Demasiado. Too much. That's all I could say yesterday, as I was so overwhelmed by birthday love. I've spent my past four birthdays at Bowdoin, surrounded by friends and teammates, usually waking up by 5:45 to get to the locker room and suit up for 6:30am practice, brunch, nap, practice again, and asleep by 10 or 11. One year fitness testing landed right on my birthday. Just what I always wanted! I was sad to be so far away from all of that but I wasn't expecting anything this year, just happy to be able to see all the girls and coaches that night for activities. The day began as all my others do with a bowl of oatmeal around 8:30, and then I had to finish making ticket envelopes for each girl on my team because that night we were doing "Cambios" when the girls get to exchange their attendance points for donated items in our bodega (cleats, balls, sneakers, bags, shorts, jerseys, shin guards, socks, water bottles, notebooks, pencils/pens, or other school supplies) Each time a girl comes to activity or practice, she gets one point (in the form of a ticket) and then can 'buy' whatever she wants with her tickets. I brought the materials down the street to the hotel where I usually do work, and opened my inbox to some very nice birthday emails from my family. I finished up putting the right number of tickets in each individual envelope around lunch time, and then went to my favorite café, "Claudia's" where you can get an entire plate of food (chicken, rice, beans, plantains, and a small salad) and your choice of homemade fruit juice all for 50 cordobas. ($2.10) Pretty amazing. Afterwards I headed home to get ready for our game at 3. (Not an Estrella game. I've been practicing and playing with the Fútbol Sin Fronteras veteran team and we had a game against the only other female team in the area Real Sultana) However, it was raining and when it rains here the Nicas don't dare leave their houses for fear of catching a cold, which all our neighbors love to warn us about when they see the crazy gringas strolling down the street in the rain. Real Sultana didn't show up, but we had about 10 girls and decided to just scrimmage amongst ourselves. It was a blast, and we all left the field drenched in some combo of rain and sweat. I had to rush back and shower before the girls started showing up for the activity. Larkin told me I had to stay in my room until 5:15, so I knew something was up her sleeve. I snuck downstairs and outside without ruining any apparent surprise so I could at least hang out with the girls who arrived early before activities. I was greeted by Joseling Palacios, one of my girls with the best attendance to date. She's very quiet, but very sweet and well-behaved and wouldn't hurt a fly. "Feliz cumpleaños Kelly!" she said and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Gracias Joseling!" I said, shocked that she even knew it was my birthday. Then she pulled out a note she had written for me, decked out with glitter glue and her impeccable handwriting, and a lollipop. I nearly welled up, and hadn't even read what she wrote yet.
Translated it reads: "Kelly I'm sorry for not giving you a gift. I can only give you my friendship because I don't have money. Congratulations for your birthday! If I had money, I would give you things of value. Your friendship means a lot to me. I love you very much."
I hugged her again, and had to go back inside so I wouldn't cry in front of her. I was simply overwhelmed with emotion. Incredibly touched by her kindness and the time and effort she put into writing me a birthday card, and incredibly sad that she felt that it wasn't enough. It was more than enough, and I will try to explain that when I write her a thank you note.
That was just the start of an incredible night. When the Estrellas were called to go upstairs (we always have our activities on the 3rd floor) I was told to stay downstairs and wait for any stragglers to show up. Helen explained to me that they decided to change up the activity because so many girls came, so we were going to have half the group while Techo and Flaca had the rest. We climbed the stairs and near the top I realized all the lights on the 3rd floor were off. I thought maybe they changed their minds AGAIN and decided to put on the movie. Instead, the lights flipped on when I arrived and my entire team threw balloons in the air, screamed FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS! and enveloped me in a giant group hug. Rosa was holding a cake, and then so politely smeared the frosting all over my face. I received about 20 more equally heartfelt birthday notes. Many of them tried their darndest to write it in English, and spell my name correctly, but hence the title of this post they mixed up a few letters here and there. I've never seen my name spelled so many different ways: Kelly, Kely, Keli, Queli, Quilin (?))
Demasiado. It was an incredible feeling, and nothing I would have ever expected after having only worked with these girls for a month and a half. But wait, there's more! Larkin, the best boss a girl could ask for, had made an entire powerpoint presentation for the girls all about ME- Complete with baby pictures, youth soccer pictures, and a ton of pictures from Bowdoin. She spun it to fit with the Inspiración theme, and each slide shared a picture and a piece of information about my life and the "inspiring" things I have accomplished. The girls loved seeing pictures of me when I was about their age (in my Destiny uniform with some pretty embarrassing half pigtails) and loved learning more about me in general since I have basically spent this whole time trying hard to get to know them, and not sharing very much about myself. Afterwards, they split into groups to complete a trivia challenge of facts about me from the slideshow (another work of Larkin's) We ate cake, exchanged attendance points, and I got a giant hug from each girl on her way out. My heart was exploding out of my body.
Later that night, Techo and Flaca joined us at Larkin's house for dinner, drinks, and some games and it was the perfect ending to the day.
"Solo los guapos" as Flaca always says. "Only the good-looking people"
I'm a lucky gal.
Amor, paz, y fútbol
KPope
P.S. Happy Birthday Mom! I love you
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