Pure Passion

Yesterday I arrived at class prepared to play. I was wearing sneakers and yoga pants, and I placed myself with the kids when we were counting off into teams. We were working on "focus on results" in the A Ganar curriculum, and the game was basically 5 v. 5 trying to achieve a goal imposed on us by the other team, and vice versa. It was GREAT to play for real, to sweat, and scrape my knees, and celebrate with my teammates. At one point during the class when my team was resting a kid asked me if I played when I was a kid, and I said of course, all my life. He seemed surprised, which was slightly insulting, but he then explained that he thought for sure I was the kind of person that had missed out on the opportunity to have a playful childhood, based on the emotion and excitement I brought to the game. He said adults in Colombia don't laugh and scream and play and jump for joy, like I do. I told him I had the best of childhoods. All about love and fun and play. I just couldn't bring myself to say goodbye to that childhood yet! In a later game, I ran after a ball with reckless abandon, and a girl screamed out "Casey is pure passion!" How lovely that they see me in that way. And hopefully I can encourage them to live with joy and passion, too...

Last night I hesitantly agreed to go to a "rumba" to celebrate today's holiday: the day of the virgin. We drove about an hour from Ibagué to the house of Amalia's (host mom) good friend's parents. The majority of the night I sat silently, chilly and anxious to get back to the apartment and meet Mom for our skype date, but towards the end of the night the old man started in on a conversation of politics, and it began with praise for Sarah freaking Palin, so I couldn't help but get riled up. What followed was 45 minutes of me talking to the intoxicated 70 year old and the rest of the party (about 7 other ppl) sitting by watching, listening, occasionally laughing. Interesting night... When I left both he and his wife hugged me and kissed my cheek with such emotion, telling me that their house is my house. Apparently his self-identified fascism and my less than advertised but still observed socialism didn't lead to inhospitable awkwardness, but a genuinely enjoyed, though heated, debate.