I was very aware that we had a set of programs coming up in the Dominican Republic and optimistic that I’d be able to pull together another installment in our pro-series. I reached out to a well-known player from the Santo Domingo area – Ernesto Trinidad, captain of Club Atletico Pantoja and a full international with the Dominican Republic National Team. Ernesto had captured the hearts of fans all over the island and beyond last year following a game against storied Liga MX side Rayados. He crawled from one side of the pitch to the other on his knees, as a sign of respect to both fan bases, literally giving all he could give to what he called the most important game of his life.

It was now April 27, and I had just shot Ernesto a message seeing if he’d be down to help out at a session within the city. Then, the waiting game began. Despite Ernesto’s interest and excitement, I found myself running into some scheduling issues much like back in Costa Rica with the Saprissa players.

“We have games pretty much every three days, but I’m free this Saturday if we can schedule it for then?” Ernesto said about a week earlier.

I reached out to our community partners, Hogar Escuela de Niñas Doña Chucha, and was met with unfortunate news. The kids are here at the center Monday through Friday, then on the weekends they go back home to their families, my contact Magdelin wrote. It seemed like Saturday wasn’t going to work. I relayed the news to Ernesto, who responded just as positively as he had in our thread prior.

“Don’t worry bro, we’ll maintain contact, just let me know when you’re available,” he said.

Keeping in mind Doña Chucha’s weekday schedule, I planned to arrive in the Dominican the following week. The first message I sent was to Ernesto, who had gone back to his home city for the weekend to visit family. Turns out, I had picked a good week to arrive since Ernesto’s club side was currently on an extended break while other teams in the league played in a intra-Caribbean tournament. However, they were still practicing every day. But Ernesto ensured that it wouldn’t be an issue since training ran from 7 in the morning until 11.

We had a big time frame to choose from at the school, where the kids would be from 8-3 p.m., so I hit Magdelin up to see the possibility of an afternoon session, around 2-3 p.m. I had 40 soccer balls with me, since Magdelin and I had planned to run two sessions with 20 kids in each group. Between running the program in Los Guandules and coordinating things with Magdelin, I was maintaining contact with Ernesto just as he had promised.

“I can do Thursday after training, would that work?” he asked.

It worked for Magdelin and the Doña Chucha team, and all I had scheduled for Thursday so far was 8 hours of Netflix, so it definitely worked for me too. 

“I should wear athletic clothes, right?” asked Ernesto. “Because from what I’ve seen, during all your programs you are wearing athletic wear.”

“Whatever’s comfortable for you bro, jeans, athletic clothes, it doesn’t matter.” I responded. “We’ll be running around, but not too much. So just wear something comfortable.”

On Wednesday night, it had downpoured which honestly gave me spooky flashbacks to my time here back in August, when we constantly had to cancel and reschedule sessions due to tropical storms and hurricanes hitting the island. That next day, Thursday – the day of the session, it began to rain yet again. I was nervous that it might cause the program to cancel, or it might change Ernesto’s desire to attend which honestly I couldn’t blame him, I hate running sessions in the rain lol I hate existing in the rain if I’m being completely honest.

It was only about 1 o’clock at the time, so I was hopeful things would clear up by our start time. Luckily, I was right. Plus, we had both an open play area and a shaded one, so there really wasn’t anything to worry about rain or shine.

I called an Uber, and coordinated one to pick Ernesto up from Pedro Brand, a pretty far drive from outside the capital.

Ernesto was coming from a dentist appointment, “I should be able to arrive at 2:15 if that’s alright,” he asked. 

“Take your time bro, we’ll start when you arrive – no rush at all” I reassured him.

In the meantime, I was warmly greeted by Magdelin as she helped me set up some drills and introduced me to the teacher of the class we would be working with. We had a group of 20 10-12 year olds for the day.

When Ernesto arrived, he was easily recognized from afar with his Atletico Pantoja branded team pants on. His early arrival was a nice surprise because it gave us some time to plan out the session. Looking out at a sea of empty cones in front of us, we chatted about the Around the Worlds curriculum and what I had lined up for the day. I listed our activities for him: listening drill, then some relay races, then ball control grids, and lastly, a game to give out some premios.

With nothing left to do from my side, I sipped some water and watched Ernesto set things up. One line. A white ball, then a red one, then a blue one. At the end, a yellow one. Line two, a yellow one, then a blue one, then a red one. Everything is color-coded.

“Hey, pass me a red one,” he said, swapping out a white ball in his hand.

We shared a laugh as I admitted to him that I do the same exact thing when I’m setting up this drill. Good to know I’m not the only one. With all the soccer balls in perfect order, it was finally time to begin. And right on cue, the kids came rushing out of their classroom

We had a nice mix of boys and girls, split about 30/70 respectively. I had them sit down in front of our playing space, and introduced myself and the program, before introducing Ernesto to a loud round of applause.

After some brief words on my side, I turned to my right and asked Ernesto if he’d like to say anything, which he politely obliged – sharing some words of positivity with the kids ahead of our training. As per usual, the kids loved our listening drill. It was tough for us not to have just as much fun as them while leading it too! I ran a few rounds, and then Ernesto ran a few of his own while I set up our second drill. We split into three teams and jumped out with la bicicleta.

“Do you guys know that trick?” I polled the group.

“Yes! ¡La bicicleta!” yelled one boy, while immediately dropping to the ground onto his back with his legs pointed upward, feet to the sky, rotating like an inverted bicycle.

“Nooooo” I said with a laugh, “It’s a different trick, we have an example here for you guys from Ernesto,” as he approached the first ball and performed three stationary stepovers with absolutely flawless technique.

“If you want, you guys can practice real quick before we start?” I asked, an offer which was graciously accepted. A young boy from our line closest to Ernesto immediately ran to the first ball, performing a clean stepover on his first try. Then, things quickly spiraled. By the end, he was jumping back and forth over the ball, spinning around, swaying his arms and everything. “Como bailando,” I whispered to Ernesto as we shared a laugh at little man’s valiant effort.

For our next round, dribbling in a zigzag pattern with the ball at their feet, I began to clear the balls from the grid since they would only be a distraction for an already challenging drill. I took out my pitching wedge of a right foot and popped a ball up right into Ernesto’s hands.

“Ooh wow!” yelled out a couple students from the first line.

The kids honestly weren’t too familiar with soccer, which no lie made the program special, but also meant that this zigzag dribbling request would likely be too hard. Ernesto and I removed the two sets of middle cones so that our teams would just be dribbling in a straight line back and forth. This made it a little bit easier, but it was definitely still a challenge for the youngsters.

“For the next one, you’ll be running from this cone to that one and back with a ball under each arm, como monos,” I explained, before requesting a demo from Ernesto.

Let me tell you this man literally ran like a monkey from cone to cone, with a goofy, bouncy swagger, which had me weak. And the kids literally copied him! It was fantastic.

After hitting a few more variations, we broke into ball control grids, with both Ernesto and I leading groups of ten. Finally, it was premios time and el cuerpo lo sabe. The stage was set, it was time for mano o cabeza!

I ran the first round, as Ernesto floated around the outside of the circle to explain the rules to any confused participants. This first round would have three winners. Next, Ernesto ran a vuelta while I chilled off to the side to inhale a bottle of water. His round was supposed to have 3 winners as well, but with four left he just couldn’t manage to eliminate anyone. We just went with four winners to hit a total of seven.

Three bracelets left in hand, I ran one more round to give us an even 10 prizewinners, each stepping forward to receive a bracelet, but more importantly, first dibs at our colorful selection of new soccer balls. With the session over, we retreated to the shade to enjoy some ice cold water that was brought over by Magdelin while we had been busy running drills.

I briefed Ernesto on what we had left, “So now we’re just going to have the kids come forward to pick a new soccer ball, and then I’m sure you’ll have to sign a few autographs if that’s okay with you.”

“Totally cool with me bro, don’t worry,” he said with a smile.

Just as the session had started, we sat the kids back down in front of the playing space to finish with a small chat.

“I just wanted to thank you guys for all of your attention and energy today,” I started. “And can we give another round of applause to Ernesto for sharing his time with us?!” I said, gesturing to my left with outstretched arms.

“I hope you guys enjoyed your experience here today with the game, and I hope you learned something. Did you?? Raise your hands if you did!” I added.

A sea of hands rose to the sky

“Controlling the ball!”

“¡Bicicletas!” said one boy, even taking it a step further to demo how to do them there from the seat of his pants.

“Attention,” said a younger girl softly.

“Using our head!” chirped another.

“¡Mano o cabeza!”

A faint whisper came from the crowd, “Pingüinos”, shared a small girl, with a smile on her face, recalling the one variation of our relay race where the kids had to hop from cone to cone with the ball between their legs.

With their new soccer balls in hand, the kids all approached Ernesto so he could tattoo his firma on each ball. I ain’t gonna lie I gave out a couple firmas too.

With all the kids gathered for a group picture, we huddled up for one last closing thought. Ernesto took the floor, saying how next time we see the kids we’ll remember their names and their faces and we’ll be waiting with excitement to see their progression in the sport.

“But, you never asked for our names…” said one of the girls.

“Ahhh oops” we said, “okay please go around now and introduce yourselves to us.”

Once that was done Ernesto pointed at me and said, “What’s his name?”

“¡Esteban!” yelled the kids. Their memory is far better than either of ours. We posed for a couple more flicks with the niños, followed by one of just myself and Ernesto. Ernesto went to the left. “This is my side,” he said with a laugh. “Man, that’s my side too!!” I said, returning an even heartier chuckle.

Afterwards, we squared away some post-program details before chopping it up a little more.

“These things are important. It’s always about baseball here so to do something like this today. To connect kids to positive experiences with the game, to connect them with accomplished practitioners of it like yourself, it’s the first step in them believing they can one day do it too,” I shared to him, meaning every word I said.

He echoed the same sentiments about the experience, and thanked me for letting him be a part of it.

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to bring a smile to those children, for allowing me to spend quality time & wonderful moments with them. God bless you and continue to accompany you wherever you go doing those good deeds. It was a privilege indeed.”

In response, I had to reiterate just how important it is to have positive role models and figures like him helping us carry out our programs, “For the kids, these moments are already special, but when we have a person like you, a soccer player, who can share his experience with the ball and within the sport with them (the children), it really is a dream come true.”

He responded, “I hope you enjoy the rest of your days here in my country, y sabes que tiene una casa aquí en la República cuando quiera venir, un abrazo” “It was a pleasure to meet you, the world needs more people like you and the world needs more programs like this.”

Friday came around and it was time for our second session at Doña Chucha. Ernesto was busy today but I was hoping to be joined by another special guest. I briefed Magdelin about it the day before and she said it was totally fine, especially if I needed an extra hand in running the program. The guest would be Elias, a boy I worked with back in 2016 during our first ever program here in the Dominican.

“I would really like to go help,” he texted me the day before.

This was all part of a greater plan of creating real cycles of change through our programs. Not just helping our beneficiaries, but teaching our beneficiaries to help others. When I first met Elias he was only 13 years old, now he’s 18 and hopes to be a doctor. The day of the session came around and I received an unfortunate text from my boy.

“Hey bro, I had to go into work today. My boss told me I could have the day off to help you, but then he had a family problem and changed his mind, I’m really sorry,” he said.

Elias and I had tried to do something similar back in August, but were road blocked by a tropical storm and program cancellation.

“Don’t worry Elias, if not this time we’ll make it happen someday, I promise,” I said, keeping hope at a maximum level.

I’ve been wanting to do this for years now, so it was gonna take a lot more than that to get me to give up. Alas I’d have my hands full today working with 20 kids by myself. I felt even more spoiled splitting the session 50/50 the day before with Ernesto. I arrived to the same playing space as before, met by old faces and new ones as well.

“¡Que lo que Esteban!” shouted a boy from Thursday’s program.

As I set up cones for drill #1, Magdelin and I had a bit of downtime to chop it up. She spoke about the center, how about 100 girls live at the school from Monday to Friday so their parents can work. On top of that, about 80 more kids come day to day to receive an education.

“Lots of these kids actually come from Guandules, where you were on Tuesday,” she shared

Finally, it was time for things to begin. We had a group of 19 kids, predominantly girls for this one. I was told we’d have 20 so perhaps having one less would make my job 5 percent easier.

“Profe, como te llamas?” asked a girl from the crowd.

“¡Esteban!” I answered.

“Sebastian?” she said back.

She would continue to call me Sebastian for the rest of the session – sometimes accidentally, other times on purpose.

“Who’s Sebastian? I don’t know him,” I said. “Why are you always calling me that,” I asked with a laugh.

“You should be named Sebastián, it’s more bonito” she answered. The logic was sound, so I guess I couldn’t fault her there. We prepared to jump into our listening exercise and I saw a younger boy explaining the rules to his partner, a young girl standing across from him.

“So when he says mano… you head it back with your cabeza, and then when he says…”

“Nooooo amigo,” i said with a smile. “That’s a different one, we’ll do that one later I promise”

With my voice pretty shot from the day before, I picked a girl out from the crowd to explain the listening drill’s rules. A lot of our participants today had been watching from their second floor classrooms and below, so it wasn’t crazy to think the rules had stuck with at least one of them. A young girl shot her hand to the sky, and I brought her center stage to explain the game to the rest of the group. She ran a round of it, then I asked for another youngster to run the next.

A sea of hands shot up, so we all took turns running the drill. Like I said, it definitely made my job much easier today.

“Profe can we play mano o cabeza now?” asked one of the kids.

They were all so polite. How could I say no?

We hit a couple practice rounds, with even the youngest boy in the session, Dante, managing to get the hang of things. A younger girl performed the right command and passed the ball back to me – “Ojo de águila” she said, flexing her confidence just the slightest bit.

An older girl yelled my name out from the circle, “Profe please say mano when you get to me! I’m begging you”

“Me too Profe, say mano,” a younger boy added.

“Bro you can’t choose! If I say mano it’s mano if I say cabeza it’s cabeza, that’s my responsibility” I said, feeling the need to put my foot down a bit before all control was lost.

We were playing until 3 people were left. I think at this point 6 or 7 were still going strong. “Mano!” I yelled out. The ball’s intended target clasped the ball with her hands. “Out!” I yelled.

I went around to a few more participants, before seeing that same girl’s face again. “Hey, you’re already out?” I asked.

“No profe, I haven’t lost yet!” she answered.

I looked up and scanned the crowd on the sidelines, recognizing the same face. Wait a minute… “Son gemelas?” I asked. “Yes Profe!” The class answered, laughing at my confusion.

“My name is Wendy,” said one. “Y me llamo Wendry,” said the other, who had yet to be eliminated.

God bless the parent who thought those names were a good idea for a set of twins! With that unfortunate mistake out of the way and our winners list fully populated, it was time to distribute bracelets and soccer balls.

“Profe can you sign mine?” Asked a youngster. “Mine too!” yelled another.

Soon as you know it, we had a full line of kids. “Can you write my name, too, please?” asked one. “Mine too!” “Me too!” The requests followed.

This would be a struggle, one because I don’t know the Spanish alphabet at all and two because everyone had such creative, unique names, like Keyter and Crismaely.

Plus I was writing them in a sharpie so like there was no room for error at all. After that stress was out of the way, I retreated back to the front office with Magdelin to enjoy some well-deserved rest in the comfort of an air-conditioned room. I took a few moments to thank her again for helping to coordinate both sessions. “They were perfect, ” I said. “Today was a little bit more difficult, but they’re all really good kids,” I added.

“Ah Fridays are always like this. The kids are excited because they finally get to go home and see their parents. So focus is a bit harder to come by on these days.”

I shared to Magdelin how it seemed like we’d been talking for forever trying to set this one up. I told her that despite email being our main channel of communication, she had been really responsive, which I appreciated a lot.

“Let me check the first email,” she said, spinning over to her computer. “Oh my God! July 2021,” she said. “It really was a long time.”

Still sat behind her computer, she let out a sigh – “Ugh, I have an English test today,”

“Perfect, good thing we were able to practice our alphabets and letters today then!” I answered quickly, drawing a shared laugh before wishing her good luck and bidding her farewell with a cheek kiss and a hug.