This weekend it was just the kids and me. Emily was a saint and babysat two nights in a row so I could go to practice and then my game on Saturday in Logroño. We won (yupee!), but I´m still sort of sucking it up. All that talk about me being so good at basketball in Spain is coming back to bite me in the ass. Why must I be so high strung... WHY?! As it turns out, I´m ok at practicing basketball, but not too fabulous playing in the games. Still getting used to things.
A win is a win and I´m so glad we´re doing well. The game in Logroño was interesting. The gym was sooooooo cold. During the 3rd quarter, I looked up and saw some of our players´ breath clouds as they jogged down the court. We started off slow, but got rolling during the second quarter and held the lead for the rest of the game. At one point a girl from the other team went down with an injury (which I probably caused because I always seem to!). It wasn´t funny at the time, but when I think back about it, she was yelling, "mi culo, mi culo!" Which means, "my butt, my butt!" I think she was charlie horsed by a knee yet to be named.
Afterwards we got to go to a huge dinner. As you know, dinner is not just a quick thing over here, we were in the restaurant for almost 2 hours! We had bread with various jámons and pátes followed by a mista (I think) salad, which has tuna, an egg, tomato and white asparagus with some lettuce. It´s yummy. Then some croquettas, which are just fried things. These ones were chorizo, sort of a creamy hush puppy type thing, jámon and cheese and calamari (which, mom and Whit, are better here than at the place we had them in little Italy).
Then came the main course, which was just some type of meat with fries. I had the pork. The girls asked me how to say lomo (pork) in english and I told them. They said I sounded like I was talking with a ball in my mouth. That´s quite an accurate description I think. I sound like I have a ball in my mouth during my "r" pronunciation and they sound like their tongues are made of springs when they pronounce it. It´s so funny, when they immitate what I´m saying, I always sound a little mentally challanged from their perspective. I know they don´t know they´re doing it, but American english does sound quite clunky when you think of all the rolling "r"s and throaty "j"s they´re throwing out over here.
Anyhow, it´s still tough to follow conversations in restaurants, so my dinner was fairly quiet, but nice. Sarah´s 4-year-old sister Elena was there and I got to play with her a little bit, so that was entertaining. Kakun kept trying to get her to say "Hi, how are you?" to me and she did a few times, it was cute. But then she got comfortable with me and started talking to me in full Spanish sentences. A couple times I just had to look at her and smile widely and nod because I had no idea what she had said. How great is that? A 4-year-old would beat me in a Spanish-B. Maybe she could come to practice and we could strap her to my back and she could translate things for me before each play?
I did get to have a short little conversation with Pau, our awesome center who´s only 19 and I can´t tell if she gives a crap if she does well or not sometimes. She´s a sweet girl, but lazy and it drives me insane on the court. Especially because she´s pretty good and if she worked harder in practice, there´s no telling what she could do. But, I dunno, basketball is a whole different game in Pamplona. Hard work in practice might throw her off. Anyway, we just small talked it up. She now knows I have a brother and sister and that I´m an au pair, etc. I found out she´s actually in beauty school right now. I think that is so cool. How fun would it be to do people´s hair and chat all day? And, she´s learning massage techniques as well. I think that would be a fun job, as long as you didn´t get weirdos coming to your massage parlor, which is probably inevitable. Anyhow, I´m getting to know them one player at a time.
The rest of the weekend was spent with the kids. I was more of a hard ass this time and made the kids do the things I told them like loading their dishes and cleaning up after themselves more. Last night Alexis came up to my room, the second night in a row, saying "I had a bad dream, can you help me fix my bed?" I was terrified both times that he´d peed, but no, his covers were just messed up and he´s too small to make his bed back up again. But, last night, he came upstairs twice and the second time he was all shaky and just said, "Darby, I´m scared of something and I don´t know what." I love how he can be so honest sometimes. I made him a little bed next to mine on the floor and he slept upstairs next to me for the rest of the night. He better not get used to it though!
So, not such an exciting weekend as those passed, but that´s how it goes sometimes. I hope all is well back home. I´m thinking of you all everyday. Peace, Love, Darbo.
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