I’ve been long overdue for a blog entry, but now I will tell you more about the playground kids.
I noticed some boys singing Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” while swinging on the swings tonight, so I brought down the iPod speakers and rotated between Michael Jackson for the boys, and Taylor Swift for some of the girls. It was really fun and we pretended to be the singers, singing and air guitaring wildly. Some passersby, usually adults returning from work, gave us weird looks, but one grandmother brought her infant granddaughter and we danced with her. Some of the Michael Jackson fans were so passionate that I had to draw a line around the five-foot radius of the iPod speakers so they didn’t press their ears against the speakers. You might not know this, but half the eight-year-old boys out there are just Michael Jackson waiting to happen. I wish you could have seen some of the moves!
Usually, nights after I finish my homework, I go play soccer with the under tens, (which doesn’t work too well because they all want to be on my team), then go up for dinner at around 7:00, then play with the little kids for a while longer, until about 8:00, when the other older kids come out. Then I get to play the kind of soccer where I don’t have to go easy, explain the hand ball rule six times, or break up arguments about who can be goalie. This is really fun until about 8:30, when Dad drags us upstairs to shower and go to bed.
Some sports vocabulary is different here also. Obviously, they call soccer football, but there are other differences as well. Goal keep is goalie, table tennis is ping pong, and “area” is when you don’t clear the ball when playing half court basketball. We don’t have basketball at our apartment complex, but we do have table tennis, pool, and a gym in the clubhouse.
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How often do you have impromptu soccer games in CO?
ReplyDeleteDo you think it is proximity to a critical mass of kids or culture that gets in the way of more impromptu games?
BadmomGoodmom, I think it is a little of both. In Colorado, not only did we not live in a kid-infested neighberhood, but people also had more after-school activities. In India, if kids have after-school activities, they are usually with the apartment complex, which offers dance, karate, etc. Because many of the kids are all busy at the same time they are usually free at the same time, so you have more time for soccer.
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