Sunday, December 13, 2009

nov 30

I’m old, fat, and slow.

…At least, that’s how I feel.

Soccer (futbol) is a big sport here. I don’t think the word “big” really gives it justice, but because I’m always at a loss of words (both Spanish and English), I’ll just leave it at that. Last week the kids posted a paper on the door of the cafeteria. It was a list of different groups… actually, the more appropriate word would teams. To go into more detail, the lists were futbol (soccer) teams. At first I thought, “This can’t be too bad. A little running will do me good.” As a silly American, I definitely overestimated my abilities. I mean, I know I can’t play soccer very well, but I didn’t understand how much pain the sport would bring me playing against children. I practiced with one of the girls right before the graduation dinner on Thursday. As she yelled at me to run faster toward the ball, I felt as though all the bread and ice cream was yelling in my other ear to stop.

The volunteers and I were talking before the games started. We all agreed that we were nervous. These kids love futbol. It’s a deep, deep love. It was very possible that a 13 year old would start chewing us out for messing up… but it was too late to turn back. One of the volunteers was on my team and so we began preparing for defeat (not of our team, but of ourselves…both mentally and physically). That’s when we find out that we only have 4 players. We had the best girl on our team, but she couldn’t play because she had been disrespectful. The other younger girls couldn’t play because they were being punished as well. It was not very good news for us. The losers had to pay 5 limps each to pay for the winner’s lunch. After searching for people to play with us, we finally got a few girls to agree to it. The game started. These girls get pretty angry when someone messes up because futbol is serious business to them. You don’t mess… with the pies (not as in yummy pie, pies means feet… haha, yeah, not funny. Ignore me). Although we were the underdogs, we ended up having a tied game. I was torn between ecstasy and horror. I had worked so hard and I was so tired. The fact that we didn’t lose made me feel like I was unstoppable (the kids like to bust out singing We Are the Champions… that’s what I felt like even though it was tie game). On the other hand, we had to play again because they weren’t doing penalty kicks. This made me want to cry. I imagined playing another game much like the one I just played, but instead of barely making it through, my legs would go on protest during the first half and refuse to work again.

This was yesterday.

Today, I feel more tired than I have been during the whole 3 months here. My legs ache and I feel like collapsing. I was at the Infa sitting at a table and accidentally fell asleep. I woke up to a child shaking me and asking me to read them a story. And why am I this tired? …Because of one soccer game. I hardly think that’s normal… but I’m working on it. Hopefully Miss Old-fat-and-slow will say goodbye if I start playing with them more often. But the catch is I have to do it… and after yesterday, the sidelines look a lot more appealing to me.

Well, I’m off to bed. It’s already past my bedtime.

p.s.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOLA!!!!

Nov 26

Happy thanksgiving!

… okay, so it wasn’t as happy for me, but I’m trying to be thankful here! It’s hard to be away from family when you know they’re all gathering together without you. Tarynn and I were talking about our Thanksgivings and I’ve become more aware of how strange my family may seem to other American families. While some families eat apple pie and mashed potatoes, we have barbeque, rice, and some weird gooey purple stuff for desert. And although my family may not have the most traditional Thanksgiving, we spend it together and I believe that’s the most important thing. I’ve realized how hard the holidays are going to be. Today some of the kids graduated high school and so the tables were set up different and we ate enchiladas, veggie meat, and soup. This was very exciting because on Thursdays, the dinner menu usually consists of bread (it may be good or bad, depending on what kid made it that day) and some weird soy spread.

I’m thankful for:
God’s love (seriously could not make it through these 3 months without this)
Family and friends
Good health
Running water
My own bed
Enchiladas, veggie meat, and soup
Jane Austen
Internet, no matter how limited
Phone cards!! (Since I can’t have my family with me, I’ve got to make do)

November 22

All volunteers supervise tables at every meal. Tarynn sits with a bunch of hungry, growing boys and she needs to fight to get food. I, on the other hand, deal with other kind of fighting. I sit with the preteen girls. Well, they’re not all preteens, but they all act like they’re very much in charge of everything. There is always someone fighting with someone else. I can’t understand everything they say, but it sounds pretty vicious. There’s always a girl that doesn’t want to talk to me and there’s always a girl that says that they hate the food and they don’t want to eat it. One of the girls is older than me, but she acts like a child. Her name is Letty and she has two sides to her. One is when she’s angry or upset and doesn’t want to do something. She will fuss and pout for as long as she can. There are many times when she just sits with tears in her eyes and refuses to eat because someone said something like, “You said this and I’m going to tell on you.” One day, she got angry at one of the girls because she had a nicer chair than she did. She thought that she took it from her even when I was there before she got there and said that she hadn’t. Letty then took her chair and put it away against the wall and then started eating at the table standing up. When she realized that I wouldn’t pay attention to her if she was acting like that, she took her food and sat on the floor and ate… she was crying the whole time. The other side is a lot happier, I must say. She laughs for no reason and gives you hugs and talks a lot of nonsense. She’ll call you her friend and she’ll tell you things that have no relevance to your conversation. For instance, she came up to Tarynn and told her it was Friday. Then she informed Tarynn that Saturday comes after Friday. Then she proceeded to tell her what days come after that. She can get pretty funny sometimes. Today we were talking about friends. She said that she has exactly 6 friends and so I asked her to name all of them. She started off with me (very thoughtful) and then moved on to four more people. After she finished naming off the 5 people, I pointed out that she was missing one. She looked surprised and then she started picking people in the room to be her friend. After she named off a few names, making the friend list longer, I reminded her that she has a lot more friends by asking questions like, “how about so-and-so?” She was extremely happy that her group of friends grew significantly in the last 5 minutes. I don’t blame her, I would be happy too. (: