Have you ever seen the movie The Passion of the Christ? I can remember thinking that it wasn't that good or not as good as everyone said it was. I can also remember thinking that it didn't have much dialogue. Just Jesus getting his ass kicked for two hours. I now know that the movie is exactly that because I was forced to listen him getting his ass kicked on an audio tape of the movie while I sit in my bed and try to fall asleep. No one else in the house seemed to care which I thought was odd because the older boy in the house decided to turn it on right as everyone went to sleep. The funny thing about it is that it's not even in Spanish. What the draw of listening to a movie that is in language you can't understand and is mostly sounds of someone being hit and groaning is beyond me, but I can tell you that it was pretty annoying when blared in my face at 11 at night when I've already been asleep.
The 6am gospel tape to wake everyone up in the house was also annoying but probably at the same level. I can't help but wonder what it would have been like if the missionaries had never come through back in the day. I'm guessing the obsession with god and Jesus would not be around and the people would still probably wearing their traditional clothing which was basicly nothing. The missionaries told them to cover up.
So I finally got up and walked over to the kitchen area to find that no food was around. It was at this time I decided to head over to the hut store to buy some eggs and oil and I'm glad I did because I ran into a couple kids telling me there was going to be a soccer game in fifteen minutes and that I should come to play. I hurried back home made my eggs and coffee and scrambled out of the house with my running shoes on. When I got to the field I wasn't surprised that no one was there. Nothing starts on time here. Slowly people trickled in and I started to realize that this was a league game between all the towns in the area. I found out later that they meet every Sunday. After about two hours of waiting the refs and team leaders showed up and there was some debate over weather or not I should be allowed to play. “This isn't the team of Los Angeles” one of the Panamanians said. We worked it out and went to the field to practice. It was also determined that I was on defense. Probably because I looked like I sucked.
As I took to the field I noticed that my team had no shoes on so I did the same. After awhile of practicing the other team showed up and the difference between us and them became immediately apparent. Not only did they all have matching uniforms, shin guards, and cleats on, but they were good. They were passing the ball! People don't do that here. This was going to be interesting and I already wanted to back out but being the tallest and whitest kid on the field doesn't make it easy to sneak off.
I can remember thinking that my team was going to think that I was terrible and make me sub out quickly. This was before the game started. As I defended the backfield I noticed that as individuals our team wasn't bad, it was just the concept of the game that they didn't grasp. No strategy, no passing, no nothing. When getting the ball, my teammates did one of two things with it. Kicked it as hard as possible in any direction or dribble it until someone took it away. If it was a pass then it was almost always accidental.
I realized that I probably wasn't the most athletic player on our team, but I sure new a hell of lot more about strategy and after staying in the backfield for the first thirty minutes of the game with most of my team I decided I would move up a bit. For some reason we only had two forwards and they weren't doing much. This helped a lot and after I botched a for sure goal and then had an assist my team realized that maybe I kinda new what I was doing. The hardest part of the game was the fact that we were kicking shoes with bare feet. I looked down and only saw blood coming from my toes and decided not to look down at them again. I wasn't going to bail out on my team in the middle of the game. That wouldn't have been good considering I'm still trying to prove to them that I'm tough enough to be here.
After getting beat by four points our team retreated to the shade and we watched the next team. I was told I cad confidence and that I was a lot better than they thought. I told them we need to move the whole team up the field at the same time and pass the ball more. They stared at me and after I found out that because of a scheduling mishap we had another game in thirty minutes I started my walk home. There was no way I was in any kind of shape for two regulation games in one day and I hate to see what the score of the last game is going to be because my team seemed pretty tired and beaten up.
As I started washing myself in the river I realized that my feet hurt pretty bad. By the time I got back tot he house/hut I realized that my two big toes now had blood and dirt under the nails and hurt tremendously. I'm still trying to figure out how to clean them out without further damaging the wounds. I'm sure you will hear about it next time when I have to go to the hospital...
Update about the last post: I found out that the cacao grown in the region that I live in is the only internationally recognized certified organic chocolate in the Americas. So no pesticides, shade grown, natural fertilizer or compost, no killing of the animals, and they are supposed to have a reforesting project. I would also like to mention that I talked to a guy about a horse today for two hundred and fifty dollars with saddle. I took it for a ride and decided that it was a little too small for me even though that is a pretty good price and the horse seemed pretty well taken care of. We will see.
One more thing: I was dying of thirst during the game and at half time made the decision to drink the homemade sugar and corn drink that they were selling out of a bucket. I asked if it had been boiled and the lady said yes and then washed the cup out with looked to be river water and poured me a cupful. It was delicious and probably saved my life. I'm just hoping I don't pay for it later...
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