For our second day of programming, it was an earlier start than normal. I was set to meet with la Fundación Buena Semilla team at 9 o’clock in the morning at Iglesia Barrio Egipto, a church at the base of the steep incline leading up to the foundation’s doors. As per usual, there were some pre-clinic jitters and I found myself waking up early in the morning to the pitter patter of raindrops. Bogotá’s climate and weather changes almost every day so this really was no surprise, but my heart still dropped at the thought we might not be able to run a program later today.

I rolled over and unlocked my phone – 4:15 a.m.

“Seems like a problem for future Stephen,” I said to myself, before closing my eyes for a few more hours of rest. Once I woke up, the rain had stopped. The roads were still coated with water, but the clouds above were just that – clouds and thankfully without rain. I called an Uber, loaded up my 15 inflated soccer balls and 35 deflated ones – hoping that the foundation had a car I could use to inflate the others. When I stepped out of my Uber two staff members, Laura and Lorena, greeted me along with two of the older kids from the foundation. They graciously helped carry my bags before delivering the unfortunate news that there were no cars available. After walking through those streets this really was no surprise. I’m not joking that any car would just slide back down in an attempt to drive up the hill.

“Qué pena está loma” I said in my head, while hiking upwards. I feared I would be too tired to run programs as soon as we made it to the top, and was trying my best to hide my heavy breathing. We arrived at the foundation doors, and promptly gathered the first of the day’s four groups. Our soccer session was only until 10 a.m., so this one would be cut a little bit short. We walked through winding, narrow dirt paths, riddled with rocks and puddles, before finally arriving at a beautiful park complete with a dirt field.

When setting up this program with another staff member, Elias, he had expressed concern about this particular field. It used to have netting around its entirety, but recently two trees had been blown down by the wind and destroyed a goal frame and the safety net covering the field.

“If the ball leaves the field, it might roll 2-3 kilometers downhill and be lost forever,” he had explained.

I told him not to worry, our drills focus on basic soccer techniques but we always have control of the ball, and you’ll rarely find them flying all over the pitch.

“Bueno, let’s go!” he replied.

Similar to Ciudad Bolívar, Barrio Egipto is a neighborhood teeming with poverty, violence, and other issues – but you would’ve never thought so while walking those streets. Walking alongside Laurita and the kids, neighbors were quick to share a greeting, a smile, or a fist bump.

“Buenos días,” they’d say. It seemed nearly every single person we passed seemed to know Laura and by association, they were incredibly friendly and offered the same greetings and warmth to me.

By the time we reached the field, we had maybe 35 minutes to work with so I jumped straight into the session, albeit running a condensed version of our curriculum. A young girl stepped up to offer her services as captain, eventually helping run mano o cabeza, our listening drills, and demoing various rounds of our relay races. Since we didn’t have a car or means to inflate soccer balls, I was rotating through the same 15 inflated soccer balls for all four sessions, promising the kids that they’d receive their own, but maybe at this time it would be a deflated ball. Laura promised herself to look for a pump at the foundation so that when the kids returned later on, they’d have a brand new ball that actually resembled well, that – a ball. We had about 4 mano o cabeza winners who gratefully received their custom Colombian bracelets quite literally with outstretched arms.

Once the clock struck 10, the group exited and another group with 11 participants entered the playing field. I had a full hour, maybe even 90 minutes for this group, so I made sure not to rush anything. I greeted the kids and picked out a captain, an older boy named Ricardo who later proved to be extremely helpful.

After winning a round himself, he graciously took the reins and helped run mano o cabeza until we had a couple winners. Eventually, upon returning through winding paths back to the foundation, I told the kids we had enough extra bracelets that they each would get one – which was met with applause and glee.

At noon, our 10 o’clock group sat down to enjoy a warm lunch prepared by the foundation before heading to school in the afternoon. Much like our programs in Ciudad Bolívar, these sessions always see mixed age groups because kids are either attending classes in the morning, or the afternoon, or in some cases this week – on vacation.

The group of about a dozen sat patiently and said a quick prayer, sharing aloud a few intentions before ending with a loud “Amen”. Meanwhile, I found myself in the kitchen trying to be as helpful as I could. Lorena was bussing out trays of food, while I followed close behind with a cup of jugo de mora for each child. The kids ate until their plates were clean and then stacked them at a nearby table in a very orderly manner.

After, they departed through the foundation’s front door and their vacant seats were immediately filled by our other session, returning for lunch. The same routine followed, Lorena with a food tray, Stephen with cups on cups behind her. Quick prayer, eat, cleanup, rinse, repeat.

Finally, it was just us. It was time for us to eat. I had been chopping it up with one of the cooks, a sweet woman who could whip up a mean lunch. 

She asked politely, yet reservedly – “Profe… maybe if you have an extra soccer ball, could you give me it so I can gift it to my grandson?”

Finally, lunch time was over and we made the winding trek back to the field. I turned to Laura and joked, “I’m going to miss this neighborhood, but I’m not going to miss this hill at all!”

Same as the morning, every single person we walked by offered a smile and a greeting, “¡Buenas tardes!”

These next two groups were small, but I smiled and told Laura it was okay. It’d be like a private lesson. Plus, four participants for one whole hour gave me the opportunity to really hammer down certain techniques and hit upon certain parts of our curriculum that I simply did not have time for earlier that morning.

I circled up the first group and greeted them. “¿Profe, eres Brasileño?” an older girl asked.

“¿Eres de Argentina?” asked another.

“¡No! Soy de Los Estados Unidos,” I joked, surprised that my Spanish had been convincing enough at least to fool them this once.

We jumped into a couple familiar drills before breaking into cross shaped grids for ball control and technical touches. Laura was kind to offer her services for the second grid while I quickly demoed each variation. We jumped into mano o cabeza and I actually was able to revisit a new spin to it that I had most recently played back in Monterrey, Mexico. I told the kids, if you want we can try it this time in English. I gave them a chance to learn the corresponding English for both mano y cabeza before and during the little twist to our old faithful.

After one round, an older girl laughed and said, “It’s even easier in English!”

“Mentirosa,” laughed one of the boys.

After, we played a full-field 3v3 scrimmage, which after the long day coupled with the altitude change had me breathing heavily. There were a couple times where the ball would bounce over the goal or the fence and I’d hold my breath, praying we weren’t about to lose a ball deep into the hills. After a full session, I thanked the older kids and a group who had been watching the tail end of the session quickly entered the fold. We circled up and literally just passed the ball around for a few minutes.

I turned to Laura, “This is perfect because I need to rest after that scrimmage.”

I was quickly impressed by this group. I threw down a couple tricks and immediately the boys responded with inventive flick-ups and even a few around the worlds of their own!

“¡Que buena calidad en este grupo!” I shared to Laura. 

“Lo mejor,” she added. 

We ran through the usual drills before deploying the same grids from before. We hit a heading activity before I stopped the group to ask them what was the significance of it. Participants approached a cone in front of them for a light headed pass, then backpedaled to one behind them for a high, driven header. One of the boys, who I already knew was the most talented in the group, raised his hand.

In Spanish – “The first is for possession, it’s like a pass. The second is a stronger one, can be a defensive clearance or at goal.”

“¡Eso!” I said, outstretching my arm to dap him up because this is literally the exact reasoning behind the drill.

The clock hit 3:30 and I decided it was time to scrimmage. Pre-scrimmage I warned the group that we couldn’t lose any soccer balls so they had to be extra careful. As an added layer of caution I told them, we have a ball to give to each of you, but if you lose a ball now that one is yours. Our team went up quickly, taking a commanding 5-2 lead. There had been nutmegs, slide tackles, goal line saves – this scrimmage really had it all!

Finally, we were drawing to our last 5 minutes so we switched over to golden goal. The other team scored a banger and we really lost 5-3 somehow. We all walked back down to the foundation to sign a Colombia jersey I had bought in el centro the day before.

Laura asked the group to share a few thoughts and one of the eldest boys said, “Thank you Esteban for traveling from far away to teach us soccer and to help us.”

Others echoed the same sentiment albeit worded differently. In total, we had 31 kids participate across four sessions. I had brought 50 soccer balls with me so I asked Laura if it would be possible to give every kid a soccer ball.

She said there were 24 more kids, meaning we were short about five soccer balls.

“I have an idea!” she exclaimed excitedly, sharing that there were sets of brothers and sisters, and at least five of them at that.

“We can give one ball to each family,” she said with a smile.

“¡Perfecto!” I replied.

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We then waited for the last kid to leave, cleaning up the tables and chairs, and heading back down the winding path to a nearby bus station. Empty luggage in tow, Laura and I shared a conversation different from the one we had over lunch about her background and experience at the foundation.

“What’s your favorite team?” she asked. 

“¿De dónde?” I responded. 

“¿Inglaterra?”

“Liverpool,” I said and she answered with Manchester United. 

“¿Y en España?” she asked.

“Claro que sí, Barcelona,” I responded. 

“Me too!” she said.

“But not because of Messi… because of Ronaldinho,” I added. 

“No way! He’s my favorite and Kaka,” she replied.

I couldn’t believe it either. Football fans know Messi and Ronaldo, but real football fans know the great Ronaldinho Gaucho.

“Mira… I think every fan of football has that one player that they watched who made them fall in love with the game. For me, that player is Ronaldinho,” I said.

“When I was a kid they used to make fun of me because I wanted to marry him!” Laura responded.

We laughed until the bus arrived and quickly hopped on what could only be described as a “roller coaster” through the mountainous roads. We were with the cook from earlier and Lorena también. We arrived at another estación and they made sure I was safe and knew where I was going before bidding me farewell with hugs y besitos, albeit masked besitos. Later that evening, I went to a Japanese restaurant down my street for some post-program pad Thai.

“Para llevar,” I told the man behind the counter, as I retreated to a table to sit down.

I looked up from my phone and he was approaching me with a napkin and fork.

“No amigo, por la casa porfa,” I said.

“No, we have this for you to try if you want – it’s a gift,” he said, bringing out a small appetizer of spicy stir fried vegetables and a wonton chip.

I smiled and thanked him, saying “How’d you know I was dying of hunger?”

I swear, this country is amazing. As I arrived at home and rested my legs, I opened up a group text from Lorena and Laura with words of thanks regarding the programs earlier. All in all, what a great day. 

¡Viva Colombia! Quiero regresar pronto! Un beso, Esteban.