After a Sunday break, Monday arrived and with it, our last Colombia-based session of this weeklong run. I was excited for the day’s class, but as always with Bogota’s spotty weather, I remained cautious because it would all come down to whether or not the weather felt like cooperating today.

As things would go, well… the weather did not feel like cooperating. I received a text from my contact, Camila, confirming my fears. “Stephen, donde estas? We might not be able to push through with today’s session because of the rain,” she said. 

She was set to leave soon for an appointment, but assured me that I was being left in very capable hands.

“Por la tema de lluvia tal vez no podemos continuar… pero déjame ver,” she scribbled, optimistically.

Alas, I was already en route and with Bogota’s traffic, there was no turning back.

“Ya estoy en camino,” I replied. “Ojala, the rain will stop,” I added, hopeful more than anything.

The rain fluctuated from drizzles to a heavy onslaught, but finally, 45 minutes in a cab later, I reached my destination. There, the rain had come to a complete stop. Unfortunately, the hour of raindrops prior to the clearing had steered many of our day’s beneficiaries away. I walked through the foundation doors and our numbers were, let’s say, “muy pocos.”

It was already past 3 p.m. and it appeared our class would not be kicking off on time. I turned to another one of my contacts, a ‘profe’ named Nicolas, and posed a question.

“Cuántos son?” I asked.

“Pues, pocos como 4 por la clima,” he answered.

I was not ready to give up. Well, not yet, at least. “Let’s wait!” I yelled out. The kids, all four of them, were very much in agreement. Luckily, the juice was worth the squeeze.

Four became five, which quickly became seven. The magic number was 10.

One of the kids provided some context to that number.

“Coach, la directora told us that if we reach 10 we can go play at the park, but if not, we’ll be stuck here playing outside the foundation only… in the alley,” he said.

Ballers know that the alley is nowhere to play, and the park, complete with goals and gradas, was very much the preferred stomping grounds.

“My friend is on his way, Coach, soon we’ll have one more!” a boy yelled out, excitedly.

Then, a knock at the door.

“Ya tenemos 10!”

We hooted and hollered, and ran to the park with 20+ soccer balls in tow. As always, things opened up with a charla. Despite the delay, I wasn’t going to compromise our time and made sure expectations were set. The kids had to know what I needed from them: their energy, their attention, and above all, their respect. During said charla, I had a bit of a realization. Truth is, yes… running programs in English is and always will be the easiest, but I think that running them in Spanish might be my favorite. It’s an added challenge, but an always welcomed one from my side.

I smiled as my years of Spanish in the field came back to me, oftentimes surprising myself with terms and phrases I had no idea I even knew or remembered. Luckily, the kids were quick to hype me up, which certainly helped remove any doubt I had when it came to ability. After expectations had been clearly set with the kids, we jumped straight into it. They each were instructed to grab their own football, and returned swiftly to center court for our dribbling warm-up exercise. We ran this one for a quick five minutes, just to get blood flowing and bodies moving after the lengthy delay.

From there, individual play shifted to group dynamics, while we broke into our listening drill.

“Who won? Tu, tu ganaste?” I made sure to ask after every round, as kids were quick to proudly brag of their triumphant victories.

“Yo, profe!” they’d yell out, pumping their fists.

“Dale, 1 to 1!” I’d answer, keeping score for our beneficiaries.

From there, participants found themselves once again each with a soccer ball at their feet as we broke into our body part dribbling activity. After our rain delay, the pitch had been left riddled with raindrops, making for a slick surface, but the kids paid no mind.

“Somos futbolistas!” said a young man named Matteo, “we don’t mind!”

After plenty of energy had been expended, we transitioned quickly into three lines of four to run ball control grids. The kids were nice at this, I won’t lie. They required very little instruction and were more than good to go after just one single example. I made sure those willing to demonstrate our different variations were applauded properly, pausing to praise them – a girl named Amy and a boy named Matthias, among others.

“Profe de donde eres? You have an accent!” one of the older girls said.

“Pues ellos me dijeron que soy brasileño… pero tu, que piensas?” I asked.

“Pues yo pensé que eres de Argentina!” she answered.

“Ay! Guao!” I replied.

Ball control grids exhausted, we then jumped into some one-on-ones at goal before splitting into two even teams for a scrimmage.

Trying to keep things fair, myself and Nicolas, the kids’ profe de Roblox, stepped forward as captains. I’ve experienced team-making in many different ways, and this has always seemed to be the easiest (and smoothest). Now, when I tell you… this game was tight. My team was strong, but I won’t lie, theirs was stronger. Plus, my defenders just could not seem to avoid giving up penalty kicks!

Luckily, I saved them all, but not without turning to my right back, Amy, and diciendo, “Amy! Ayúdame porfa!”

Just as fortunately, our attack was nice and man, we really had a lot of opportunities to find the back of the net. Unluckily, they just were not connecting. Our number 9 hit the post a couple times, while one of our other attackers, a tall girl, couldn’t manage to beat el profe in the other goal.

“Que paso?” I asked her.

“Pues estaba bien cerca, profe!” she answered.

“No te preocupes, ellos tienen un buen portero,” I said, reassuring her it was at no fault of her own that the score was still level.

“Tu tambien, profe! Eres un buen portero!” my line of girl defenders chimed back.

“Entonces va a ser cero a cero hasta mañana!” I said, to which they responded with hearty laughs.

Time was running thin and the kids’ parents were nearly all ready to scoop them back up.

“Profe… don’t finish the game, we want to keep playing,” the other team begged me.

I didn’t want things to end either, how could I with the score still deadlocked?

“2 minutitos más!” I yelled out, glancing at one of my contacts in the corner, pointing at her watch.

“1 minute!” I yelled, barely even a minute later.

I didn’t want to blow that whistle. “Último juego! Last play!”

Naturally, that play was yet another handball from my back line. The last kick of the day was to be a penal. Honestly, I did not care either way if it got saved or not. I wanted us to have a winner one way or another. Unfortunately, Matteo drilled it right at me and I had no choice but to parry it away. That was it. I blew my whistle.

“Dale! Penales!” I was determined to get us a winner, by any means necessary.

We broke off to the other side of the field and lined up on either side of the box. Then, each player stepped up to try to bring their team glory. Our last kicker on the day was Profe Nicolas. The crowd went silent. Parents held their breaths in anticipation.

With barely a three step run up, Profe put his laces through the ball – striking Matteo in the place where the sun don’t shine. 

“Profeeeee!” he squealed, keeling over on the ground. He hit the deck, but the ball never did hit the back of the net.

I turned to Nicolas and one of my other contacts, Alejandra, “Ganamos, pero a que costo?” As we all burst out in laughter.

Following a cooldown charla, just to test the kids’ memory and listening skills, they each received their very own soccer ball. Then, we made our way back to the foundation while some participants departed directly from the field with their parents. Back at the office, some colaboradores of the foundation were waiting and approached me excitedly to hear about the program.

“Como te fue?” a young woman asked.

“Pues… tienes que preguntar a los niños! Yo no…” I said, jajaja’ing.

After all, I knew very well that the true truth was in their feedback, not mine. Still though, I had plenty of good things to say, because the kids really were incredible on the day.

Likewise, those partners shared words of gratitude combined with genuine curiosity. Mainly, the ‘why’ of Around the Worlds.

“Por que estoy haciendo este obra de amor?” I asked, for clarification. “Pues así es… porque es una obra de amor, I said. “Una idioma universal!”

They smiled at the simple, yet poignant response.

“Pues tenemos que ir pero fue un gusto conocerte,” the two of them said. “Que chevere tu trabajo, hasta luego!”