Sunday Soccer

On Sunday evening, some boys from the neighborhood came by our residence to play soccer with us in the courtyard. I think they were brothers, the eldest – Elvis – maybe 15 or 16, the middle 13 or 14, and the youngest 10 (I can’t recall the other two boys’ names). Soccer, or “football” to be locally accurate, is huge here. I totally fell for these boys, who were really good, and so polite and sweet – apologizing whenever they got the ball away from me, or accidentally kicked at me or stepped on my (bare) feet. I adored the feeling of kicking around a soccer ball again, which I haven’t done since probably high school. Squatting down, squaring off, getting my aggressive defensive on. It was exhilarating. And came back to me really naturally. However, the humidity here lessens the appeal of playing too frequently. A shower really must follow a scrimmage…

The soccer theme continued into the night with the final Euro championship game between Spain and Germany on the television. A few of us went to a local coffee shop (which is more like a café/bar, that actually only serves $3 cups of instant coffee – a serious letdown) where a small crowd of Germans were screeching at the screen while we huddled in a corner having dinner. Pretty intense. I do love watching soccer though – it’s one of the few sports I enjoy following. We didn’t stay ‘til the end though, which was wise, as Spain won and the Germans probably freaked out!