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Day 282 - 11 April 2006 Baseball with the kiddies so who woulda thunk that kids here would want to learn how to play baseball? especially with the overemphasis of futebol (soccer) as the exclusive sport played by all since they learn how to walk. kids also play volleyball and basketball, but they don’t have quite the history that futebol does. so a bunch of a fellow Vonlunteer’s students show up one day to play baseball with us and we teach them a li’l at a time, keeping a lot of the rules of the game on the sidelines while we go through the basics of hitting, fielding and tagging people out. the first day we play on a cobblestone road and have a great time. they basically learn how to hit, to field the ball and that it must touch the runner to get them out. I guess we didn’t emphasize the importance of tagging as opposed to throwing the ball at the runner, so most of the outs of the day come from beaning the baserunners with the tennis ball. most of the kids end up bein girls with only 3 guys who showed up to play. one kid was just some boy hangin out on the street. who woulda known he’d be the MVP? so we gave him the game ball. one girl keeps complaining about how difficult the game is and how she can’t hit the ball. eventually she gets the hang of it and near the end of the game she wants to bat instead of makin a bit deal about avoiding it. attagirl...the kids like it so much they ask if we can play again the next day...so we do...but not till we get ice cream at the house of my buddy’s beloved neighbor Fátima. what a lovely lady... day 2 we play on the dirt soccer field and tell them a few other rules like runnin on the baselines (we scrape baselines into the dirt) to get to the next base instead of all over the field and tagging versus peggin the baserunners. most folks get it and stick to the rules more or less, but of course it’s really hard to fight the temptation to just peg the baserunners as they pass you instead of passing the ball to the closest person to tag them. after a good hour game, they’re pooped and some of them have dance practice, so we take off thankfully. (I’m still sore from the day before from crouching so much when playin catcher.) 2 days full of fun and sun on the baseball fields... and now when I see the kids around town, they want to know when we’re playin next...they just can’t get enough! <--- curso 2 fim                bday chillaxin --->