I walked the boys to school and found out that the boys in 5B (there's two 5th grade classes, A and B) didn't have school today because their teacher wasn't there, so they would be in the yard with me. I brought games with me (Connect 4, Checkers, and Dominoes) so that some of the boys could play them. As we were in the yard, some volunteers came to grab boys to go on a walk, which helped a bit since the yard had more children than usual today. Even though some children left, a fight still broke out between two of our medium boys. One boy ended up getting so upset that he ran off and an older boy had to run after him. They were both told that they would lose their dessert (a moon pie) at lunch time.
Noah and Bob came into the comedor at lunch time and ate with us. When we headed back to the house, we found that Alina had stayed at the baby house over lunch. Volunteers are allowed to leave the baby house from 12-2pm, but she generally stays to chat with the older girls and watch movies with them during that time - which is when the babies are napping.
I was in the yard during the afternoon again, and once again, even though I stayed in the shade just about the entire time, I got pretty tan (and a little burnt). It's amazing how you don't have to be directly in the sun down here to get the effects from it. When we went to the comedor for supper, Noah didn't come. I finished eating and decided to search for him because Moncho said he'd like to do the basketball tournament after supper. He was still working on the building with Bob, so I said that he had to eat all of his supper and return his bowl and then he could come to the gym to play. Moncho set up 4 teams, he took one and each of the teen boys in the house (Luisito and Chino) took a team, and Noah got a team. They got to pick the boys on their team, and we set up some brackets for play. We decided on 7 minute halves (since they only had about an hour and a half to do the tournament).
First up was Moncho and Luisito...Moncho likes to shoot hoops in his spare time (there's a hoop at the medium boys house), so he quickly started building up the points. When Alina came into the gym, the score was 6-0. She asked if she could play and I think that Moncho felt sorry for Luisito's team, so he said she could play with them. I don't think he knew how good Alina was. Even at playing only around 25-40% (because the floor was slippery and she didn't have her ankle braces down here), she helped to turn the game around and the game ended up tied. They decided to go into a 2 minute overtime...each scored once, still tied. So we decided to do a free-throw shoot off. Each time that a teammate from Luisito's team would miss (or make) a shot, so would the team member from Moncho's team. To be fair, Alina shot last and she made it. We told Moncho to shoot against her (even though he had JUST shot against Luisito). He made it. So then the boys started shooting against each other again. Eventually a boys from Luisito's team made it and the one from Moncho's team couldn't match the score. So Luisito's team was put into the championship game.
The next game was between Noah and Chino. Noah's team took an early lead 8-0, but then Chino began to score and the game was very close right up until the end. Noah's team lost by two...so the championship game was between Luisito and Chino. We told Alina that she could not be in the game while Luisito was in the game otherwise there would be 2 big kids on one team and only one on the other. Luisito played the 1st half and at the end of the first half, the score was about 10-2. When Alina went in for him in the 2nd half, I told her to mainly pass the ball to the medium boys to give them opportunities to score, and for her not score unless it got close. The medium boys wanted her to score as much as possible. She ended up putting 2 points in, but the entire time, impressing all of the boys with her dribbling abilities, passing abilities and shooting abilities.
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| Luisito bringing the ball up the court against Chino's team in the championship game |
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| Bob and Salomon |
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