Laureles Football Redux

-
Although our kids ended their League-play in early October they've maintained that drive and passion for the sport and kind of by accident we were able to program 3 different days of games with 3 teams that don't participate in our league. One was in Club de Leones (those faithful readers out there may remember that I briefly worked with the youth there when I was with the Peace & Justice Project and still have contacts there), one wa in a very wealthy residential neighborhood and the last was in Sambo Creek, one of the Garifuna Villages outside of La Ceiba. I'm happy to report that we either won or tied all of our games and more than that, it was an opportunity to bring more kids into our team and establish leaders amongst the older youth. I allowed the older youth to organize the game dates, choose the players and manage the games...I simply provided the uniforms, transportation and water. It was a good week last week and it bodes well for our future as the Soccer Club of Los Laureles.

jimmy, a tiny but powerful defender

i love watching chamu play...just wish he were bigger

the older kids waiting for their game

chamu again

goal

the older youth...these kids didn't actually lay with us last year because they were too old for the teams we had in the league...this coming year, assuming the funds come in, we'll submit 2 more teams so that these kids can play as well.

goal by blas, an incredible player and the main organizer of this past week's activities

cristian, struggling a bit as he learns to play with the older youth

another one of my favorites to watch play, duke

the older youth pose for a photo
front l-r: abel (not an older youth), jimmy, cuesta, cristian, eddy, mario, chihua
back l-r: colocho, blas, hector, oscar, makika, chele, pepa, jeta

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another Migrant Crisis

-
I've lived and worked in Honduras for 10 years both as a missionary, serving the very poorest of society and now as teacher, where I give philosophy and history classes to the children of the very wealthiest. I don't pretend to be an expert on Honduran society and I certainly cannot claim to have many answers with respect to issues of immigration. The whole topic strikes me as far more complex and nuanced than what many voices on either the Right or the Left make it out to be. Nevertheless, I know the milieu in which I live, I know why many poor Hondurans choose to emigrate illegally, I know why many wealthy Hondurans fly to Miami or Atlanta to give birth to their children and I know that all else remaining constant, this current caravan is only the beginning. A poor Honduran lives his life with little to no hope of ever achieving anything approaching financial stability. The people I know make their livings off of garbage collecting, selling unripened bananas and day-laborin
Read more

Coming to Honduras

-
Image
The other day in philosophy class I was teaching about existentialism, a philosophy with which I have myriad problems. The universe is absurd, life is meaningless, authenticate yourself with irrational leaps of faith! Hopeless and disconnected from reality if you ask me. Get out of the café Camus, mix with some common folk! Nevertheless, as I was introducing the material I mentioned that the existentialists really probed the questions of Life's meaning and purpose: "How do I create myself to be unique and significant?" "How do I live an authentic existence?" "How do I give my life meaning and purpose in an otherwise meaningless universe?" These seem to be questions that are attendant to societies that possess extreme wealth and privilege and an over-abundance of leisure time. I have serious doubts that 15th Century English peasants or even nobles for that matter, spent much time contemplating how they might make their lives unique or leave a
Read more

10 Years In Honduras

-
Image
My good friend Jessiel Rivera reminded me the other day that it was 10 years ago this month that I arrived here in La Ceiba. I remember my arrival here from Costa Rica fairly vividly. I had been getting teary-eyed on the plane from a combination of sleep deprivation, my longing to remain with my friends in beautiful San Jose and some sad indie music on my iPod. It was a hot and terribly humid Sunday afternoon when I landed in the La Ceiba airport and when I stepped off the 10-seater hotbox of an airplane onto the tarmac I was sweaty, bleary-eyed and disheveled. I looked like a typical gringo backpacker except for my mountain of luggage that I had in tow. Two members of the Central Mennonite Church picked me up in their car; how they knew I was the Gringo they were supposed to collect was beyond me but they got it right. I remember them remarking on the number of suitcases I had brought (3) and their heaviness (maximum weight allowance); and the resulting weight of embarrassment I felt
Read more