Bogotá, Colombia (Part 1)
After nearly a year of exclusively U.S. & Mexico-based programs, I had the opportunity to bring our curriculum to a new country: Colombia.
As I sat down on the plane, I was overcome with a rush of different emotions; anxiousness, a bit of fear, and most importantly excitement. It had been so long since I had been anywhere new and I feared maybe I had lost my edge. Traveling to a new place with a new program always gives me nervous jitters.
After a two hour delay, a less than pleasant experience exchanging money, and a frenzied search for my taxi driver, those feelings and emotions had hardly subsided. It was already past 10 p.m. and I’ve never been a huge fan of arriving in a new country at nighttime, especially when the sun was already down.
Alas, I settled in at my apartment, had a long night’s sleep, and finally had a chance to process my emotions. As I laid out all the deflated soccer balls on my bed, it started to become real for me – and just like that, excitement completely took over. That excitement quickly disappeared when I remembered how much I hate inflating soccer balls. Ill-equipped with just a small hand pump, I remembered my host had a bicycle mounted on the wall and an idea popped in my head.
“¿Amigo tienes una bomba de bicicleta?” I asked.
“¡Si! You can use it,” he said graciously.
That night, knowing full well that I had a program with about 30 participants the next afternoon, I was able to inflate nearly 15 soccer balls with ease! Just enough to save a couple more for the car ride to the program. We were set to work with a new organization, but a like-minded one that placed a concentrated effort on the healthy development of children from different circumstances.
With excitement coursing through my veins, I hopped in an Uber and headed toward a neighborhood called Garcés Navas to Fundación Desarrollo Consentido. I arrived early and the team was stuck in traffic, so I situated myself on the foundation’s stoop, happy and excited, albeit looking like a stray.
The foundation’s team arrived and we quickly exchanged pleasantries and hit it off. They were equally as excited for the program and confirmed it by saying “We told all the kids we had a special activity today!” They focus on children’s education, safety, and development, but also expose their beneficiaries to different types of physical activity, like soccer, ultimate frisbee, and even martial arts!
I was still super excited, but the staff members had told me we could possibly have 40 participants. I began to get nervous that we might not have enough premios o regalos por los niños. I brought 30 soccer balls, but with the shirts and drawstring bags we could easily stretch this to 35+.
I decided I wouldn’t worry about it for the time being as I had to concentrate on the program itself. I moved to the second floor of the foundation, where the kids were all seated at small tiny kiddie tables. After a brief introduction, I explained what we would be doing and then we all moved downstairs and through the front door.
The kids all lined up in orderly fashion, as we prepared to walk a couple blocks to a huge soccer field. We had a bunch of open space, but as goes, we were competing for field time with other groups – I’ll get to this later.
We quickly broke the near-35 participants into groups of two to kick off our listening exercise. After a couple variations and rounds of that, we broke into three lines for some relay races, but before we could start, I paused and called for the group’s attention.
This was something new but I was hoping it would work and be of value to the kids. I asked, or rather stated a need, for two captains, reaching into my pocket revealing two Colombia-colored captain’s armbands. Immediately, two of the eldest boys raised their hands. I explained to them that this was an important responsibility, they would be helping me for the entirety of the program: demonstrating drills, setting up drills, basically being at my side the whole time.
They certainly did not take that responsibility lightly and managed to somehow exceed expectations with how I thought this little experiment of mine might go. Later, the foundation’s director – Jenny even told me that they had approached her, and she had asked, “where’d you get those captain bands?” “Profi, gave them to us to keep!” Jenny said you could see the pride and excitement on their faces as they showed off the bands.
She said that those two older boys have always been leaders, even without the symbolic gesture of wearing an armband. They could always be found helping around at the foundation and with the younger kids. It’s no surprise at all that this translated into tremendous leadership on the field as well, in the context of sport.
Basically, after some of our relay race variations, a team was starting to populate our side of the field. The coach approached us and told me they were holding a practice, but Jenny said not to worry – there was another park with multiple cement courts nearby. Just like earlier, we filed into two lines and made moves. Once we got to the court, myself and the martial arts coach who was helping me that day, set up two circles to run “mano o cabeza”.
I had 10 bracelets to give out so we ran three rounds each, the first two with two winners, the last with just one each. As expected, the kids loved playing this one. I had been briefed earlier that we had nearly 3 hours to run this program so I wasn’t feeling pressed for time at all which was a nice (and welcomed) change of pace.
After mano o cabeza, it was time to finish the program with some scrimmages! We broke into four teams, playing street rules – one goal, winner stays on. I served as the referee while our other coach made sure that before each game started, both teams would line up to perform a friendly gesture of respect – a handshake, high five, etc. to encourage sportsmanship.
As we neared the “playoff” portion of our little round robin tourney, the games got more heated. Two of them even went into penalties!
The kids all stepped up with excitement and pride, hoping to catapult their team into the next round: the finals. After the scrimmages, we all circled up to pass out prizes.
I paused to thank the kids for their time and respect before asking them, “What did you learn today?” Listening. Having fun. Working together in a group. Playing together as a team. Honesty.
First, our ten winners stepped up and were met with tremendous applause. Then, Jenny grabbed everyone’s attention to announce that we had a MVP for today’s session – one of the older participants in the foundation. He jumped to his feet in surprise, revealing a humongous smile on his face. I met him with two extended arms for a high five as we let him choose his pick of a new soccer ball. The whole crowd clapped and we all couldn’t help but smile at the moment and the true beauty of it.
After all the soccer balls had been distributed, we made our way back to the foundation for some snacks. Jenny approached me, with a small boy under her wing. He came up to me and whispered softly, “thank you”, gesturing to the ball in his hands, a ball almost as big as he was!
A little girl who was staying at the foundation a bit later than the others then came up to me and asked, “Can I wash the ball, Profi?” I told her “Yes, but be careful because there are messages from our partners on it” she gently rubbed her fingers on the small messages written by our friends, saying “Ok, Profi I will be very careful.” I then grabbed the ball and squished it as hard as I could, with it quickly regaining its shape almost immediately. “¡Mira! It’s indestructible, like magic,” I said. Her eyes lit up.
Knowing we still had a bit of time, I then taught her how to do a neck stall. Afterwards, the team all got together for dinner and I asked them for some feedback. Jenny suggested implementing a lesson on proper nutrition, which would only further our goal to encourage children to live active and healthy lives. Another staff member, Dani, asked if we could add five to ten minutes of stretching to the beginning of each program. It’s always advice from boots on the ground like this, people constantly alongside the kids, that holds real value in terms of critiquing or changing our curriculum.
