So I brought a soccer ball with me, but a currently deflated
soccer ball. I sort of forgot about it sitting next to my bag is all of the
flurry of everything new. However, one night my little brother came in my room
and saw the ball. He was ecstatic so I mimed how we needed a pump to make it
work. Well the next day I came home from school he was waiting for me with a
huge smile on his face. He showed me the pump and the pin. Excited we blew up
the ball together and before it was even
ready we already had a crowd gathered in the street. They were thrilled
to start playing. I threw the ball down onto the street and a flurry began. I
kicked the ball around with them on the street for an hour or more. It started
as a group of five boys and grew to at least twenty within minutes. All the
parents came out to the road to watch and the laughter was deafening. The kids
always passed to me, begging me to kick it hard and fast right over their
heads, which somehow I am completely capable of. Minutes turned into an hour
that I was out there on the street playing and watching, knowing that as the
sun set over this small grouping of houses on a hillside, I would not soon
forget this moment. If I wasn’t a local celebrity with these kids yet, I had
just become the definitive hero of all the village children.
I am coming back to Nepal. I have already sworn to so many people that I would be back. To kids, to parents, to friends, to school teachers. And if the genuine excitement in their faces wasn’t enough, I honestly cannot stop thinking about returning back here. My thoughts of my future begin and end at how soon I can return to this country. I can see myself living here, working on education projects, speaking Nepali, doing something worthwhile, and right now in this little hillside village it’s the only thing I see in my future.
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