Monday was a productive day.

In the morning I helped Arturo with his work, downloading pictures of Batman to make into trading cards and folding and packaging Spiderman cards. In the afternoon, I went to Fundación Dequeni to look for volunteer work. They work mainly with street kids and had been recommended to me by a Peace Corps volunteer in the hotel last week.

As it turns out, one of their current projects is a street soccer tournament. The kids, who mostly work as baggers in supermarkets, spend part of Saturday playing soccer at the foundation. Ultimately, the Foundation will choose a team to represent it in a national tournament, but the real idea is to give the kids something to do and to help learn to work in teams, etc. I’m going back for a meeting tomorrow and it looks like I will be able to help out as a volunteer for most of September.

In the evening, I went to club Olympia, where I had made friends with Julio, the guy in charge of managing the Astroturf fields that the club rents out at night. I went to say hi and to give him my new cell phone number, but when I arrived he asked if I wanted to play with the club employees. Once a week they rent one of the smaller fields for themselves and play games of 5 on 5.

I played, not so well but with plenty of energy, and made friends with Manuel, a friend of Julio’s who actually works at a call center, selling cell phone plans to Spaniards. He invited me to come play in the “barrio” with him any time and to go visit his family in the country anytime. He and Julio explained that the barrio games, usually in public parks and empty lots, are very different from the pay-to-play club matches. The soccer is better, the players care more, and shoving and elbow-throwing are par for the course. I’ll take him up on his offer sometime this week.

So that’s more-or-less what I’ve been up to. I’ll try to make the next posts shorter and more focused. Thanks for reading this far if anyone actually did.