Belize 2015: Day 4

The first day is the most difficult day of the week because we have to create boundaries for the kids. Because they are not used to organized sports and stringent rules, the kids tend to retaliate a little bit. Once we get through the first day, the kids acclimate to the program and things begin to run smoother. After a night of howling wind and rain that would rival a small hurricane, we weren't surprised to wake up to a steady downpour. We don't want to lose any day of the week but if we had to lose one day of the week, the worst day to lose would be the second day. We would lose our "creating boundaries" momentum and then have the struggle all over again on Wednesday. I was so thankful when the rain started to dissipate around 11am. 

We had a nice lazy morning hanging out inside but now all of the volunteers got a little outdoor downtime (pool, pier, etc) before we went to the school. At 1:10 we loaded up the carts and headed to the school to begin our program with the youngest aged kids: Infant 1 and Infant 2- equivalent of 1st and 2nd grade in the US. I ran into the school to use the bathroom before we started and on my way out the kids started asking, "Is there futbol again today?!?!" ... "Of Course there is," I responded, "we have it all week after school!" A couple of minutes later the bell rang to end school and the kids started running over to the field. Due to the rain, the bad puddle on the field (that never seems to evaporate), turned into more of a small lake, making it impossible for the kids to cross. Coach Phil started collecting whatever drift wood he could find to make a bridge for the kids to cross! It was a little improvisation, but it worked! Here in Belize, if you can't improvise, you are not gonna make it. Life is "go with the flow" so if you want to introduce any type of organized activity the key is to go in with a plan and then roll with the punches and improvise. 

Lydia told us that a lot of kids didn't come to school today. Because the majority of kids walk considerable distance from home to school, it's difficult for them to attend when the rain is really bad because they would be completely drenched by the time they got to school only to sit in soaking wet clothes all day. This actually ended up working out really well for the little ones. Usually we have up to 30 kids but with only a small group of 10 today we were able to play games with the little ones where they all get their own ball. The favorite game of the day for them was "Musical Soccer Balls." The coaches formed a circle that the kids had to stay inside of and then we played music- during the music the kids have to dribble around but as soon as the music stops they have to sit on their ball. The last one to sit on his or her ball has to give their ball to one of the coaches in the circle and then join the circle. It worked out great, the kids had a lot of fun and we were able to play a few rounds!
After the little games, we broke up the kids into 2 teams and set the field up for a scrimmage. This is the time for the kids to go crazy, run around, and have fun. We have the coaches playing on the teams with the kids to help keep the game under control and protect the exterior edges of the field where there are several of puddles from the rain. These puddles are not as dangerous as the puddles back in the San Mateo neighborhood, but we are close enough to the neighborhood to still be pretty dirty/bacteria-filled. We try to keep the kids out of them as much as possible but sometimes as soon as the ball goes in there the kids go diving in after the ball before we get a chance to slow them down.
Before we knew it, the 1-hour sesh with the little ones was over and we created the coaching chain all the way to the field to make sure the kids got their safely and to create a presence for them right after they came out of school to say, "We are here and ready to play FUTBOL with you!"
They came running out of the school and were so excited to see that a lot of the kids who were not able to attend school, still came to play soccer. We had a great turn out for camp and after setting up the stations on the big field we were ready to rock! Dave was doing the "Steal the Bacon" Station, Phil and Luke had shooting, Kevin and I ran a station where the kids had to pass 3 times before they could shoot (with 2 defenders and a keeper) , and Mel and Nikki worked with the girls. We kept the girls completely separate from all of the boys and the stations. They were much more comfortable and content to have their own area and own drills with the female coaches.
Before we could start we had to break up all of the kids into teams for the day. This is usually the toughest part of the day. We have a lot of kids that pay very good attention but there are plenty that want to go with their friends or prefer one group over another. We simply divide them up into groups by age: Infant 1 and 2, Standard 1 and 2, Standard 3 and 4, and Standard 5 and 6). After sending them to their coaches I began to hear kids saying complaining that kids were sneaking into different age groups. Eventually I sort it out and had all of the kids in the correct group. This is something that will become easier for me during the week once I get more familiar with which kids are in which grades.
Once we got the stations started, they went great!  We spent a lot of time encouraging the kids and promoting the theme of camp "Teamwork!" "Work together!" Time flew by today- the kids' behavior was fantastic and the stations went smoothly.

A few minutes after we started we were so excited to see Mr. Coba show up with a weed-whacker! The field was so overgrown with weeds (knee-high in some parts) that sometimes in the scrimmage yesterday we could not even see the ball! Mr. Coba went to town and spent almost an hour clearing off a HUGE part of the field. This was fantastic. The kids were so happy! We had so much more space to work with! Mr. Coba is the Director of Athletics for the school. He was there on my first trip in 2012 but has not been there since because he has been studying on the mainland to further his teaching career. Mr. Coba is very involved in all of the school's sports team (voluntarily) and loves futbol! We were so grateful that he volunteered his time to come out and help us clear the field for camp. This is a mark of how much we have progressed with people on the island. The first year of camp, we had very little interest from the teaching staff at school, but now that we have forged a relationship over time, people seem much more willing to get involved and help out.

Okay, back to futbol... wait not yet... another tangent: We missed Scott for part of camp because he had to get a couple of the girls to their ferry home. Apparently, there are some kids who take a boat into the island for school every day! They must be coming from a nearby island that doesn't have a school. A couple of the kids came to play futbol with us and then lost track of time and missed their boat home. Luckily, Scott figured it out in time because if they missed their second boat, there would be no way off the island for them to get home.

Scott made it back for the scrimmage which was good because it seems that all of the kids want to be on his team! The  guys did a great job rallying their teams- we had Dave and Phil coach one, Scott
coach another, and Luke and Kevin coach the third. Katie and Zach (the two Junior coaches), also participated in the scrimmages. Katie with the girls scrimmage and Zach jumped on one of the boys teams. With 3 teams we have 2 play until one scores or the game exceeds 8 minutes and then we rotate teams. The kids love this and today was very special because we had a huge field cleared to play on! Prior to the game starting up and Mr. Coba was cooling down from all of the hard weed-whacking work, I had an opportunity to talk to him for a bit about the futbol program. I asked the coaches to organize the scrimmage so I could continue the conversation.

Here on the island, anything that you want to get done (for the most part) needs to be face-to-face. Which means I have a small window each year to network and make strides forward for More Than Futbol. Mr. Coba was very interested in getting involved and I told him my vision for a league on the island to help give the kids more organized and more consistent sport presence in their lives on the island. The majority of sports programs available on the island are 1-day events. A 1-day futbol tournament, a 1-day basketball tournament. There is nothing in the form of a league where the kids get to play 1 game every weekend. With volunteer coaches, we have an incredible opportunity to have weekly interaction with the kids where they get to check-in with their coach (mentor), play futbol, and learn valuable life lessons with the game that we all love. To have a consistent presence, over time, with these kids would make an incredible difference in their lives. Mr. Coba seemed to like the idea. He said that he has a lot of connections and would like to help take charge of the league on the island. He asked if I would be able to meet with him on Friday to discuss the organization of this league after camp was over and I was over the moon to accept. I knew that, with patience, God would point me in the right direction to run this league on the island. It's been in the plan since we started and officially in the works for over a year. I'm just so thankful that I now have this connection to make it possible. Mr. Coba knows the town council, he can get us a field for free. He knows all of the kids and can organize the teams fairly and promote the league at the school!

We wrapped up camp for the day. Very smooth, very fun, and an enormous improvement from the first day in behavior and boundaries. The kids were on the track now. I know that the first day is hard and I expect, like every year, we will have the kids settled and doing well by the second-to-third day. BUT,  I have to admit, even though this is a pretty dependable pattern, I was still worried that it would be a struggle through the week with this large and rowdy camp. I was so happy to see today be so mellow and fun and easy. Yay!

I was also very excited to see Hosan come to camp today. He was one of our most poorly behaved kids in the first year and now he is one of my favorite campers! He is facing a tough life... I won't expand on that, but when it comes to tough, his is about as tough as it gets. Yet, he came to camp with a HUGE smile on his face, happy to see me and the rest of the coaches. I have particularly taken a special interest in him over the past few years so having him come out to camp today was very exciting... especially, after I did not see him yesterday.

After camp, we all came back to the condo and hung out around the pool, eventually showered, and headed back into town to Caramba. Today is my Mom's birthday and I have to miss it every year as it always falls on the week in Belize. For anyone who doesn't know my mother is known to me as "Mama Bear" and we are super-close so I am always missing her and thinking of her on this day. With the Caramba WiFi, Scott, Luke and I FaceTimed Mama Bear, sang happy birthday and took turns talking to her. Even though we are missing her birthday, we still have something special planned for when we get back :-). It was fun to have 3 of her 4 kids here facetiming together. Technology is truly amazing! :-)
Caramba is one of my favorite restaurants and a must-stop at least once during the week because they serve their seafood with the option of a Mayan/Native-Belizean sauce. It's spicy and nothing like anything we have at home. I look forward to it every year and it absolutely did not disappoint. We had a great "team"-dinner tonight. It's been really cool to see all o the coaches get on board with the concept of "Teamwork" this week. So much, in fact, that we started calling the coaching staff a team and whenever we are doing anything, even dishes or carrying equipment, we call it "teamwork." We have an awesome coaching staff this week and its been really cool to see everyone, despite being on the #1 ranked island in the world, still be all about the kids and the camp- MORE THAN FUTBOL!

After dinner, Carol and Phil went back to the condo with the kids while the rest of the group headed over to Fido's for... KARAOKE night! The DJ was so excited to see such a big group of people walk in for Karaoke in a relatively dead bar. After we took over and sang maybe 15 songs, I don't think the DJ was enjoying it as much anymore. LOL. Nikki started the night off and even though she does not have a voice that some might call "Pleasing to the ear", she definitely has the loudest. What she lacked in traditional vocal skill, she made up for with pure positive energy. haha. And boy did she use it for multiple songs. Between all of us we covered the spectrum from Sonny and Cher to Beastie Boys, to Queen, 311 and Whitney Houston. I went up second and sang "Whoomp there it is." Most people don't know that I can rap. While it might not sound like the "traditional" sort of rap that you are used to, the important thing is that I can say all of the words to the beat of the song. Add some dancing in and I was pretty out of breath by the 3rd verse. Great night, fun memories, good bonding experience for the TEAM! :-)

I was worried that I had dropped my phone somewhere earlier in the night but it wasn't until I got back that I was absolutely sure that my phone was gone. We looked everywhere, no luck. I was so bummed out. Dave was very helpful in looking for it, as was the rest of the group. Eventually, Dave and I used the Find My iPhone app to lock my phone in case anyone found it and to post on my phone a message on how to get it back to us to receive a reward. What a bummer. Oh well, it's just a phone. Nothing we can do about it now unless the Find My iPhone app works.

Good Night from Belize!