Futbol and...

HOCKEY!!!

I have been playing soccer every Thursday since the beginning of my time here with the same neighborhood "team" made up of boys and young men that work and live at a factory making jeans.  They shyly accepted me at first when I asked them if I could play and as the weeks have passed, I believe we have become friends through our conversations on the sidelines and joking around on the field.

Most of the team is away visiting their families on summer or holiday vacation right now but a few of the boys are still living there. So, when Brendon and I returned from Peru, we went out to play with them.  Brendon just moved into my neighborhood (yay!!!) and was quickly accepted onto the "team".

We also found out that a person from Maryknoll who had returned to the states, had left field hockey sticks in a storage garage. He had started a field hockey league in another part of the city but left a year ago so the sticks had been collecting dust ever since.  Brendon and I went and rescued the sticks from their idle fate and asked the soccer boys if they wanted to learn how to play hockey.

I did not know what to expect but as we walked across the big dirt soccer field with the sticks one Saturday night, we immediately attracted attention. What started as 5 of us, quickly turned into more.  We began playing on the little concrete soccer field and to our amazement, the amount of neighbors on the sidelines continued to just grow.  We had to teach most of them how to hold the stick and we simply instructed them that the rules are the same as soccer except you can not kick the ball.  It takes most people a few minutes to get the hang of the stick but really, they are programmed for hockey since soccer is a part of their blood. 

An interesting aspect of the soccer culture though, is that one, it is almost exclusively men.  Two, if you do not learn it or like it when you are young, it is hard to join in when you are older because everybody is already good and knows what they are doing.  Street hockey, we have found, levels the playing field.  The very first night we had 8 year old boys, 25 year old male athletes, and 40 year old women out there playing on the same court.

We played for hours and when we finally called it quits, they circled around us, asking us when we would play again with strong suggestions for "tomorrow".

We have played a few times in the last week and a half and every time I am surprised again.  New neighbors coming out to play, the middle schooler that refused to play because he was afraid of getting made fun of finally making it onto the court, a young girl who has never played soccer getting out their and playing with her father and brothers.  I have learned more of my neighbors names in the last week and a half than I was able to for the first six months.  It is incredible. 

It is summer break right now so perhaps hockey will slow down as people get back to their busy lives but even if it does, relationships have been formed between us and neighbors and between neighbors that otherwise never interact - and that can't be undone.  I am so happy and excited about this new adventure.  I have been healthy enough that I get to teach people something new, play a game I love, and share it all with the man I am going to marry!