It's not about winning or losing

Today was our second soccer/futsal game with the team that I help coach, San Fransico. I woke up early (8am) and took the usual combi to the shelter/orphanage. Usually with traffic it takes me an hour to get there so I plug in my iPod and listen to Coffee Break Spanish and jot notes in my a notebook.

I arrived shortly after 9 and all the boys were yelling "Gringa, gringa es aqui!" "The American is here!" The private combi/van was supposed to show up at 9:30 to take us (me, Eduardo and his wife, and the 8 boys) to the game but by 10 I was getting a little worried. The kids were starting to get restless and kick soccer balls at each other and over the orphanage wall so that they would have to tell the security guard to open the 15 foot black metal door and they could have a chance to run away. It never works and I think they lose more balls that way.

Anyway, the combi arrived and it took us another hour to get to the orphanage where we were playing (for our 11am game). Good thing I got up so early! So I live in a posh area of Lima. All of our roads are paved and our houses have roofs. The area we went to for the game was in the north of Lima. We turned off the highway onto a dirt road with lots of burning trash, super skinny dogs, bodegas (convenience stores) with gates shut, lots of street venders selling fruits and vegetables, and little three wheel buggies transporting mother's and children around the neighborhood. The brick buildings that surrounded us looked like they were never finished being built but they were and people lived there. Their clothes hung from clothes lines on the roofs and an occasional satellite dish meant someone could watch the Premier league futbol (or maybe American Football, who knows) on their TV tonight.

The orphanage walled in but once we drove inside it was much nicer than I expected based on the surrounding area. A dozen small houses with lots of grass and trees a central futsal field. We played 5 versus 5 futsal on a cement court that was about the size of a tennis court. We lost the game 3-6 after hitting the post no less than 8 times and giving up three goals on turnovers by passing back after a kick-in (John Leaney would not be happy as he always told us, "Always throw it down the line."). The kids were pretty upset but got over it once we got back in the combi and they could look at all the pretty girls on the street and drink their Coca Cola - both are a treat when you are locked inside an orphanage all the time.

In work news...
I have been very very busy working on a few data analysis projects. Not only am I learning Spanish but I'm learning Stata and SPSS syntax. AH!

On a high note, I just found out I'm going to Tumbes for a few weeks in October (after I get back from Buenos Aires with 6 American girl friends) to work on a field project there. I will be helping collect anthropomorphic measurements on children as part of an El Nino study but more importantly I am going to be learning how to set up my own project in Tumbes, work with locals on data collection, and get to know this very rural town where NO ONE will speak English (except of course for the three other gringos who are there working on pig slaughtering and chronic obstructive respiratory disease studies).

Why Tumbes? You might ask. Well a number of years ago a researcher from Peru did a great job setting up an epidemiological study on neurocystercercosis and has been collecting census information on the area. It's a great size, we have data on everyone who is born and who dies, who moves in and out, and ever have all their animals accounted for. Tumbes is located on the beach and the ocean is warm and the sun is hot. It will be nice to get out of Lima for a bit. I can't wait!