This year, I am so fortunate to be traveling down with 3 of my players... Ariel Barbosa, Elena Benassi, and Amy Trueschler. It will not only be so fun for the girls to have this new experience, but it will also be so exciting for the Nicaraguans to meet 3 talented, strong young women at camp this year!
We met at the airport all geared up in our More Than Futbol t-shirts and sweatshirts. Makes it so easy to keep track of the girls in the airport. Safety first! Not to mention, it is awesome to represent the program in our gear! Some people stopped to ask us about what "More Than Futbol" is when they saw our shirts! Spread the word!
Before we got on the plane I got 2 Dunkin' Donuts teas for the flight. My last chance for my favorite tea for the next 2 weeks! I may have pursuaded the girls to walk to another terminal to make this happen. hehe. As a very addicted tea drinker I think its safe to say that I drink it almost continuously throughout the day... we are talking maybe 6-8 cups a day. No worries, I brought 100 tea bags with me- 50 green, 50 black. Don't judge. ;-)
The girls were super pumped up when we got on the flight. Each of them brought a travel journal with them to document our trip and for us all to do some fun journal writing assignments throughout the week to prompt reflection about our experience. I'm a big fan of journal writing, thanks to my Dad's example growing up. I have a whole shelf of journals at home starting back from age 15. I think that the girls will really enjoy looking back on these journals in the future. There are so many small moments that we would just forget if we didn't write about them! 
Today, the journal assignment is 10 questions that ask about their expectations for what the trip will be like. I can remember my first trip down, my expectations, my first impressions, etc. Now I've been down 10 times, have life long friends in Nicaragua, and truly feel like it is a second home. So my persepctive over the years has changed and evolved drastically. It was so fun to read some of the girls responses to the questions.
1) What will Nicaragua look like?
Elena: "I expect Managua to be like most cities, but more lively. Tall buildings, densely packed..."
Amy: "Dry"
Ariel: "Like a regular city with nice areas and dangerous areas"
2) What will the food be like?
Elena: "I will just binge on rice and beans here and then never eat it again"
Amy: "Beans and rice in many different forms"
Ariel: "Lots of rice and beans"
3) What will the people be like?
Amy: "Very nice, fun, loving"
4) What will the weather be like?
Elena, Amy, Ariel: "Hot"
Ariel: "The opposite of Baltimore. Sorry to everyone at home freezing your butts off!"
5) What are you most excited for?
Amy: "Experience life outside the US. To spend the week with Ali, Elena, and Ariel. To go to the Monkey Hut"
Ariel: "The reactions of the people to playing in the tournament"
6) What are you most nervous about?
Amy: "Not being able to communicate with people efficiently"
7) What will be the hardest part of the trip?
Elena: "I'm expecting communication to be the hardest part of the trip. I'm positively terrible at spanish and even worse when put on the spot"
8) What will be the most fun part of the trip?
Elena: "I'm really excited for the tournament. Apparently, there's so much enthusiasm around it and I htink it'll be fun to actually play with the teams.
Amy: "Sharing the joy of soccer and seeing the effects of soccer on the people participting in the camp"
9) How will you communicate with the people?
Amy: "Help from bilingual people and use hand motions"
10) What will be your favorite: food, drink, time of day, moment?
Amy: "Some form of rice and beans, water, camp time, and meeting everyone and seeing Nicaragua!"
It was great to read the girls answers of what to expect on the trip... it also gave me a good gage of where they were mentally headed into the trip!
When we arrived in the airport, Alexander, Maria, Cesar, Mario, Gigillermo, and Leanardo were all waiting for us! I ran up to the glass and gave them a hug (through the glass). Then we got our baggage and met them outside of the baggage claim. We all piled into the church's old faithful red pick up truck! The four of us in the back seat and everyone else with the bags in the bed of the truck. Driving through the city wa amazing. The roads were completely lit up in Christmas lights and manger scene after manger scene. Nicaragua is on summer break right now and as a part of their summer they celebrate Christms for a month! It was truly amazing- it puts American Christmas lights to shame.
When we got to the church they put us in a guest room for volunteers. Very simple- 2 double size beds and a shower. We put all of our stuff down, sprayed bug spray all over and then head to the grocery store. We made it just in time before they closed and got juice, nuts, peanut butter and bread, bananas, water, gatorade and some other snacks for the week. Then we drove around looking for a restaurant to eat but everyone was closed! That's not the usual- but everyone is on "vacation" now for the holiday and celebrating so many restaurants that are usually open were not. We finally found one in Batajola! Carne Asada, the best food in Nicarauga! A Nicaraguan delicacy! Grilled steak, with rice and beans and tejadas (platanos fritos- fried plantains... they are like potato chips but better).
It was so much fun catching up with Alex and Maria and everyone. We are all so excited for camp and Alex has promised me that he won't drink any coke for the rest of the week and we will start an exercise routine on Monday morning! I've been trying to get Alex on the band wagon for this for a couple of years so I am very excited!
Well, it's time for us to hit the sack. We have a 7:30 wake up call for breakfast and then we will be meeting the youth of the church to leave for camp at 9:30am! We are so excited to see everyone tomorrow morning! Signing off for tonight! We will have internet access all week so I will be posting again tomrorow night to let everyone know how our first day of camp went!
Thank you for following along!
- Ali
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