Saturday, March 8, 2014

Today was the last day of the AASCA Tournament and the Pan-American School Festival.  I got up bright and early and put on my new PAS polo and caught the bus with Katie and McCall.  They had to work the festival in the morning, while I wasn’t scheduled until 11:00.  I went ahead and watched some soccer games and worked on my tan for a little bit while I waited.  By 11:00, it was time for my shift so I helped out with a photo-booth event where people paid 500 colones to dress up and have three pictures taken.  By the time I got there, business had died down and by 11:45, the professional photographer just up and left.  It was a little bit sketchy, and a lot Costa Rican.  Afterwards, I helped cover the bean bag toss as that started to die down.  After cleaning up, I went outside to watch the girls’ finals.  It turned out to be a pretty good game as an American school from Costa Rica won the tournament.  The boys’ final was full of all kinds of drama as it featured our boys team verses Mazapan from Honduras.  As the opening whistle sounded, it started to sprinkle, so I made my way to the covered incline that connects two buildings near the soccer field with most of the rest of the faculty.  Not long after, it started to pour, like Costa Rica rain forest pour.  Pan-American School was able to overcome the rain to take an early two goal lead, but Mazapan was not about to give up.  During the middle of the second half, the referee called a very mysterious foul on one of my students actually (they called a lot of mysterious fouls, but I kind of expected that based on the reputation of Central American referees).  Unfortunately, Mazapan scored on the ensuing free kick.  Then with just two minutes remaining, Mazapan earned a corner kick, which they were able to capitalize on to knock the wind out of the crowd.  The tied score meant overtime.  The overtime periods were shorter than normal, lasting just 15 minutes total instead of the 30 minutes that FIFA suggests.  Naturally, no goals were scored so they had to make us all nervous and have the game go into penalty kicks.  We have a stud goal keeper who blocked their first one, followed by us making our first one.  Each team made the second one.  Our keeper blocked the second one, followed by us making our third one.  At this point, I told Katie and McCall (who had just gotten there) that if they miss we win.  Sure enough, the kid kicked it over the crossbar, making Pan-American School victorious!  All of the students in attendance rushed the field to congratulate their classmates.  It was quite a scene, and something that made me be proud to be a part of the school.  After everyone finally made it to the gym, we had an awards ceremony to recognize all of the participants.  There was ironically dramatic music as the 9 place teams went up to get their participation pins and so on until they got the third place team for the girls.  The Pan-American girls’ team had won their third place game as well, so they got bronze medals.  Finally, they got to the first place boys’ team as they played ‘We Are The Champions” while our boys’ team got their gold medals and trophy.  They finished it off by giving out sportsmanship awards (pretty much to the last place teams… “you lost, but at least you were good sports”) and MVP/Leadership awards to one member from each team.  After the awards ceremony, I had to go help chaperone a pool party/ after party.  It started late, and the band could only play until 8:00, so there was only music on for about an hour.  The kids got food and danced some, but it was too cold for the pool after the rain.  After the music stopped, the place was almost vacant except for the faculty.  The kids probably went to their own parties.  Since it was dead, McCall’s Cooperating Teacher, the two girls and I walked towards the bus stop trying to catch the bus.  After waiting for half an hour, we gave up and flagged down a cab.  By the time I got home, it was almost 10:00, making for a nice long day.  Lilliana’s grandson was there, so when I got home, I sat with her as she rocked him to sleep outside, watching the moon and the stars.  It was cool to see her in full on grandma mood.  Finally, it was bedtime for me, too.