Gringos y Ticos Juegan Futbol

Desiree Niccoli

It's Easter and all of us are missing our families back in the United States. Fortunately, here, hundreds (or is it thousands?) of miles away in Costa Rica, our little band of students and teachers have found family amongst ourselves and our new Costa Rican friends. It is traditional on this trip that we (Gringos) play against the Ticans in a soccer match and they make us look like fools. However, this year was a little different and we were all surprised when the Ticos mixed our groups together. So it was no longer Gringo vs. Tico but Gringos and Ticos playing together. There was no separation, no segregation. We played together as friends, as a community, not as people from different countries. That touched me alot and I think that this way made the game more fun for everyone overall. There was no real age boundary either. Little boys who could barely see over the ball played along side their older brothers, fathers and grandfathers. Although the Ticos are much better than all of us put together, I think we all did very well, considering most of us have never played soccer before. even though we all made embarrassing mistakes (getting knocked in the head with a ball...), the Ticos laughed with us and believe it or not, we made positive contributions to our teams, too (killer defense). Needless to say, we all had a lot of fun, even though we were all missing our families back home.