7.3.2008
An Easier Day
This morning before the workshops David and I knocked out an interview with Alfredo Ek. He was concise and clear on camera. He taught us that Ek is a Mayan word (but I am forgetting what it means right now). Allen and I gave our digital still cameras to Ismael and his brother, Evelio. It occupied them most of the day, at least until the batteries ran out, and they left me with hundreds of ridiculous pictures to erase. They had the time of their lives playing with these cameras. On the field the kids mobbed me today. I forgot to mention that every day when Coach K demos on the field what he taught in the classroom, we park the pickup truck out on the field and I film the drills from there. Today, at any given time, I had about eight kids climbing on the windshield, the cab, or tailgating. New kids showed up on their bikes. (I wish I had a production company made up of a twelve and under crew because we would hammer out a bunch of projects.) At lunch David and I caught Eliaphez and Jesus Ek for interviews. Today’s lunch was a sort of Belizean stir-fry.
In the afternoon we returned to San Antonio. I was a little anxious about coming back, I will admit. We got started much quicker than yesterday which helped, but when we first arrived a strange man came up to me off the street. His name was John, he kept repeating his name and, actually, he had a little bit of an Indian accent. He looked very Indian and wore a cluttered necklace of dirty little trinkets and discarded objects. “My house is the white one,” he said as he pointed to a patch of trees I couldn’t see beyond, “and men from Texas live across the street.” As he continued to stumble over his words and repeat himself I asked him what his job was. He said that he smokes weed and “rock.” Next he began to fish in his plastic bag, I held my breath, but he pulled out a handful of tiny green balls. All I had to do was peel this delicious fruit.
Lincoln wanted Coach K to teach the younger children to be a team and for Allen to teach the same thing to the older kids. Then he suggested that these two teams scrimmage! That’s the way they learn - the younger compete with the older. During the drills I occupied a corner of the field nearest to the turquoise shack (see previous blog entry) and played a fun game of frisbee with extremely cute kids, mostly ages 10 and younger. Once the drills finished and the scrimmage began, our frisbee group moved to a dusty cement “court” that appeared to be the concrete slab for some unfinished portion of the school. I had the inspiration to give them rides by lifting them above my head in front of me and running around the court. The harder they flapped their “wings” the longer and faster they flew. They immensely enjoyed themselves. Byron eventually joined us. I had a fairly unemotional and very fun time playing this last game and making Byron fly. He smiled and wiggled his hands. The little kids I played with asked when we were coming back and waved to me as we drove away. (Later I found out that during the scrimmage one boy left to make a drug deal and came back to finish the game.)
Returning home exhausted, we wrapped up the day with dinner at Hotel Maya. After dinner everyone took care of his business and we prepared certificates and photos to give the coaches tomorrow. We also signed books to give to them.
I can’t wait for tomorrow - our 232nd year of independence and the Caribbean waters of Amergris Caye.
-AR
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