Roatán, Honduras (Part 1)

Preparing to close out an already-busy year, I found myself in between planning programs in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and Roatan, Honduras. With a quick check of the forecast, Puerto Vallarta was stunning with 85 degree temperatures and sunny skies. Not a cloud was forecasted and I thought this would be a perfect time to visit Mexico. 

In true fashion, I made a last minute change, and I found myself on a plane to Honduras instead. My contacts on the island of Roatan, deep into their respective soccer seasons, had been very convincing. As I boarded the plane, I sat down and exchanged small talk with another passenger seated to my left.

“Yeah, we have some free soccer programs with the kids on the island,” I told him.

“Soccer? Outside?” he answered.

“You must not have checked the forecast…” he added.

I unlocked my phone and quickly typed Roatan Weather into Google and saw my worst nightmare: an icon with a cloud and blue raindrops every day of my planned trip. Not a single sun icon in the seven day forecast. My heart sank.

The whole time, I thought that it was going to be sunny and perfect all week, but I had mixed up my Mexico research with my Honduras prep. I arrived a few hours later on the island and shot my local contact and good friend, Joshua, a text. He picked me up from the airport and we drove less than five minutes down the road to his family’s home, where I’ve spent many days and nights. I happily greeted his family members: his brother, sister, mother, and father – all who’ve welcomed me as their family whenever I visit.

It was so nice to see them after two years. Our last session on the island was in September 2019 and I was even happier to see that everyone was safe and in good health.

Joshua’s mom knew we had to be hungry and quickly offered a plate full of rice, beans, beef, and plantains. It was absolutely delicious, as you can imagine. We talked for a bit about the ups and the downs of the past year. He sensed tiredness after a long travel day and graciously dropped me off at my local spot – a simple hostel I’d stayed at twice before in Sandy Bay.

“Hey, I know you’re tired, but I was going to go to Los Fuertes to watch an important game in our league later tonight if you want to come with me,” he offered.

I knew I needed to rest, so we decided to instead link back up the next day before the team he coaches was set to have a game. Turns out, the forecast wasn’t lying and it downpoured that night, ultimately cancelling the game he had planned on scouting. Alas, the next day arrived and I waited eagerly and anxiously for our approaching kickoff time. Around the Worlds and Kairos have collaborated several times and our relationship stems back to August 2017. I’ve worked with their youth teams, and we’ve helped provide important resources for their other categories, all the way up to young adults playing in the island’s top division, los mayores.

In that time, I’ve seen kids I coached back in 2017 now playing on Kairos’ top side.

Despite there being such an extreme need for equipment, like goalkeeper gloves, soccer balls, cleats, and more, Joshua has always been gracious to offer contact with other teams in even more need on the island and in the league, just hoping to create some parity across it. This has led us to collaborate with several different squads throughout the years, including Kairos, Juventus, Sandy Bay United, and more. On this trip, I planned a training session with Kairos alongside Josh, and then a set of programs with a youth team on the island – Victoria Insular.

While at the field one day, Josh and I met up with a young boy who plays for a local club Isleños that’s in even more need of assistance, so we were going to try to set up something with them later in the week, or at least set aside a few soccer balls for their youth teams. I was booked from Saturday to Saturday, so there was plenty of time to make something happen.

Before I get too far ahead, let’s get back to Sunday. Kickoff was at 6 p.m., and Kairos was set to face off against Corozal. After a hearty, traditional lunch platter featuring barbecue chicken, refried beans, rice, avocado, queso, crema, and tortillas, I retreated back to my room to prep for my time on the sidelines.

I’ve only coached alongside Joshua once before, in 2019, a game that we won, so I was excited to try and preserve that unbeaten record. The Google rain icons were not wrong and sure enough in the afternoon drops began to hit the roof of my hostel.

“Ah, maybe it’s just like Florida rain, quick,” I said to myself, thinking it would just be a cloudburst for 15 minutes and sunny thereafter.

Welp, it rained for 5 hours straight. By 5 p.m, Joshua texted me. 

“Hey amigo, the game got cancelled, the fields are all flooded,” he said. 

I was gutted, but I suppose there was a silver lining in maintaining that 100% winning record! I didn’t really have time to dwell on it and chose to look forward to our first of two sessions with Victoria Insular the next day at a local turf field. We were set to work with their U11 team at 3 p.m., which had players as young as 7 years old on it. I had another hearty lunch and a traditional baleada as a snack and hopped into our cold shower to prepare for the program. Masked by the sound of my own shower, I hadn’t realized the rain beginning to pitter patter outside the bathroom window, crescendoing to a full on downpour in a matter of minutes.

As a result, I opened my phone to a message from their club President, Marco.

“Hey Stephen, we can’t practice today. There is too much rain,” he said. 

I hung my head, stuck in a state of defeat. After all, this is peak rainy season on the island, something I’d never experienced before and hope to not experience again. The fields are usually dirt patches, which does not mix well with precipitation. Bruised but not broken, I looked forward to a Tuesday late night practice with Kairos, where I’d have an opportunity to give the players new pairs of cleats from our stock collection as well as a bunch of soccer balls to use for practice and games.

Josh picked me up early Tuesday afternoon and we made our way from home to the field. It was time for practice and I was ready with my equipment and all. Players trickled in, but it wasn’t likely for us to have more than 5-7 that day. If you’ve read this far, I’m sure you can guess by now what happens next. The clouds got dark and rain began to fall.

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“To the car!” someone yelled, as we darted back to its comfort and shelter from the rain.

“Let’s go home. We can’t practice in this and it won’t stop anytime soon,” Josh said to me.

For those keeping track, it’s now Tuesday and we’ve already had three sessions, games, etc. cancelled. I was confident that within eight days we were bound to get at least one good one to run programs on, but it was looking less and less likely and the trend wasn’t exactly offering much promise. I changed into some dry clothes and got into bed, hoping our session the next day with Victoria’s U13 team as well as our postponed one with their U11 side would end up pushing through.

Another friend told me Thursday looked nice and sunny, so I guess we always had a backup plan in case Wednesday let me down. I was so eager to run a program that I could barely focus on anything else. Add to that, we were running training with Kairos Wednesday night after programs in the afternoon with Victoria, so I had basically gone from having three sessions spread across eight days to three sessions in five hours. 

Wednesday came around, and I held my breath through a few short spurts of showers before the sun popped out from behind the clouds like in Teletubbies. I checked with Coach Marco to see if we would be moving forward, which he did confirm before offering to pick me and my equipment up. A bit later, he rounded the corner onto my street and picked me up in a truck with a huge bed in the back.

Before a game of mano o cabeza, I counted nine soccer balls to give out in this session, and 10 in the next. We did a quick round with five winners, followed by a second with four. The kids were super engaged, laughing alongside each other, sometimes at the expense of each other or even themselves!

In between sessions, Marco came up to me asking if I preferred water or Gatorade. He was sending the U13 coach, Giovanny, to get some drinks and wanted my order, which was a really nice and friendly gesture, one to be well-received after a session in the hot, beating sun. I can’t even complain because I was just happy it wasn’t raining!

A green, melon Gatorade in hand, it was time to start our 4 o’clock session with the U13s. I designated a captain, Cris, who quickly settled into his role, running our active listening drill. At one point, he said las axilas, or armpits, and his teammates all erupted in laughter. Between drills, a bigger boy came up to me and caught me off guard, though English is pretty wide-spoken throughout the island.

“How are you, Coach? What is your name?” he questioned.

I complimented him on his English, which was met with a big smile in return.

“Thank you, Coach. I go to a bilingual school here,” he said proudly in response.

We jumped into some ball control drills like the first session, before heading into a 1v1 offense vs. defense drill. The kids gave it their all, playing physical, but not dirty, and taking great pride whenever the ball soared past the keeper and into the back of the net. Feeling eager to get in on the fun myself, I handed the ball over to a player and situated myself across from one of the boys, ready to go head to head at goal. I blew the whistle and popped up to my feet, but he got the holeshot, and to be honest it wasn’t even close. Little man left me in the dust and struck it into the bottom corner of the net.

I could do nothing but applaud his efforts and call him over for a high five. Defeated, I trudged back to the middle of the field to facilitate the drill myself. We did mano o cabeza, which they absolutely loved, until we had winners selected and wrapped up practice from there. Later on, while leaving the field, the kids all sat in the back in the bed of the same truck that scooped me up and came round the front to dap me up before going back to their homes.

“Thank you, Profe!”

“See you soon, Profe!”