week 13: this week in sports (september 8-14)

girls sports program: one of my favorite things to do here at the orphanage is play sports with the kids. they play a ton of soccer and a little basketball and baseball (i’m working on increasing those two since i'm a horrible soccer player). however, ever since i got here, i have been bothered by the fact that there is never… ever… any girls playing sports. i think it’s just culturally unacceptable here… which is so sad! kelly, another volunteer, always plays sports with us too (which i think the first time all the boys were just so surprised that we were playing with them, but now they’re used to it), so she and i decided that we needed to start a girls sports program. she played soccer in high school and i played basketball and softball, so we figured together we could figure something out for the girls. so, we talked with sister fanny (the director of the house) and she gave us the ok, so this wednesday we had our first ever girls sports practice. we decided to start with soccer. i'm not gonna lie i was a little nervous… i had no idea what to expect, how many girls would show up, plus my sports vocabulary is very limited in spanish. but it actually ended up going great! we started out with running and stretching, which went well. we had 26 girls show up, so we decided to let them play 13 against 13. it was a little disastrous… they were just running everywhere and falling cuz it was all muddy from the rain and it was just so crowded. so, then we divided each team into two teams and let them switch in and out and it went so much better. i mean we still have a lot to work on, but the best part was that they all had so much fun. it was so fun watching them cheer each other on… they were getting so excited, yelling and screaming from the sidelines! it was great. i can’t wait for next week!

baseball in the rain: this was definitely the week of sports. kelly and i also decided to set up a baseball game between the house she eats in (casa san miguel) and the house i eat in (casa santa rosa). we told them about it about 2 weeks ago, in hopes that they would build up excitement all week. my house was so cute… they were so ready. we practiced at least 3 times during the week… running, taking batting practice, catching fly/ground balls. we also asked frank, the sports coach (who used to play minor league for the dodgers), to come help us and umpire. well sunday finally came (game day) and we were scheduled for a 2:00 first pitch, but the clouds started to roll in and it rained on and off all morning. we talked to frank and he told us to change the time to 3:00 and hopefully everything would be dried up. so, at three it had stopped raining for a while so we headed out to our new baseball field, which was built for us by the boston red sox organization over the summer. just as we arrived to the field and i hung up the hand-made scoreboard, it began to rain again. we all retreated to a nearby tree, but it didn’t provide much shelter and we were all soaked. considering how much this country does not like the rain i was thinking that frank or the tia from my house would make us go back home, but we figured since we were already wet we should just go for it. it ended up being so much fun… it rained on and off, we were muddy, we were soaking wet, and even though it was still like 75 degrees, all my kids were telling me they were freezing. casa san miguel is a little older than my boys, but we played well. we had a bad second inning and gave up 5 runs, so we had some catching up to do. by the bottom of the seventh (the last inning), the score was 9-6, we needed 3 runs. we managed to get runners on first and second and we had our best player up with two outs (and i was going to be up after him). at the beginning of the seventh it has started to rain again, but by this point it was pouring… plus the lightning and thunder started. honestly, it was picture perfect… so dramatic (and a little scary, considering we’re standing out there with a metal bat… the lighting was literally right above us). so our batter, yoan, hits it to third base and runs as fast as he can in the mud and the rain and the third baseman throws it and at this point i couldn’t see anything through the rain… but all i know is chaos erupted! yoan claims the first baseman dropped the ball (and honestly he could have), but frank called him out and the game was over. everyone just went crazy and there was cheering and screaming and it was raining so hard. eventually, i think everyone figured out that we should probably get home so we all proceeded to run home in the pouring rain trying to avoid the lightning bolts and screaming every time the thunder roared. for the most part my team had fun regardless, but i knew yoan was really upset. he's one of those kids that is very disciplined and very hard on himself. so, before running home i went to talk to him and again he told me that it wasn’t fair, that he was safe. i felt bad cuz i think he might have been, but i reassured him that it would be ok and that we are for sure going to have a re-match!

p.s. i've posted a bunch of pictures on a shutterfly thingy at http://dominicanrepubliccitypics.shutterfly.com/

"let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap harvest, if we do not give up." -galatians 6:9