El Dia De Los Pantalones

Breakfast at Sergio´s!

After finishing up my blog entry last night, popping on my headphones and hopping into bed I set my alarm to make sure I was ready for the first full day in Nicaragua. BUT in Nicaragua, who needs an alarm when you have roosters! At approximately 7:30 the roosters decided that I had set my alarm too late and needed to wake up early and they weren´t going to stop until I got my butt out of bed. I crawled out of bed and hesitantly pulled out the pants in my bag. It´s Sunday and in Nicaragua when you attend church on a Sunday you need to wear pants, it´s an unspoken rule. Although I had packed the lightest pants I could fine, they were still pretty darn hot in the Nicaragua heat. Dona Sylvia, Sergio´s mom, prepared us a breakfast of scrambled eggs, beans, an orange, and out of nowhere... a yoplait breakfast smoothie? First wifi, now smoothies... this place is full of unexpected surprises!

We arrived at church and sat front and center for the service. Almost exaclty like the typical Lutheran or Catholic mass except with a Nicaraguan flavor of guitar, percussion, and very upbeat songs that just make you want to smile. After church everyone took the chairs and arranged them in a circle and the church discussed the important projects and of the upcoming months including our visit. The congregation was very hospitable and excited to learn about the work we are doing in Nicaragua.
When I spoke to Phil about his first night in his Nicaraguan host family´s home he said that he used his cheat sheet all night and everything went well until her shuffled out of bed to go to the bathroom and stepped on their tiny little dog who let out a yelp in the middle of the night! haha. Otherwise, Phil had a great first night and enjoyed his first experience of arroz con frijoles (rice and beans) for breakfast. Hey, when there´s nothing else to eat it´s beans for breakfast or go hungry! I know I ate my fair share of beans!

 After church we went to lunch at this AMAZING restaurant where I ordered what I´ve been waiting to eat since I bought my plane ticket- Carne Asada! Honestly, the best steak I´ve ever had. Amazing. On top of that they have Platanos Fritos which are fried plantains. The Nicaraguans slice up plantains and fry them and dry them out... kind of like potato chips. Better than tortilla chips, doritos, any kind of chip we have at home... I can´t believe that they don´t sell these in the United States.. plus they are bananas! So people can feel good about eating them! If you are feeling adventurous in Nicaragua there are plenty of options on the menu... take a look at the pictures and see if you notice anything interesting!

After lunch we came back to Sergio´s house to roll up our sleeves and and begin our organization for the camp that begins tomorrow and the new league.

Organizing Camp

We began by creating a schedule for the next few days for the youth that is attending the camp. We will have youth from 15 different communities in Somotillo attending camp. Many of the youth are ones that I saw on my last trip so I am so excited to see everyone again! We will begin each day with a devotional to remind everyone that we are all united by our faith and that we have the opportunity to enjoy each other and the fun game of soccer because of el amor del Dios (the love of God). Faith is absolutely the number one element in the lives of the people we work with down here. After the devotional we will review the rules because while God may rule their lives off the soccer field, the Nicaraguans can get pretty dirty on the field! There are 6 teams of boys and 2 teams of girls. The girls will play more fun games like World Cup and Power Finess, all the favorites, while the boys will do the tournament. I explained to Katia (the head of the youth programs in the church) that it is very important for us to emphasize other fun games aside from scrimmaging like World Cup and Power Finess, etc. so that when the youth are in smaller groups and want to play soccer but don´t have enough for a big game, they have other ideas of ways they can have fun on their own.

The schedule for the church soccer league

After we finally finished all the organization for the camp it was time to discuss the league. We would like to start a church soccer league with 2 church teams and 2 teams from the HIV-AIDS church effort. Many people in Nicaragua are uninvolved in the church and, instead, involved in drugs or gangs, etc. In the league all of the coaches of all of the teams, all the referees, and organizers will be members of the church so that the church youth are more involved in church activities, but also the youth from the other 2 teams start to get to know and trust the community of the church. When they realize that the church is a place that cares about them then, perhaps, they will leave their current lifestyle to become involved in the church. We gave the church full uniforms for 4 teams to begin the league and then 2 more sets of uniforms to add 2 teams in the second season once the league is off the ground. We spent a lot of time this afternoon explaining how to run the league- the schedule, the rules that need to be in place for a league, referee etiquette, etc. While the Nicaraguans are big fans of soccer and, of course, know the rules of the game, they are unfamiliar with the structure and details of running a league and generally need a little help getting the league off the ground... something that is so prevalent in the United States that we take it for granted. Our hope is that each season we add teams until the league has up to 12 teams. Hopefully, the game of soccer will be a great way to pull more people out of the trouble of the streets and into the church and a more positive community. I can´t wait to see where this goes, how it takes off in the next couple of years, and what it does for the church in the next few years. It will be easy for us to bring new sets of uniforms each year when we travel down for the church to use to add more and more teams to the league.

After all of the organization we had to actually unpack all of the bags and see exactly what we had to work with. After a lot of hard work organizing from Sergio, Mike, Phil, and I we finally had everything ready' 6 sets of uniforms for the league, 9 sets of uniforms for the camp we leave to tomorrow, 27 pumped up soccer balls, and tons of shoes ready to go.

Checking football scores!

The only thing we were missing today was the Steelers-Broncos game and I don´t know about all of you but I absolutely despise the Steelers and I love Tebow... what a great guy. Anyone notice that he passed for 316 yards today? John 3:16, coincidence, I think not. Luckily Phil has international service and could get the game updates on his phone! We were worried when we saw it hit overtime and then were blown away by the 88 yard TD... am I getting off topic? woops, go Broncos! Beat New England so we can beat you!

Luis and his Pupusas!

After hours of organization we were absolutely wiped. We had some time to rest before dinner and Phil took a nap on the couch and putzed around on his phone while I putzed around on the computer and had a cup of my favorite green tea, how relaxing :-) When the guys came back to get us we stumbled into the car and they took us to a restaurant with food of El Salvador called pupusas, a torilla that they ball up (dough) and throw on a grill and then open up the center and put in whatever you want' cheese, chicken, etc. Kind of like an advanced quesadilla. They definitely need to open up a place like this at home! It would do awesome!
Tomorrow we leave for Somotillo at 7am and will stay there for 3 days! It´s a 4 hour drive, so I am going to hit the sack and get some sleep for our big day tomorrow. It´s supposed to be even hotter where we are going so we´ve packed up the sunscreen and hats and are ready to get our futbol on!
We´ve done a lot of work preparing, now I´m ready to play with the kids!
Hasta Mañana!