Bogota, Colombia (Part 3)

It was now Friday, and we’d barely been in Bogota for a week yet there we were face-to-face with what would likely be our last day of Colombia-based programs. It was a marathon of sessions over the past two days and that race would be continuing well into the late hours of Friday, with yet another back-to-back day of classes lined up in the now-familiar Suba locality. This one had been in the works for quite some time, having first linked up with Toma un Niño de la Mano’s director, María Paula, weeks ago via a video call. We planned a morning and afternoon session, as things usually go for our contacts here in Colombia.

Our first group was an early one with an 8:30 a.m. start time, a tough ask for someone who’s not a morning person like myself. Nevertheless, ma and I arrived early at around 8 a.m. for our scheduled 8:30 kickoff. Flexibility is a necessary superpower in this field. I found out when I arrived that our program was moved back a half hour, but it wasn’t a problem since it’s always better to be early than late anyway. Believe it or not, we arrived before any of the staff members and joined the kids outside the front gate of the foundation as we all waited to be let in. They looked on with curiosity and excitement as I tried my best to ease any of the shyness they might’ve been feeling. “Buenos días vecinos!” I said, my voice way too chipper for the early morning hour.

Making the most of the window of time we had before heading to a nearby park for the first session of two, I talked with some of the kids in the office while my mom led a group of girls through some bracelet and origami work in the foundation’s comedor. I won’t lie I had been excited for this particular day of programming. María Paula, also known as Mapi, and I had first linked up in the middle of Colombia’s deep run in the Women’s World Cup, so emotions were high and excitement was even higher.

“This will be perfect for the kids, no matter how far their country goes,” she said – speaking of welcoming a guest coach-led session or two to the kids of the foundation, a little add-on to their usual Fridays spent at the park playing footy.

I couldn’t help but smile as some of the kids had been distracted during the session. Why? Because those distractions came in the form of mariposas. “Sometimes it’s like this at the foundation,” Mapi had said, addressing a little nesting area for the butterflies. “But this is the first time we’ve seen it like this at the park,” she added. At some point a kid had as many as three butterflies resting all over his body! Even myself, I had one or two hiding on the back of my shorts or the shoulder of my Around the Worlds tee.

There’s something I’ve noticed especially over the past year, that it seems like wherever we run programs – there are always butterflies. Whether that be pictures or murals, or real ones (like today), or even just the proverbial butterflies in my stomach before running a program with a new set of beneficiaries – knowing that at any point our programming could serve as the difference between a kid falling in love with the game or falling out of it. Either way though, my mom had always told me that butterflies were a symbol of somebody watching over us. A visit from a friend, a loved one, sometimes, even, a sign from someone no longer in this world. So I never took the appearance of them lightly, and as if the drawing of a butterfly in Mapi’s office earlier hadn’t already been sufficient enough, I couldn’t help but smile watching the kids’ eyes fill with wonder as they gently transferred their newfound butterfly friends from one person to another.

Closing the early morning session out early since we needed to walk back to the foundation for a quick snack before school started, I decided to teach the kids how to do a neck stall. Five balls lined up in front of me, I quickly demoed the trick as they sat before me in the cement bleachers, then called forward five volunteers to try and mimic what they thought was impossible.

Okay, “Legs separate,” I said and they quickly followed suit.

“Keep a nice bounce in your stance,” I added. “Eyes forward. Always.”

“Don’t forget this one,” I said, making sure to hammer home the most important step. “Back as flat as possible. Pretend there’s a hueco right here, that’s where the ball is going to balance,” I said, gently pointing to the back of the neck of one of our participants situated in the middle of the line.

“Arms up, towards the sky like a chicken,” I continued.

“Profe!” they yelled out.

“Okay, now continue after me…” they all paused and listened, unsure of what would follow.

“Bok bok bok bok bok,” I said, flailing my ‘wings’ like a chicken would do. “Come on guys, every step is important, you gotta repeat after me,” I exclaimed, while they burst out into laughter while begrudgingly entertaining my pollo cosplay.

Finally, five footballs were resting on their backs as I softly reassured them, “Perfect.” “Good job.” “Okay, don’t move.”

“Okay don’t move at all, I’ll see you tomorrow just like this,” I joked, hearing another participant hit me with a long, drawn-out “Profeeeee!”

We snagged two prize winners from two separate rounds of mano o cabeza run by me and Mapi earlier, but with ten footballs spread across the day’s two programs we still had three more prizewinning slots open. The plan? A rifa so that everyone would have an equal chance to win – just like in mano o cabeza.

I’m not going to lie, we don’t do this super often and the most recent time I can think of when we raffled off footballs was back in Nicaragua in 2016. “Premio!” had been written on some crumpled up pieces of paper back then. This one was a little bit more thought-out. Mom had a nice little pencil box with a couple holographic soccer balls on it. Inside the box? Eighteen mini origami stars, 15 of those stars, when unraveled, were empty. 3 of them, however, contained the words “PREMIO!”

Myself, ma, and Mapi all took turns passing out a star to each of the 18 participants sitting in front of us at the foundation’s comedor. The session had fielded 20 athletes, but obviously two of those had already claimed their prizes so we skipped over them for our lotería.

“Don’t open it until the end.” we said as each kid held a star in the palm of their hands, hoping that maybe just maybe today was their lucky day.

A young boy, Dylan, came up to me and said “Profe tengo miedo” optimistic, but ever-cautiously so.. knowing that the odds weren’t necessarily in his favor.

“Entonces tienes que entender,  todo nosotros tenemos que entender, no es un juego de calidad, de skill es algo de…” an older boy chimed in mid-speech, honestly a perfect interruption since I couldn’t seem to find the word anyway. “Es un juego de suerte,” he said. “Claro que si,” I responded. “Don’t worry. They understand completely,” said Mapi. “Plus win or lose, it is an important life-lesson,” she added.

I won’t lie, I was excited and though in a perfect world we’d have a football for each kid, and oftentimes we’ve been fortunate to have those kinds of resources, I still enjoyed how this one played out. There was so much suspense and excitement. I looked on with joy as each kid unraveled each origami star the same way they would rip open a Christmas present on the morning of December 25th.

“Tengo premio,” a young girl said softly.

“Premio!” yelled out an older girl from further down the comedor.

It was fun to see their different reactions, some overjoyed, others more reserved – almost in disbelief that they’d managed to win despite only three in 18 participants having that chance. We finished things up by passing the kids their own bracelets, then allowing anyone who didn’t win a premio to choose between our three colors and designs of drawstring bags. Lastly, a snack before school, some queso chips, chocolate milk, and an especially special treat, a small slice of red velvet cake.

“Quieres una?” Mapi had asked me. It was a tough decision that I ultimately had to decline, knowing that we still had a session later on in the day.

That session out of the way and already en route to their homes and schools, I retreated back to the office to wait for Mapi’s call. She had mentioned that usually we’d just wait at the foundation between morning and afternoon sessions, but campus was getting fumigated on this particular Friday so we would be heading to a nearby mall for a nice lunch. “You had me at lunch,” I said with a smile.

We made our way back towards her car parked just next to the park from our morning session, and off we went. We were heading to a place called “Crepes & Waffles”, a great little joint serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There was always, always a long line of people outside it – which I’ve known to be a good sign no matter where in the world I am.

“The food here is delicious, and it’s económico!” Mapi had said, before hitting a highlight reel on the menu of some of her favorite options.

Ma wasn’t eating meat so she ordered a shrimp crepe in a house dressing, while myself, famished from the morning’s session, wanted something a bit more filling so I opted for a chipotle chicken crepe filled with avocado, pico de gallo, and a spicy chipotle dressing. As we sipped on some fresh fruit smoothies, myself and Mapi got to chatting, picking right up from wherever our video call had left off weeks back. She had a bubbly personality, and a passion for her work and more so, those her work was for… the kids and their families.

She had a sports and psychology background, and even had her own foundation here in Colombia, a branch of United Play. She mentioned weeks back that United Play was also in Guatemala so if you can believe it we were looking at collaborating even before we’d collaborated ourselves. She had been involved with Toma un Niño de la Mano for five years now. Some of our topics, especially when speaking of foundational-work, were deep, while others were light-hearted and general such as traveling, favorite countries, favorite potential destinations, etc.

She listened intently, nodding and smiling as I spoke about the importance of what mom was trying to accomplish in the morning with her bracelets and cards. The need to create bridges across communities, cultures, and worlds. “Mira.. it’s easy for a kid here in Bogota to think that the world is only Bogota. Or for a kid here in Colombia to think that that’s all there is. But little exchanges like this – they allow kids to expand their horizons, to think wow I’m making this bracelet, I’m writing this card, and another kid halfway around the world might get a chance to read it,” I said.

We spoke about running our own foundations, the triumphs, the struggles, the ups, the downs, everything. We spoke about television interviews, finding level ground in the fact that we didn’t particularly enjoy them as they often portray the interviewee as an individual rather than someone speaking on behalf of a greater cause, and a larger team. Despite that, though, we knew they were necessary, we knew they helped spread a mission and had the power to create connection and with it, benefit for the kids.

“It’s a bit of a necessary evil,” I said, to which she agreed.

It really was a passion-filled, and thought-provoking conversation. I saw a version of myself reflected in her, and I cherished the opportunity to learn from her since she had accomplished so much already in her five year tenure at the foundation. At some point, it had come up that she was an extremely passionate fan of Millos FC here in Bogota.

“Que pena!” she exclaimed after finding out I was staying until the following Wednesday.

“Por que?” I responded.

“I wanted to take you to a Millos game, anything like that so you could experience the atmosphere, the environment of football here in Colombia.”

“Ya se it’s un otro nivel,” I said, bummed about the timing but finding solace in the fact that it gave me an excuse to make my way back to this country.

“They’re in the international FIFA window,” Mapi said. “Actually Colombia is playing pero the game isn’t here it’s in Barranquilla.”

Imagine? That would’ve been incredible. How could I complain though, between the morning’s program, the lunch and subsequent exchange of minds with someone as brilliant and inspirational as María Paula, and the looming second program in the afternoon – this was all I needed in order to see the best that Colombia could offer, and not just through the lens of football. Our stomachs already full, we washed our crepes down with some hearty scoops of fresh ice cream and made our way back to the foundation. We would be meeting the kids directly at the park and running everything from there.

Ma was kicking this one off with bracelets and cards, which was probably for the best as my stomach still felt 50 kilos heavier after that massive feast of a lunch. I enjoyed this one because our latter group of the day was an older bunch. So when it came to letters, they had much more wisdom than say, a younger person with less life experience.

“Write a nice message, think of something you might have wanted to say to a younger version of yourself, a consejo you wish you heard or a deseo you wish you’d read,” I said, just to give them some extra context.

I turned to Mapi, “It’s almost like a little love letter to oneself, does that make sense?”

“Ah, It’s perfect,” she said.

One of the staff members, Luz Esperanza, even got in on the fun. “If it were me, I’d write in mine to always enjoy life, and never grow up. Because I’m still doing that up until now even at my age!” she said with a giant smile.

“Did you know we actually don’t use the word pulsera for these?” Mapi had said.

“We call them a manilla, just because a bracelet is used for ones that are more fancy,” she added.

“Wait, these aren’t fancy?” I said jokingly, knowing that for kids these bracelets often carry their weight in gold.

Pulseras…. err, manillas finalized and cards collected, it was time for footy. Mapi asked me if I was going to do the same activities from this morning.

“Pues creo que no.. you know como profes we can easily run the same exercises for both groups pero it’s boring!” I said with a laugh, Mapi agreeing immediately.

That in mind, I forwent our listening exercise from earlier and instead broke into some dribbling drills, some of which I’d learned from my time with the Hartford Lions Soccer Academy. I sure was missing my whistle and my voice wouldn’t stop reminding me of that – but whenever I’d yell “Para!”, an individual dribbling the ball in our space would need to abandon their ball for their partner to then pick up and resume dribbling. An easy stop-and-go exercise, per say. Then, at “Para!” they’d be requested to turn to their partner, pass the ball, then receive it right back  in order to practice 1-2 passes. These were older kids, so I knew they were more than capable.

While they got into that, I headed to a corner of the cement court to set up yet another grid for tricky. I had planned to deploy it in the grass nearby the field but after seeing it littered with dog poop I decided to hold that thought. The grid was messy but it would have to suffice. The hashtag lines were made up of neon green cones, while I put a larger, orange cone into each box to add another level of difficulty for the kids. In order to drop their ball into that box they’d need to carefully balance the ball atop the cone, not abandoning the grid until it was safely perched right there.

The almost-teens just now getting the hang of it, I watched with happiness as they came crashing towards the grid, sometimes accidentally knocking over the other team’s or their own team’s colored footballs. Later on, we even had the cutest little man crash our third round of tricky, slowly approaching the hashtag grid with one white ball, deposited into one corner, followed by another in the other. He hadn’t lined up three in row, but still he just stood back and admired his work, almost bragging to the teens three times his size far behind him – saying “see, I can do this way better than you guys!”

Mano o cabeza was next on the list, and with it a disclaimer, to avoid any sulking, tears, or hanging heads.

“Mira chicos!” I yelled out, voice booming.

“Anyone… I repeat, anyone can win this game. All it takes is concentration. Do you believe me?”

They nodded in unison.

“Si eres alto, si eres pequeño, si eres un niño o niña o si eres feo como soy, puedes ganar!” I yelled out, met with some laughs once the last part of the joke hit.

Tricky and mano o cabeza out of the way, we broke into a cascarita, a scrimmage just like in the morning group.

Mapi was deployed to one team, and myself to the other – just to spice up the competition. Man though, she sure could ball out! It’s funny, you can always tell when someone knows how to play footy. They don’t have to try too hard, but in doing so – you can already tell that they know the game. We continued to joke around during the scrimmage, trying to make sure we got the best of each other as did our respective teams.

“Eso!” I yelled out, watching her pull off a little inside, outside truco a la Iniesta, before being quickly smothered by my team’s defensa.

“Pues empezaste bien y luego…” I said, putting a little salt in her wound, albeit Mapi returning a laugh.

As the program wound down and we got to distributing take-away prizes I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“Todo mi team won balls, wow, que suerte.”

A girl even got a star reading premio but already won mano o cabeza, forcing a redo.

“Dale tienes mucha suerte!” I exclaimed.

We recollected the stars and ran it back again, while I turned to Luz Esperanza and joked, “Pues now if someone lost before they have the opportunity to lose again – because what’s worse than losing one time? Losing twice,” we both giggled at the thought like kids ourselves.

As we wrapped things up and some kids hung back asking to take pictures on their personal phones, I enjoyed the last bit of time ma and I had with Mapi. She, like the butterflies from earlier, was such a bright light in the world and a true force for good both in sport and in the community. We talked about resources and some of the highs and lows that came with them, myself calling on one of our most recent in-kind donations in some new footballs for the kids.

“Pues the best and most important thing I’ve learned about through these years is the importance of autonomy. Unrestricted funds. A partner that just says ‘we see what you’re doing, we believe in what you’re doing, so just keep doing what you’re doing,’ like this ‘we’re going to give you these footballs but there’s no rules attached to them – not location specific, not demographic specific.. just keep doing what you do – because we want to support it just as it is.’”

“That’s gold in this field,” I said.

“Pues I don’t know about you but if there’s a number (donation-wise) I would sell my soul for… well, I haven’t found it yet and I hope I never do, because ya sabes.. not all money is good money,” I said in closing.

Mapi, just as earlier, listened intently, and shared a deep level of care and understanding in her presence alone. “Text me when you get back home,” she said, even bringing mom to the bathroom while asking our taxi driver politely to wait as surely mom could not hold it in for peak Bogota rush hour traffic.

After giving ma the biggest hug, Mapi turned to me and said “.. rest these next days, please, and then we’ll meet up next week to eat some delicious food.”

“Count on it!” I said, “hasta pronto!” I yelled out, with a wave from the taxi’s backseat.