It was 3:00 in the afternoon - the hottest part of the day - but the kids didn't care. JustHope had just delivered several bags of soccer uniforms that had been donated for the Youth Club by the US organization, "Sports Gift." And the teams were more than ready to get them sweaty!
The young people had worked hard for several months to organize themselves into real teams - one for each sector - and had been competing with each other for the Chacraseca championship.
The white team donned their uniforms, but left their white socks on the sideline because only one person on the team had shoes so they always played barefoot.
The red team did the same, only they were so excited about the uniforms that even though they didn't have shoes either, they decided to wear their socks.
The game started, but within minutes the white team was calling a time out. They had seen the red team playing in their socks and, not wanting to be upstaged, had decided to put
their socks on too.
So for the next hour, the White Socks and the Red Socks went at it - running, kicking, laughing, shouting, falling, scoring - in the Chacraseca dirt and dust. They were still shoeless, and it was still the hottest part of the day, but Chilo (their youth leader) said they were playing with a spirit and sense of pride she hadn't seen before.
Maybe it was the new uniforms; maybe it was the fact that someone in another country had recognized their hard work and affirmed it with real uniforms
(thank you Sports Gift!); maybe it was just that the socks protected their feet a little from the stickers and brambles in the makeshift 'soccer field'.
Who knows... but by the time the game was over the White Socks and the Red Socks had all become Brown Socks and everyone was making plans for another game the next day.
