of town and walk to the field together. Myra and Ali went the normal way through the neighborhoods, and Lucas and I went to the Cathedral and waited… anxiously. (I just hoped that after appearing in front of six different groups of 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th graders we would get at least one new girl to come to practice).

We didn’t wait long! Just seconds after sitting on the steps of the Cathedral, a little girl, Pamela (pronounced Pa MAY la), ran up to me and gave me a hug. Once I was sure she wasn’t trying to sell me something (lots of kids sell things here and they always go after the “gringas” like me), I hugged her back and jumped around with excitement. We had gone to her school on Wednesday morning and I remembered her face because she was one of the girls that had really enjoyed the short session. Phew… I could relax, we had gotten at least one girl! But the excitement didn’t end there. A few minutes later a group of about eight girls ran over to us and huddled around. (It is a good thing we wear matching blue SWB t-shirts and are gringos/as…it makes us really easy to spot!). They were from the school on Friday and pumped to play some soccer. We waited a few more minutes and a few more girls showed up. By the time we started walking to the field we had a crew of about 15 new girls.

At the field there were a few more new players waiting and Myra and Hubs (along with all the other coaches that help out on Saturday) showed up with all the “regulars.” All in all we had about 40 girls there! We played some great energizing warm up games, and then split into two groups and did some of the kids’ favorites. At one point I looked over at the relays that Myra and Ali were leading because I heard so much screaming, cheering, laughing and joy, and I saw a pile of cleats and a bunch of kids with one shoe racing around. They certainly had a blast. The games at the end were a success, and there was a decent group of 12-14 year old girls that could really play soccer – future leaguers?? We hope so…

Practice ended, we got all the new girls names and information, and told them about our Wednesday nights in the office (noche de damas – “girls night”). The celebratory meal at Kathy’s waffles was unbelievable as we sat there quiet, slightly worn-out, but extremely satisfied with the success of the morning.

In the afternoon we played to yet another 0-0 tie (it sometimes seems impossible to score here) with the guys. Saturday evening we said farewell two of our teammates and neighbors Cesar and his older brother Ronald (who were leaving in the morning for Costa Rica) with a delicious feast prepared by our host family –with help from us, well mostly Myra. All in all, Saturday was a great day and we are eager for the coming week to go to more schools, finish the office, have another great Wednesday night discussion, and ultimately get more girls interested in soccer to come to practice!