Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
More Soccer and Dia de los Muertos
While I had been organizing consistent practices and had entered tournaments with the girl’s soccer team that I started and am now coaching, last Saturday I took my new boy’s team to their first tournament.
The day started in typical Salvadoran fashion—despite the fact that 15 or 16 kids had told me they would be coming, only 7 showed up. It is an aspect of Salvadoran culture that Volunteers here just have to consistently remind themselves of—Salvadorans are very non-confrontational, especially with Volunteers who they definitely don’t want to disappoint—and will basically tell you whatever they think you want to hear, regardless of its truth. I had accounted for this by optimistically predicting I would end up with 11 or 12, conveniently just the right amount for a soccer team. Unfortunately, I clearly was going to have some work to do on the way to the tournament.
After our first bus ride, which got us a few miles, our second bus mysteriously never showed up, so we ended up walking about an hour to the community of another team entering the tournament. Once there, I retrieved the jerseys we would be borrowing, since I definitely haven’t had time to secure sources of grants or money for uniforms for my newly formed teams.
From San Sebastian, we walked another hour, where we discovered the next bus we were planning on riding had just passed, so we, with still unfettered confidence, took off for another hour and a half of walking. Finally, after about three and a half hours of walking (and two hours late for the beginning of the tournament), we had arrived.
However, I had not wasted those precious 10 or 11 miles we covered by foot—I had found enough soccer players along the way in various other communities so that we did arrive in Los Pozas (the site of the tournament—it is in Ahuachapan, another department—which basically means we walked to the equivalent of another state before our first game had even begun) with a complete squad.
We managed to gut together a pretty impressive first game, which started about 5 minutes after our arrival (since much of the tournament had, well, sort of been waiting on us). Although we ended up losing, it took a 5-4 loss in penalty kicks after 90 minutes of 1-1 soccer to deliver us the loss. Although I’ll be first to admit by soccer-coaching acumen still has a ways to go and my Spanish half-time pep talk skills are well beyond comical and most likely not remotely inspiring, I do still think we thoroughly outplayed the other team but just weren’t able to capitalize and struggled with some bad luck. I’m certainly looking to organize a rematch in the near future.
The second game wasn’t as pretty—at that point I think the first game and the virtual half-marathon, “Trail of Tears”-style hajj to the tournament had taken its toll and we never had a chance.
But that certainly wouldn’t be where the adventure would end. Thanks to the fact that a majority of the kids hadn’t brought the $1.50 I told them they would need and the fact that about half the team had bought cigarettes at half-time of each game (another Salvadoran tradition I’m still struggling to understand—hopefully, as my half-time pep talks improve, I might be able to curb this habit), mostly all of my Little Giants were now broke. That meant nothing but more walking.
While I did manage to bribe one bus driver with a few apples to get the kids a few miles in a bus, the team undoubtedly covered at least another 7 or 8 miles by foot in their return trip to San Luis.
Leaving early in the morning and returning around dusk, we had totaled about 6 hours of walking, 2 games, 2 losses, but undeniably had scored a big success in the words of my young soccer players, which left me pleased with the relative “success” of my first tournament with them.
After spending the weekend praying my legs would recover from all the walking while celebrating Halloween with a group of other Volunteers (its tough to celebrate Halloween with Salvadorans—they don’t exactly do Halloween down here), for one night in San Salvador then a second at a beach house in Costa del Sol, I returned to San Luis for Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead for the English-only crowd out there) on November 2nd. I really went into the day with no expectations (besides a few faint memories of “fiestas” in my high-school Spanish class featuring guacamole, chips, and queso—these could not have proven to be any farther than the truth) knowing virtually nothing about how it was celebrated. I rose early in the morning (a definite pattern that has emerged in my life) and hopped on the bus with essentially all the people of San Luis to Chalchuapa, the closest big city, and in turn, the closest cemetery. While Dia de los Muertos is a celebration of the dead, it is very unlike any holiday in the United States and is really an idea that I enjoyed. Basically, the cemetery, which is huge and serves a very large area, had been turned into a literal fairground overnight. There were carnival rides, food vendors, roving musicians and clowns, political-party spokespeople, and just about anything else you could dream up in the cemetery, packed-in along with the families of just about everyone buried there. As per tradition, I visited the graves of all the family members of my host family who had passed away, cleaned them off, and decorated them with all sorts of things, ranging from real flowers or fake flowers, to food, to candles, to fresh coats of paint, to basketballs and packs of cigarettes. Seemingly, nothing was out-of-bounds. It struck me as a great way to remember the dead. While a few people had tears while cleaning tombstones, in general, it is a very festive holiday and supplies an opportunity to return to the cemetery and remember all your family members, but while surrounded by all of your community and in a spirit of general joy, focusing on the good memories instead of the fact that your relatives are no longer living. Just walking to and from the cemetery is a true adventure as the streets are packed full of food and flower vendors starting ten or twelve blocks away. In fact, I think in all my four months in El Salvador, Dia de los Muertos has been the most pleasant surprise and definitely one of my many favorite differences between El Salvador and the United States.
The day started in typical Salvadoran fashion—despite the fact that 15 or 16 kids had told me they would be coming, only 7 showed up. It is an aspect of Salvadoran culture that Volunteers here just have to consistently remind themselves of—Salvadorans are very non-confrontational, especially with Volunteers who they definitely don’t want to disappoint—and will basically tell you whatever they think you want to hear, regardless of its truth. I had accounted for this by optimistically predicting I would end up with 11 or 12, conveniently just the right amount for a soccer team. Unfortunately, I clearly was going to have some work to do on the way to the tournament.
After our first bus ride, which got us a few miles, our second bus mysteriously never showed up, so we ended up walking about an hour to the community of another team entering the tournament. Once there, I retrieved the jerseys we would be borrowing, since I definitely haven’t had time to secure sources of grants or money for uniforms for my newly formed teams.
From San Sebastian, we walked another hour, where we discovered the next bus we were planning on riding had just passed, so we, with still unfettered confidence, took off for another hour and a half of walking. Finally, after about three and a half hours of walking (and two hours late for the beginning of the tournament), we had arrived.
However, I had not wasted those precious 10 or 11 miles we covered by foot—I had found enough soccer players along the way in various other communities so that we did arrive in Los Pozas (the site of the tournament—it is in Ahuachapan, another department—which basically means we walked to the equivalent of another state before our first game had even begun) with a complete squad.
We managed to gut together a pretty impressive first game, which started about 5 minutes after our arrival (since much of the tournament had, well, sort of been waiting on us). Although we ended up losing, it took a 5-4 loss in penalty kicks after 90 minutes of 1-1 soccer to deliver us the loss. Although I’ll be first to admit by soccer-coaching acumen still has a ways to go and my Spanish half-time pep talk skills are well beyond comical and most likely not remotely inspiring, I do still think we thoroughly outplayed the other team but just weren’t able to capitalize and struggled with some bad luck. I’m certainly looking to organize a rematch in the near future.
The second game wasn’t as pretty—at that point I think the first game and the virtual half-marathon, “Trail of Tears”-style hajj to the tournament had taken its toll and we never had a chance.
But that certainly wouldn’t be where the adventure would end. Thanks to the fact that a majority of the kids hadn’t brought the $1.50 I told them they would need and the fact that about half the team had bought cigarettes at half-time of each game (another Salvadoran tradition I’m still struggling to understand—hopefully, as my half-time pep talks improve, I might be able to curb this habit), mostly all of my Little Giants were now broke. That meant nothing but more walking.
While I did manage to bribe one bus driver with a few apples to get the kids a few miles in a bus, the team undoubtedly covered at least another 7 or 8 miles by foot in their return trip to San Luis.
Leaving early in the morning and returning around dusk, we had totaled about 6 hours of walking, 2 games, 2 losses, but undeniably had scored a big success in the words of my young soccer players, which left me pleased with the relative “success” of my first tournament with them.
After spending the weekend praying my legs would recover from all the walking while celebrating Halloween with a group of other Volunteers (its tough to celebrate Halloween with Salvadorans—they don’t exactly do Halloween down here), for one night in San Salvador then a second at a beach house in Costa del Sol, I returned to San Luis for Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead for the English-only crowd out there) on November 2nd. I really went into the day with no expectations (besides a few faint memories of “fiestas” in my high-school Spanish class featuring guacamole, chips, and queso—these could not have proven to be any farther than the truth) knowing virtually nothing about how it was celebrated. I rose early in the morning (a definite pattern that has emerged in my life) and hopped on the bus with essentially all the people of San Luis to Chalchuapa, the closest big city, and in turn, the closest cemetery. While Dia de los Muertos is a celebration of the dead, it is very unlike any holiday in the United States and is really an idea that I enjoyed. Basically, the cemetery, which is huge and serves a very large area, had been turned into a literal fairground overnight. There were carnival rides, food vendors, roving musicians and clowns, political-party spokespeople, and just about anything else you could dream up in the cemetery, packed-in along with the families of just about everyone buried there. As per tradition, I visited the graves of all the family members of my host family who had passed away, cleaned them off, and decorated them with all sorts of things, ranging from real flowers or fake flowers, to food, to candles, to fresh coats of paint, to basketballs and packs of cigarettes. Seemingly, nothing was out-of-bounds. It struck me as a great way to remember the dead. While a few people had tears while cleaning tombstones, in general, it is a very festive holiday and supplies an opportunity to return to the cemetery and remember all your family members, but while surrounded by all of your community and in a spirit of general joy, focusing on the good memories instead of the fact that your relatives are no longer living. Just walking to and from the cemetery is a true adventure as the streets are packed full of food and flower vendors starting ten or twelve blocks away. In fact, I think in all my four months in El Salvador, Dia de los Muertos has been the most pleasant surprise and definitely one of my many favorite differences between El Salvador and the United States.
Monday, November 1, 2010
My First Soccer Game
Last Sunday began like just about all my other days in San Luis—wake up at 5:30 to the roosters crowing right outside my door after about 9 hours of sleep, eat my daily breakfast of tortillas, beans, and eggs, then lay in a hammock with a cup of coffee for a little bit—however, I knew it would be different. It was game-day.
While the San Luis soccer teams have games every weekend year-round, they are always located in the neighboring communities against teams we have probably played hundreds of time. However, once every year or two we organize a game with a community near the beach as a chance to get out of daily farm-work, play someone new, and hit the waves. Probably more than half the community—all the members of the football team, their families, and quite a few other families that just wanted to go to the beach—loaded onto a bus at 6 am and off we went. Although I’d been practicing with the team every Tuesday and Thursday night for my first five weeks here, for the last few weekends I wasn’t able to make the games because of meetings or other commitments, so had I decided this would be my first appearance with the San Luis squad.
However, after a two-hour ride through the mountains and coffee country of El Salvador, which included two pit stops (one due to flames emerging from the underside of our bus—which ended up worrying me much more than anyone else—and another so the driver could drop off some tamales at his mother’s house) we made it to the beach, Puerte de Acajutla, by 8:30 am. San Luis has three teams, a first, second, and third team, and since I would be playing with the second and first teams, I would be leaving the beach at 12:30 with the rest of the second and first teams to start our games around 2 pm.
The beach itself provided quite the Salvadoran adventure. Although I had visited the beach before in El Salvador, it was my first time at a Salvadoran beach with actual Salvadorans…and it is quite a different experience. First of all, the fact that is wasn’t even 9 am or that we had a soccer game in 4 hours certainly wasn’t going to put a damper on the first vacation in a year or two for my teammates—they proceeded to suck down packs of cigarettes, chug beers, and spike their coconuts with rum. Additionally, I discovered Salvadorans generally don’t know how to swim and are deathly afraid of waves, which is surprising because the farthest you can get from the beach in this country is 3 hours. While I’ll give them the fact that there is definitely a very strong under-toe in all of El Salvador, it was border-line hilarious to see both my whole community sprinting towards their towels and beers whenever a wave came in and the looks of pure shock and disbelief when I ventured in deeper than my knees.
Next, after the adventure at the beach, we departed for the soccer field where we were to play in front of quite a big crowd—not only was half of San Luis there but a large home crowd had turned out to see the strangers from some village out west in the mountains. While our third team had won—setting the bar pretty high—I tried to take it with a grain of salt, since they definitely had quite-a-bit less time to drink before the game.
Within the first 20 minutes of the opening whistle of my game with the second team we were down 3-0 and it was looking pretty ugly. I’m not gonna lie…I was already just praying for the end of the game. Looking back at our goalie, who was continuing to drink whenever the ball wasn’t in his half of the field, just wasn’t giving me the most comforting feeling.
However, in a quick play off a corner quick in a stroke of genius I still don’t really understand or remember, I scored our first goal. Not only did all my teammates—not only drunk but deliriously excited that the gringo had scored—scramble into a dog-pile on top of me, but the crowd went nuts. The home fans were threatening to riot, screaming all sorts of horrible taunts at their own community for not only giving up a goal, but giving up a goal to the white kid who clearly had only been playing soccer for a few weeks, and the San Luis fans were screaming just as loudly because, quite frankly, they were equally shocked and I don’t think they really knew what else to do.
While the “gringo” chants were pretty exciting, the excitement only continued to grow. Over the course of the rest of the first half and the first 30 minutes of the second half, we came all the way back and ended up in a tied game, 4-4, with 10 minutes left. While we ended up losing 5-4 in a very questionable call by the very questionable home town ref who would make Pete Rose or Tim Donaghy look like a saint, my first soccer game proved to be quite the experience. Additionally, while before the game I was undoubtedly the biggest, and probably only, celebrity in San Luis, I’m now fairly sure I’ve shot from B-List to A-List star. More than 5 times, this week alone, I’ve run into people from neighboring communities who come up to me to congratulate me on my first goal; I knew news spreads fast around here about a white person, but I had no idea how fast it spreads about a white person who scores goals.
However, back to the games, after our near-comeback, the first team took the field. I was slated to start the game for the first team and play the first 15 or 20 minutes. That ended up being more than enough. Due to the fact that our first team, which in more sober situations is usually very good, had had another 2 hours to drink while watching the second-team game, and was undoubtedly pushed to drink even more by my goal then our comeback, we ended up losing 7-0. And, if imaginable, it’s actually worse than it sounds. The game was called 20 minutes early when a fight broke out in the stands and half the home team rushed into the crowd to join the melee. Welcome to El Salvadoran weekend soccer games…
In other news from the past week, I planted sugar cane and harvested coffee, both for the first time. I previously had no idea had labor-intensive planting sugar cane was—it involved over 120 other workers, a huge tractor, a 16-wheeler, about 8 carts pulled by teams of 2 oxen, and a pick-up truck for 7 just to plant 3.5 manzanas (1 manzana = 16 tareas, 1 tarea = 435.2 m2; you can do the math if you want, I have no idea how to explain how much a manzana is, but its basically the Salvadoran version of an acre; tareas are another measurement of farm-land they use here). I also had no idea how sweet and tasty coffee beans are when picked fresh off the tree, before being dried, processed, ground, smoked, or whatever it is they do to coffee beans.
In a final note, Happy Halloween! Also, for those of you looking to get a little deeper into Salvadoran culture, today is Dia de Los Muertos. While I think it’s a little inappropriate to wish you a “happy” Dia de Los Muertos, feel free to visit your local cemetery with flowers, candies, and prayers if you so please.
While the San Luis soccer teams have games every weekend year-round, they are always located in the neighboring communities against teams we have probably played hundreds of time. However, once every year or two we organize a game with a community near the beach as a chance to get out of daily farm-work, play someone new, and hit the waves. Probably more than half the community—all the members of the football team, their families, and quite a few other families that just wanted to go to the beach—loaded onto a bus at 6 am and off we went. Although I’d been practicing with the team every Tuesday and Thursday night for my first five weeks here, for the last few weekends I wasn’t able to make the games because of meetings or other commitments, so had I decided this would be my first appearance with the San Luis squad.
However, after a two-hour ride through the mountains and coffee country of El Salvador, which included two pit stops (one due to flames emerging from the underside of our bus—which ended up worrying me much more than anyone else—and another so the driver could drop off some tamales at his mother’s house) we made it to the beach, Puerte de Acajutla, by 8:30 am. San Luis has three teams, a first, second, and third team, and since I would be playing with the second and first teams, I would be leaving the beach at 12:30 with the rest of the second and first teams to start our games around 2 pm.
The beach itself provided quite the Salvadoran adventure. Although I had visited the beach before in El Salvador, it was my first time at a Salvadoran beach with actual Salvadorans…and it is quite a different experience. First of all, the fact that is wasn’t even 9 am or that we had a soccer game in 4 hours certainly wasn’t going to put a damper on the first vacation in a year or two for my teammates—they proceeded to suck down packs of cigarettes, chug beers, and spike their coconuts with rum. Additionally, I discovered Salvadorans generally don’t know how to swim and are deathly afraid of waves, which is surprising because the farthest you can get from the beach in this country is 3 hours. While I’ll give them the fact that there is definitely a very strong under-toe in all of El Salvador, it was border-line hilarious to see both my whole community sprinting towards their towels and beers whenever a wave came in and the looks of pure shock and disbelief when I ventured in deeper than my knees.
Next, after the adventure at the beach, we departed for the soccer field where we were to play in front of quite a big crowd—not only was half of San Luis there but a large home crowd had turned out to see the strangers from some village out west in the mountains. While our third team had won—setting the bar pretty high—I tried to take it with a grain of salt, since they definitely had quite-a-bit less time to drink before the game.
Within the first 20 minutes of the opening whistle of my game with the second team we were down 3-0 and it was looking pretty ugly. I’m not gonna lie…I was already just praying for the end of the game. Looking back at our goalie, who was continuing to drink whenever the ball wasn’t in his half of the field, just wasn’t giving me the most comforting feeling.
However, in a quick play off a corner quick in a stroke of genius I still don’t really understand or remember, I scored our first goal. Not only did all my teammates—not only drunk but deliriously excited that the gringo had scored—scramble into a dog-pile on top of me, but the crowd went nuts. The home fans were threatening to riot, screaming all sorts of horrible taunts at their own community for not only giving up a goal, but giving up a goal to the white kid who clearly had only been playing soccer for a few weeks, and the San Luis fans were screaming just as loudly because, quite frankly, they were equally shocked and I don’t think they really knew what else to do.
While the “gringo” chants were pretty exciting, the excitement only continued to grow. Over the course of the rest of the first half and the first 30 minutes of the second half, we came all the way back and ended up in a tied game, 4-4, with 10 minutes left. While we ended up losing 5-4 in a very questionable call by the very questionable home town ref who would make Pete Rose or Tim Donaghy look like a saint, my first soccer game proved to be quite the experience. Additionally, while before the game I was undoubtedly the biggest, and probably only, celebrity in San Luis, I’m now fairly sure I’ve shot from B-List to A-List star. More than 5 times, this week alone, I’ve run into people from neighboring communities who come up to me to congratulate me on my first goal; I knew news spreads fast around here about a white person, but I had no idea how fast it spreads about a white person who scores goals.
However, back to the games, after our near-comeback, the first team took the field. I was slated to start the game for the first team and play the first 15 or 20 minutes. That ended up being more than enough. Due to the fact that our first team, which in more sober situations is usually very good, had had another 2 hours to drink while watching the second-team game, and was undoubtedly pushed to drink even more by my goal then our comeback, we ended up losing 7-0. And, if imaginable, it’s actually worse than it sounds. The game was called 20 minutes early when a fight broke out in the stands and half the home team rushed into the crowd to join the melee. Welcome to El Salvadoran weekend soccer games…
In other news from the past week, I planted sugar cane and harvested coffee, both for the first time. I previously had no idea had labor-intensive planting sugar cane was—it involved over 120 other workers, a huge tractor, a 16-wheeler, about 8 carts pulled by teams of 2 oxen, and a pick-up truck for 7 just to plant 3.5 manzanas (1 manzana = 16 tareas, 1 tarea = 435.2 m2; you can do the math if you want, I have no idea how to explain how much a manzana is, but its basically the Salvadoran version of an acre; tareas are another measurement of farm-land they use here). I also had no idea how sweet and tasty coffee beans are when picked fresh off the tree, before being dried, processed, ground, smoked, or whatever it is they do to coffee beans.
In a final note, Happy Halloween! Also, for those of you looking to get a little deeper into Salvadoran culture, today is Dia de Los Muertos. While I think it’s a little inappropriate to wish you a “happy” Dia de Los Muertos, feel free to visit your local cemetery with flowers, candies, and prayers if you so please.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)