Wednesday afternoon rolled around and it was time for day two, session three of this little run we had going on at Ciudad de Los Ninos in San Juan de Miraflores. The commute was boring, but after yesterday’s near-accident, the more boring, the better to be quite honest. My Uber dropped me off again at the front gate and I began my walk towards the staff office.

“The Uber can enter the gate and drive you down here,” Janeth had briefed me the other day.

With the ride being $6 and gas being the price it is, I felt bad enough that this driver was on the verge of losing money for a trip so long, that I couldn’t bear to hassle him to drive a couple blocks more. Alas, a good pregame exercise before the session I guess, I was 30 minutes early anyway.

I walked by the large grass field from yesterday, but we were set to run today’s on a cement court. “Just for a change of view,” I had told Janeth when she asked for my preference.

I greeted her with a hug and we walked through winding sidewalks to a cement court, half covered by a techo of sorts

This group’s casa is right in front of the cancha, so this is actually perfect, Janeth had said. The kids were just finishing a lesson and had excitedly changed into their gear. All of them emerged wearing soccer flats and matching Peru kits, man when I tell you they were looking swaggy. They ran up excitedly, curiosity bubbling as they bombarded me with questions much like the first group yesterday.

“¿Profe, tienes un acento, de donde eres?”

“¿Italia?” asked one.

“¡No, Venezuela!” chimed another.

“Creo que Argentina,” yelled a third.

I really have to figure out this accent!

“I like your jerseys guys!” I said to the crowd.

“Aye Profe, did you watch the game on Monday?” a boy asked.

“Sí amigo, what a pity… and I thought we were the better team,” I said. “But this is football, there’s always 90 minutes and the ball is always round… and sometimes the better team loses,” I added, hoping to teach a life lesson that I’m sure I got from an Uber driver at some point in the past two years.

“Hermano, you’re so tall,” said one of the younger boys.

“He’s like Pedro Gallese!” yelled another, referencing the 6’2” star goalkeeper of La Sele

Janeth had told me beforehand that the kids would likely call me hermano and not to be alarmed or surprised or anything. The tutors, their teachers, guests like me, Janeth, and the religious clergy were always called hermanos pues porque somos hermanos!

Not wanting to talk too much about Monday’s sad loss and elimination from World Cup contention, the kids quickly changed the subject. “It’s okay hermano because I think the Sele has some friendly games scheduled for next fall.”

“You guys should play Colombia!” I said, two powerhouse teams that had somehow missed out on the greatest sporting tournament in the world.

Finally, with our little charla out of the way, I kicked things off. This group was totally different from the second one yesterday in the sense that they all wanted to be captains. After some careful thought, I selected a boy with glasses, named Angel, to be the session’s captain. The group was pretty small but the energy certainly was not. I had been told to plan for 17, but we ended up having an even dozen. Of those missing, three kids had left early to go back to their actual homes, but they would eventually be returning so I made sure Janeth set aside some soccer balls for them to come back to.

We ran some rounds of mano o cabeza which were met with big ol laughs by all. This particular iteration of mano o cabeza was actually funny! So as I went round and round I began to notice a couple kids running around the circle when it was or was almost their turn, basically deferring their turn to a later point. I was playing mano o cabeza and they was playing duck duck goose.

Somehow they had cracked the code and realized that they could win if they simply just outlasted the competition rather than really performing the right commands.

“Profe, can I use the bathroom?” asked a boy. I hesitantly obliged, unsure if he was trying to dip out and sneak back in before the final rounds or if he really did need to use the bathroom.

After we had some winners we broke into a 6v6 scrimmage with sweeper keepers. This one had everything, penalties, megs, injuries, and more. One boy had taken a ball to the calf and went down in a heap. The boys, rather than continuing, checked in on him and helped carry him off the pitch to the bench. It was a really sweet and unexpected moment. Seeing my chance, I subbed in for the injured player and immediately airmailed an assist to one of the taller, older boys, celebrating together as a team as we had just evened things up 2-2.

Not wanting to miss out on golden goal, our injury from earlier reentered the fray and I retreated back to my role as referee. Our time was wearing thin and so I halted things so we could pass out bracelets and soccer balls and give the kids the proper applause they deserved.

First, for the winners, then for the group as a whole for displaying tremendous respect for each other and the game. Janeth had told me that the foundation really needed soccer equipment, to which I responded I wish I had known considering the surplus of cones and other miscellaneous things we have at the ready. But alas, something to remember for the next session. 

I did leave her some cones that had been collected by our rockstar intern, Merrick, thanks to the Girl’s Varsity Soccer Coach at the Pennington School. As the program neared its close and the kids gradually, perhaps a bit begrudgingly, returned to their Casa, I had a little bit more time to chat with Janeth. She spoke about how the foundation was working hard to get back to a sort of normal after the pandemia.

“So currently we have 150 kids living here as young as age 4,” she started “But we had over 180 before the pandemic. And like eight years ago we had as many as 300,” she said.

“Wow!” I exclaimed.

She began to explain more about the structure of the foundation. “So presently we have eight ‘Casa hogares’, and like Sonrisa they all have different names,” she said.

“This time, you had the chance to work with 3, but there’s plenty more that would certainly benefit,” she added, as we passed by a group of 15 year olds leaving school – something to look forward to for next time, I thought to myself. As I made my way to the front gate, accompanied by Janeth and another staff member, she passed me a box branded with Ciudad de Los Ninos on each side.

“It’s just some goodies from our bakery here on campus,” she said. “I’m not sure what’s in there, but I know it’s delicious,” she said with a smile.

Inside, plenty of fresh baked treats, cakes, and cookies. A sweet goodbye following a sweet day of programming.

Thursday was a free day, but Friday was back to sessions. This time, a return to the “Puericultorio” following some brief back and forth with my two contacts Andrea and Maria Paz.

“The kids would love to see you, some of them always ask about you,” said Andrea. “I made sure to tell them that we have a surprise guest, surely they’ll come sprinting to the field as soon as school gets out,” said Maria Paz.

I arrived at the Puericultorio’s main front gate around 2:45  for the 3 o’clock session. It was in Magdalena as well, about twenty minutes walking distance but I was lazy and took an Uber. I greeted Maria Paz with a big hug and eagerly set up some grids for the session, grids that would be immediately deconstructed as soon as the kids arrived.

As promised and expected, school was dismissed and excitement filled the air.

“¡Hola profe!” yelled some familiar faces.

We had a decent mix with about a third of the kids new despite just having run a program last fall. They came from different places, one from Paraguay, another with mixed Venezuelan and Ecuadorian blood. Eager to kick things off, I picked a new captain, but a boy who had very much remembered me from last year. He was patient but commanding, a perfect balance of the two, and he waited until he had everyone’s attention to kick off the listening exercise.

From there, we broke into some activation type work followed by one touch shots at net, one touch headers at net, and one touch volleys thereafter. My captain manned the goal frame, just as he had last fall. Then, we broke into a scrimmage, with my team ultimately falling 5-3 after a more than valiant effort.

We retreated to Maria Paz’s office to enjoy some sandwiches and chocolates that had been donated that day. While there, boys filtered in and out of the room, even an older one around 17-18 who I worked with in 2021.

We spent some time talking shop about the national team as well as his favorite club team, Manchester City. As that all happened, just as I had before, a young boy stayed after to work on his neck stall. He went from unable to balance it at all, to walking with it, even doing one push-up with the ball perfectly balanced right there! Let’s go my boy. Before saying my goodbyes, I took a picture with Maria Paz just to document the happiness I felt in being able to link up again for a session not even one year removed from the last.

“¡Cuando quieras vamos a estar felices de recibirte de nuevo!” she said warmly, with a hug and besito.