Catrina

A couple days ago, I went to the park for my daily soccer with a friend from church. I ended up playing soccer with about twenty kids between 6-11.  When I got there a little girl came up to me and asked if I would teach her to play soccer.  I said yes, and she excitedly passed along the message to all the other kids.  Before long we had made two teams, one with me on it and the other with my friend on it, so that it would be fair.  It was all girls(With the exception of Luis), and they all kept telling me what there names were and saying 'Emma! Emma!'  I felt bad because I could only remember a few of their names, but they were all quite charming.
In the park there is a soccer-field with two nets and all, so we were able to have an almost proper game.  In the beginning my friend and I were scoring all the goals, so we made a secret rule that we could each only score every other goal for our own team.  It was really hard because you'd be so close, with an open shot, and then you'd pass it to a team mate who also had an open shot and they'd miss it.  But the looks on their faces when they did get the ball to the back of the net were priceless.  There was one girl in particular, Carolina, who scored two goals.  You could tell that she might as well have scored the winning goal for Germany in the World cup, that's how happy she was.
It was amazing to see the difference in skill and energy change as we played.  You could see each girl getting more confident, and happy to be playing as the game went on.  Judging from the high heels, makeup, and what people have said, here in Mexico there is more of a gender divide.  The boys are more masculine and the girls are more feminine.  This makes it especially awesome to be a part of young girls playing soccer and being strong, because if boys can, then so can we.
One thing I noticed that day at soccer, is that kids are responsible for each other and themselves more than in the US.  In the US, some people might think it was weird and irresponsible to let your three year old be taken care of by your six year old. Here I've seen a bunch of young kids taking care of even younger kids without their parents around.

Today we celebrated Halloween at the church. There was a party which included dinner at seven o'clock.  When I got there I was going to be a gangster, but my friend Javiercito forgot to bring his hat which was very important to my costume. I didn't want to have no costume so Lupita and I walked over to my house and figured out another costume. I ended up being Catrina, which is a famous image that depicts a female skeleton, very popular in Mexico. I wore a girly dress and Lupita and Sandy, using only eyeliner, made my face into Catrina. It looked pretty awesome in the end. It was very Mexican, which seems appropriate for my first Mexican Halloween!