Futbol and kids

So last night I played futbol (also known as soccer or football) for the first time in my life. Besides dabbling very intermittently in hockey, I´ve never played a sport really. So, as I climbed into the minibus, which took us to the field, with two male students one of which had been the star forward on his college team and a bunch of maestros (teachers) from the school who played every Thursday night if not more often, I was a little intimidated. I prepared myself for what I figured would be the most embarrassing few hours of my life.
There were embarrassing moments, but they didn´t ruin the experience for me. Twice I think my reflexes assumed I was playing volleyball and attacked the ball with my fist. Two other times I accidentally kicked one of the best players on the opposing team in the shins. I guess the teachers were used to students playing with them and being horrible because they didn´t seem to mind my apparent lack of experience and were very nice about it saying, ¨Esta bien esta bien!¨ I found that I´m a bit tougher than I expected and didn´t mind being rammed into a fence fighting for the ball or roughly knocked about. I even made a goal! Ok ok, another player on my team worked the ball literally a foot from the net and then yelled at me, ¨Lleva lleva!¨ (which literally means ¨carry carry!¨ but everyone yelled it so often during the game that I figured that it was a morphing word and in this context he meant for me to kick it). My foot connected with the ball, the ball flew through the worn net, the goalie cursed and I felt like a real (very bad) futboller.
After watching a game up close I gained a lot of respect for futbol players and athletes in general. I realized that playing a sport incredibly well takes a ton of mental as well as physical effort and hours and hours of training just like playing an instrument or dancing does. Of course I KNEW this already, but being on the field while a bunch of men were twirling around handling the ball with their feet just as fluidly and easily as I can handle a bow or a guitar pick made me really realize how beautiful sports can be.
I can´t ever decide whether I absolutely love sports or absolutely hate them. I hate that they can very easily breed competitiveness especially in really young kids; I hate that US football players and other types of sports players get TONS of attention and money while dancers and musicians make barely anything while working just as hard, if not harder; I hate that sports are so commercial and that the players are yet another form of advertising.
BUT I love the camaraderie that being on a team encourages; I love the beauty of teamwork; I love the complexity and intuition one must have to know what everyone is doing and what they´re about to do all at once; I love the adrenaline rush; I can´t say that I love sweating profusely and turning bright red, but I do love feeling absolutely exhausted, taking shower and falling into bed achy and feeling my whole body relax into sleep.

So another completely new thing I did this week was teach an English class. The school here has a free afterschool program for local kids and I have volunteered for the past week with the English class of five Guatemalan children. Before today, there was another girl I worked with who I was mostly learning from so I didn´t have to do much, but today she has the flue and asked me to take over.
I was scared out of my mind beforehand but I somehow came up with a few things to do, the time flew and it ended up being lots of fun. We played hangman, they drew and described their favorite animals, and drew and labled a person. I wish I was here next week to teach more!

This is my last day in Xela. From here, Mom and I will take a bus to the Mountain School, which is supposed to be MUCH warmer (thank you!) but have tons of mosquitoes (blech!). I don´t know whether I´ll be near a computer while there, so if you don´t hear from me for a week or so, it´s not cause I don´t love you all, it´s just cause I´m busy basking in the sun and getting tons of bug bites. Love to all!