Second time around- From Hubs

Poetry festival
Girls night at the office

Tuesday we held practice in the morning and in the afternoon for the kids in our barrio and other nearby barrios. During the morning practice, only two children showed up due to school in the morning. We’re thinking of only holding practices on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons only, seeing as our numbers in the afternoons always tend to be greater than in the mornings. The two children that showed up were as excited as we were to find that they had full cards! Our point system for the children enables them to get cleats, shinguards, socks, etc. by filling up their own individual card with twenty points. Once a child gets twenty points, they receive their choice of equipment. My and Posk brought the two children to our office to claim their new cleats. Despite not holding a practice, the morning was a sure success seeing the two kids walk away with smiles on their faces and well-earned cleats in hand.

That afternoon we thankfully had more children around to practice. We made it home for some dinner, went to the office to sort a few things out, and then went with Suyen, Chepe, and some other friends from our barrio to this poetry festival in the center of Granada. There are events taking place throughout this entire week; so far we’ve seen many talented dancers, singers, and poets. The dancers had on the most beautiful dresses, and danced along to popular Nicaraguan songs. Suyen, Chepe, and the others didn’t stop smiling, dancing, and singing, and their excitement was contagious. It was great to see how much pride Nicaraguans have for their country and people at events like this.

On Wednesday, we visited school in the morning and in the afternoon. Although it was a long walk, it was worth every step once we reached the school. The girls were enthusiastic and showed interest in making the trip to Saturday practice (as they continued to ask where and when it was after we had told them about ten times).

Wednesday night we had our second Life Skills meeting. The theme of this meeting was “leadership,” and we played some games that dealt with that theme. Suyen and Becky were the first to arrive to the office (with two girls who were so eager for the meeting to start that they showed up to our house an hour early), while My and I followed after picking up a few girls along the way. It was great to see some new faces, but even better to see returning faces (letting us know we did something right at meeting one!). We had cookies and soda, and after playing the leadership games, Myra explained a scenario for the girls to analyze and discuss. The scenario was as follows: A group of your girlfriends want to go to a movie. You have every intention of going with your friends, but you know that another one of your friends, Maria (we were praying no one had a friend or sister named Maria…), who doesn’t usually hang out with these particular girls but is still a friend of yours, wants to go with your big group of friends. We asked the girls to think about what they should do: invite the friend to come along, or just go with the original group of girls to the movie. After a few minutes, a few of the girls started raising their hands, saying that they should invite the girl to go, because by extending the invitation she wouldn’t feel left out. We agreed, and then tried to explain how being a leader doesn’t necessarily mean doing the most popular or “cool” thing. Anyways, needless to say, the second meeting was another success, and we were all pleased with the turnout and participation of the girls.

Looking forward to the rest of the week!