Bangkok, Thailand
Before this program, we hadn’t been doing a lot of work in Asia, but I was excited for the journey. I was excited to be in Bangkok, but a little less excited to deal with the traffic, though past programs in Manila had prepared me as much as I could for it.
We were set to work with Mercy Centre, a school and shelter for children from the local slums dealing with HIV and other very serious circumstances. I settled into my hostel, made a couple new friends, and then called for a car to bring me to the Mercy Centre campus.
I had about 20 or so odd soccer balls with me, which I later realized wouldn’t be of much use since they were meant for 11v11 full-sided games, whereas the kids at Mercy, and generally, in Thailand, were used to playing Futsal.
Futsal uses a completely different ball, a smaller and heavier one – meant to reduce the height to which the ball bounces. It is a game very much focused on touch, control, and possession, with players often utilizing the sole of the foot to control and dribble the ball.
Luckily, I did have a futsal ball or two that had been collected – so I made sure to present these first to the team’s coaches. We ran through some very brief drills before just opening up into a round robin scrimmage. First, with small goals, then with bigger ones and goalkeepers once our numbers increased.
The Bangkok heat was smothering, but luckily we had a shaded futsal court and some fans to cool us off. While on the side, I practiced juggling with my teammates and took some time to teach them a couple tricks and neck stalls. They were all extremely talented, and when it came to futsal, there wasn’t much I could teach them… I was more the pupil than the teacher at this point.
They played futsal competitively in tournaments and would practice almost daily, seeing the futsal court as a safe haven and a distraction from the everyday.
“How different could it be?” I said to myself, naively.
Despite this, I would return 3-4 times a week to practice and train with the Mercy Centre boys. On the weekends, I would watch their tournaments and support them all, as they excitedly showed up wearing their matching jerseys. After practices and on off-days, we would study, watch movies, eat ice cream, and go get haircuts.
Other times, we would share meals, both on Mercy campus and on the street, nothing like some local pad thai! On the last day before I was set to fly to South Korea for another program at a children’s home there, we had a little celebration where we again shared a meal together, which included a hot plate, soup type thing, danced, and then the boys presented me with a Mercy Centre futsal jersey. Hoping to make an already special moment even more so, I asked them for their signatures, which covered an entire side of the kit. After, following too many goodbyes and high fives, I hopped on the back of the coach’s motorcycle as we drove off into the Bangkok city traffic together.
