Once in a lifetime...

I’d never played on a field that large. Or with grass as nice.

You could tell we were all a little hesitant the first time we committed to a slide tackle, but after surviving the first one and realizing we weren't playing on our rocky dirt fields back home, everything changed.

Recently, we had the once in a lifetime opportunity of playing a few exhibition games at the national stadium against volunteers from JICA, Japan's version of the Peace Corps.

It was an amazing experience. Estadio Cuscatlán is the largest stadium in Central America, and you definitely felt the size of it once you walked out from under the tunnels. Since we only had the field for the first half of the day, we had little time to soak it all in before we were lined up, standing before the Minister of Sports, listening to the national anthems of El Salvador, the US, and Japan.


Here we are just before the event kicked off. Crouched down in front of me is our Country Director, Jaime, an incredibly cool guy without whom the day could never have been possible.


Everyone was pretty antsy to get going and see what a stadium field felt like. Apart from my buddy Ross and my old roommate Chris, who played on the national level, we were all pretty green.


We played well, with added intensity fueled by the feeling that we were playing in some sort of quasi-olympic atmosphere.


But the JICA volunteers stepped it up as well, and drew first blood.


All in all, we got smoked. The PC women's team put up some amazing numbers, but the guys just couldn't put anything together. We had a great time all the same.


Chris, sending in a corner


Me, totally wiped out playing on a field twice as large as my community's


Our buddy Matt, soon to be Dr. Matt, and his famous cheap mirrored lenses, definitely a must for any PCV.


Chris taking advantage of said famous mirrored lenses


It was a very unique experience communicating with the Japanese volunteers only through Spanish. I’d had Italian and German friends that only knew me through our Spanish personas. But this Japanese/Spanish thing was a first for me. Actually, the JICA volunteers said that learning Spanish was easier for them than English. Something about the vowels. Pretty cool.




What a crazy day