Hello! Bella here :) Unfortunately, I may not live up to "SSYP Team Run Down with Jeremy and Kiana" but I do hope to move and inspire you, while also making you laugh out loud every once in awhile as I share my experience from today.
It started with a breakfast of champions: pancakes, syrup and butter. We then made our way to St. Mary's Episcopal church where we participated in the service and when I say participated, I actually mean that you could have heard Jeremy singing from 3 miles away. But the best part about church was when we were given the chance to say La Paz and hug every person around us. There was a feeling of unity within this church and it made us feel welcomed and loved.
After, we made our way up to Santa Lucia to visit the girls who recently lived at El Hogar. We enjoyed some fried chicken and coleslaw (nope, not KFC) as well as beans and tortillas. The real fun started when Kemarah pulled out the friendship bracelets and Liz, Jeremy, Franklin and Kate started a game of Uno.
The view of the mountainside and the far off city of Tegucigalpa were not so bad either.
Although I happened to love every part of today for a number of reasons, there is one I hold with me the most. As many of you may or may not know, soccer holds a special place in my heart. It's been my life for 15 years and now that my college soccer career is over, I look to find that love of the game anywhere I can. Well, I happened to find it right here in Honduras and I am thankful for that.
This isn't just about soccer though. It's about the fact that something as simple as a ball can have a sense of unity. It's about the fact that this sport has made me feel comfortable and welcomed at El Hogar.
I walked into this experience feeling anxious about not knowing Spanish. I step outside and find myself feeling uncomfortable over not being able to simply start a conversation with one of the kids because of my lack of knowledge in the language. But...that anxiety goes away as soon as I step on that soccer court. And that's when I feel a sense of comfort, unity, and engagement. I feel welcomed. I feel accepted. All because of the game of soccer. Today, we ran around for about 3 hours just playing soccer. Some of us ended up on the ground a few times, some of us got nailed in the stomach, and some of us were getting schooled by Junior and Mario an embarrassing amount. But I found myself laughing at the same things they were laughing at, celebrating the same goals and tricks they were celebrating and finding the same frustration in losing the ball as they were finding. In all the ways we were different, we were similar. And that is what I loved about today.
Language barriers can seem impossible to get past but now I realize that there are more than just words that can bring us together. There are a number of universal languages out there that unite people. My two favorites just happen to be a smile and fútbol.
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