In typical Salvadorian style, the kids roll in over the course of 2 hours, even tho things officially start at 8:30. And typically, only boys come. Of the 140+ kids in the program, less than 10 are girls, if I understood correctly.
The boys loved the fact that Gillian, Aubrey, and Shelby could juggle the soccer ball. They laughed and pointed at each other when one of them would challenge a Northrup and lose. Later, we had a formal "juggle off" and Shelby and Gillian won their heats (Against Salvadorian boys, mind you). Aubrey crushed it too, but was up against a savant who could probably go all day.
And then chicas started to show up. Girls from the community had been told that we were running a special soccer camp - just for girls. We ended up with about 12 or so. Girls from 10 to 15 years old. It was great. Josue translated for me while we worked on ball striking (shooting, passing) as a group. We took lots of water breaks as the heat beat down on us.
At about 10:30, Shelby said she didn't feel good, so I told her to bow out and drink water. About a half hour later, it started to hit me. I felt weak and nauseated. I wasn't surprised since I hadn't slept most of the night and still cramping from the diarhea. We were getting into our last activity and I felt like I was losing the battle. Before long, I was out of the picture - sitting on hot concrete steps trying to keep from passing out or throwing up.
At 11:30, I stood up, told Josue what was going to happen, and proceeded to throw up about a gallon of clear water - fortunately, only everybody at the school saw me: boys, chicas, and trainers. It was a low moment.
Lauren and Josue knew I was in trouble at that point. But we needed to wait for our transport to come get us. So while we waited, we watched the older boys take over the "field" (of dirt) for a full field scrimmage. It was painfully obvious in watching them play how limiting their field conditions are. The ball never rolls smoothly and is bouncing all over the place because the ground is so hard. In fact, the ball is airborne most of the time. And they are brilliant in the air. But you can only be so good as a collection of people trying to advance an airborne ball down the field. It was amazing and somewhat sad. These people love the sport, but don't even have a smooth dirt surface to play on.
We limped home and Shelby and I got in bed. I still had an entire afternoon of work ahead of me. But the Salvadorians were able to rework the schedule a bit and allow me time to rest.
Maltez, a missionary with CFTC, was very excited to have me teach their coaches about Futsal - a Brazillian variant of soccer. As a city-based mission organization, their interest in a form of soccer that can be played on basketball courts is spot on. The only green grass here is at cemeteries. Irrigation is too expensive and San Salvador is in hill country. I saw some boys playing on a cement court at the school, but they had a regular soccer ball that was bouncing all over the place - not a Futsal ball that is designed for less bounce.
Meanwhile, Maltez has embraced a ministry tool from South Africa called Ubabalo which formally merges spiritual development into athletics training. I read thru the material before we flew down here and it is decent stuff. Practical. Intentional.
So we showed up to a church in Soyapango where Maltez was wrapping up his Ubabalo training with the coaches.
The girls went into the next room (think cement walls here) and made bracelets with local girls while I introduced the coaches to a relatively new sport (to them, anyway).
The coaches were very engaged and interested in how we run our Futsal program at ESC, why we play Futsal, and some of the technical and tactical merits. My favorite question was "Jeff, why would we train for Futsal when we don't play in Futsal tournaments." Who planted this guy in the crowd? He gave me a lay up question which launched us in a new world of ideas and possibilities.
Just as we were about to go out and train together on a dirt field, the church had taken the field for use for some of their Semana Santa celebrations. So, we were only able to talk conceptually about Futsal. The goal is to work with the coaches more tomorrow and give them a taste for Futsal in action.
It actually worked out fine, since I was not feeing well. And Shelby was now spiraling.
The two of us missed an awesome dinner back at the house as we went straight to bed after starting our doses of Zythromyacin. Shelby is in rough shape. I am not much better. With a full day in front of us tomorrow, I pray for strength.
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