With Monday’s program out of the way, it was time to move on to our second day of programs and with it, another afternoon session with some of Mexico City’s finest young beneficiaries. Our partners on the day were once again familiar community collaborators – Afeeci, AC. I was in contact with a friend, Paula, from Proyecto Cantera, who yet again played a critical role in setting up this session with Afeeci.

I called an Uber and pinned the address to Afeeci’s campus, which is located in Tacubaya, familiar stomping grounds from one of my many trips to “El DF”. I was set to work with about a dozen students and prepared just as many camp Challenger tees to give away to them at the program’s end. I was greeted warmly by my contact, Jessy, and posed her an almost immediate question.

“Jessy? Can we pass out the t-shirts before the session starts?” I asked. I knew that if the kids showed up to football class all wearing matching shirts, it would give it a real, official camp-type of feeling. “Como ropa igual,” I added.

Sharing the same understanding, Jessy nodded her head and disappeared into the wings to distribute the goods. When I tell you, this group was a fun one! The kids were little and some tees fit more like dresses than shirts, but that adorableness just added to the overall enjoyability of the session. Our listening exercise debuted with a chorus of laughter, followed by even more giggles during our dribbling drill.

“Axilas de su amigo!” I commanded.

“Profe!!” the young ones groaned.

“Bueno… pues, solo si quieres!” I exclaimed. “Para mi, no me importa!”

Afterwards, we hit “Red Light, Green Light”, which I ran first by myself. Our first round winner then ran it after. We ran through a couple different variations, just to make sure the soccer ball was very much still involved. It was a trip seeing the kids take over my role as gameleader too… I fear the power it gave them was far too much! Every time they caught a movement in their periphery they would call their opponents out BY NAME and wait until they had retreated back to our makeshift starting line.

With not too much time left and still a couple drills left to hit, we shifted over to 1v1s following a brief water break. Let me tell you, the kids were FIRED UP! There was so much cheering! Like maybe even TOO much cheering. The decibel level hit an unruly level and an older group of Afeeci beneficiaries had to shut a door to shield their ears from our rowdiness.

I turned back to Jessy, “Disculpa… pero los niños siempre así, no?”

“No te preocupes!” she said, knowing that the noise was merely a reflection of their excitement, and nothing more.

We ran through a couple 1v1s with that same level of energy before transferring whatever remained towards a little freestyle session at the clinic’s end. I demoed a neck stall and then, looking at the ninos in front of me, said, “Can you guys do that, too?”

“Nooooo, Profe, no way!” they exclaimed. Still though, I had faith.

I lined up five beneficiaries in front of me and we got straight into it. I believed they could and so they did! It was a joy to see their faces fill with a sense of accomplishment as the ball nestled straight there on the nape of their necks.

We snapped a few pictures as I hit a post-program catch-up with Jessy. Nostalgia filled the air as everything began to come back to me. “I think you were here back in 2022, right?” she asked. “Si!” I answered, although this was technically my first visit to Afeeci campus.

Our last session was in Tacubaya, but we held it at a public park with the Proyecto Cantera team. The streets were familiar, as were members of Afeeci’s staff. I smiled at the comfort of it all and couldn’t help but giggle to myself, much like our beneficiaries had done during the day’s session. Two programming days up and two programming days down – let’s see what the next one brings!