Day 9

Juan Gabriel, one of his "enamoradas", and Maria

Today Juan Gabriel came back over to visit, and we hung out for most of the day. We didn't do a whole lot, just hung out with the babies for a while and worked on his English a bit. Before that, Maria came over and we went to one of the schools for kids with disabilities (Santa Lucia) and got to hang out with the kids there. (I'll post more pictures later) In the photo below, you can see Juan Gabriel and one of his self-proclaimed enamoradas (girlfriend).

Later, Juan Gabriel, Juan and I walked over to Reynoso, another school for kids with disabilities and played soccer with them. Juan Gabriel had to leave before we started playing because he had to get back to Huaycán which takes about 2 hours so that he could be on time for work. But it was so cool playing soccer with those kids.

I had a couple favorite kids that we played with. One was this kid named Juan, with cerebral palsy, which affects his speech and physical movement so much that some of the kids affectionately call him "borracho" (drunk) because of the way he moves and talks. He was so cool! Every chance I got, I'd pass the ball to him as he stuck around the other team's goal, and he'd do whatever he could to try to get his legs to cooperate with him long enough to kick the ball near the goal. Well, he ended up scoring a few goals and each time it was so awesome to see the joy and excitement in his face as he "ran" back to the center of the court we were playing on.

Another kid named Frank was clearly not limited physically because he was an awesome little player. He was deaf, but it took me a while to figure that out because I could have sworn that he could hear his teammates calling for the ball because he'd kick it right to them when they were in the perfect position to score. But then I kept calling to him to ask him his name but finally realized he couldn't hear! After we finished playing, I asked him his name with my ridiculously limited sign language and he tried to spell it in the air, then on a wall, and finally we just went and got one of his friends. :-) I'll have to have Christen show me some more signs. The funny thing is that she has this video called "Signing Time" that she is always playing for the babies at Monica and Lucho's house, so I've been learning some sign language to go along with my Spanish!

On another note, I'm definitely starting to get a cold, which is definitely a bummer. Hopefully I can just rest and have it pass quickly. We'll see.