American Football

The other day we were at the kids’ school picnic. As soon as we got there the kids took off to the soccer field. Oscar and I made our way there while meeting other parents, talking with the teachers and showing off Edson. (Last year when we went, Edson was 3 days old!)
We got to the field and saw the kids playing American Football. I laughed with another mom as I saw our kids tackling, with NO PROTECTION. They were just running at each other head on. It looked nothing like the football I saw growing up. I looked at the frustrated teachers sighing and shrugging their shoulders as their Junior High and High School group tried so hard to learn American Football. It was hot and sweaty, but it seemed as if only the teachers were ready to give up. You see, these guys grew up playing soccer. Football is an ALL NEW sport for them. Brandon came home with three scrapes; big and sore ones, but they were out to learn the game and win.
Gaby dreamed of getting a Football for his birthday so we started the search in a factory outlet sports store in Luque…no football! We weren’t going to give up so we went to four more places and realized that there may be NO FOOTBALLS in all of Paraguay. We gave up the search that day and Oscar continued on his own another day. I remembered seeing racks of footballs at Kmart, Wal-Mart, and every other American store I went into last summer, but none in Paraguay.
Finally, Oscar found the one and only one at Unicentro. It was sooooo old that they also gave it to him with a 30% discount. It had a neat feature of lighting up at night, but was so old that the batteries didn’t work. Anyway, it was a FOOTBALL!
Yes, the running and tackling still continue in the back yard, and better yet, there is a group of American/Canadian players who know the game…maybe our coaches at school won’t be so frustrated next football season.