Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Football!

Josh and I have been playing soccer at this little field in Jucanya with the local brothers every Sunday night for about 2 months. This is really outside our skill set!

They've allowed me to mostly play goalkeeper so I don't have to run so much. I'm the oldest playing by more than 10 years. They say I'm doing well, as inadequate as I feel.


Covered moto parking. The whole field is roofed and fenced in with concrete walls at the bottom. Allows for some trick bank shots. The field itself is a type of astroturf with a ground tire underfill, so is quite comfortable to run on.

Brett and Jordan played here with some of the  English brothers one Saturday afternoon. They declined playing that and the following Sunday.  The English brothers tend to be somewhat slower. The Spanish and Cakchiquel brothers are sometimes incredibly quick, at least in my eyes.

Covered bleachers. Josh resting between rotations.

We were both quite intimidated the first few times, but he stuck it out and he's gotten much more active and much better. I'm very proud of him.

If there are enough sisters, they'll play half an hour before the brothers. We have the field for 2 hours total. There can be anywhere from less than a dozen to more than two dozen brothers on any given night. Usually they'll make teams of 5 to 7 and rotate out every five minutes if there are three teams. If there are only two and no sisters, then you get to run around for a full two hours.

The owner runs a small tienda in conjunction with the field.  He's a very nice guy. One particularly cold night he made hot chocolate for Josh and fed him cookies, no charge. He wants to improve his English with me and will teach me Spanish.  Have to find the time!

We've enjoyed this very much. The brothers are very kind and hospitable to us. Though they don't hold back when it comes to playing. We've both been smacked in the face several times, and elsewhere as well. Playing goalie,  I've had my fingers sprained, so now wear gloves which helps a little. There's been blood, sprained ankles, and other debilitating injuries, but everyone keeps coming back for more. Adam is currently sporting a black eye from 2 Sundays ago. We were half hoping he'd get another one last Sunday just so he would match🤤. 

1 comment:

  1. Your adventures sound so interesting and fun! It's so encouraging to read your posts! I've been getting out a bit to walk, but most of my exercise has been shoveling snow and thawing frozen pipes. (Three times this year) The hard part of winter is over though. Yesterday and the past three days have been enjoyable but cold with temps in the twenties. Tomorrow s'posed to be close to 40 then dropping again. Annette B and I have been walking Sunday evenings around my park. I got some good shots of deer from TerriAndrae and the Sheboygan Falls river walk yesterday that caught the gorgeous winter day that it was. The foot is doing pretty good in one pair of boots I found. Hope I can find shoes for spring and summer, and for Bethel - Brie and I are going in June, so need good walking shoes/sandals. Oo, I need closed-toe shoes for the tours. Jehovah will provide.
    I'm so happy you guys are settling in. It seems you have a new home and life that you really enjoy. God bless.

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