Redd Adventures: Volleyball in Nicaragua

This week on Thursday Cam was asked to play on a school volleyball team. She had practice that day after school and then Friday was a huge tourney. She was told to be at the gas station at 8:00. In very Nica-like fashion they stood there for about a half hour then were told to walk up the road (in the opposite direction than where they'd be playing). We went up the road to another intersection where a whole bunch of kids were all waiting. We didn't completely understand what was happening but in the next 30 to 45 minutes a band showed up, they passed around shirts and flags and a truck showed up with signs for all the different sports. We eventually figured out that there was more than a volleyball tournament going on. There was football (soccer), handball, surfers, basketball, MMA, volleyball and some other signs that I couldn't read. Eventually (probably about 10:00) they started the parade. They walked all through town, in the front was a guy with a torch followed by all the kids holding flags and a band playing.

Warming up for the game

The game was played in the middle of a road which was blocked off for the event. There wasn't much diving that happened but the Nicaraguans have figured out many ways to improvise and they use their feet a lot more to get balls that we'd normally dive for. Their were some really good players.

At one point the ref blew the whistle to stop play. We all wondered why then we noticed a drunk guy had stumbled onto the court and collapsed in the middle of the other team. This guy helped him over to the sidewalk where he slept it off for the rest of the day.

Cam hitting the ball. She was a little nervous at first since she couldn't understand her teammates or her coach but after the first game she worked out her jitters and did awesome.

There were two teams from Stella Maris that played. The white shirts were an older team and included Cam's friend Molly, they ended up taking first place. Cam was on the red team, they started out a little slow but by the end were playing well together and ended up taking third.