Page - 37 - in Hanadi & Christian - English

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 37 courts several days a week and while our relationship with the older Ecuadorians is not the best, it’s okay. We haven’t had any big prob- lems. These past few days, we have been trying to figure out how to organize the local league with the new kids, and to see if we can take part in the borough league. “But what are we going to do?” Kevin asks. Kevin is on the older boys’ team. They call him ‘Peru’ because his family is Peruvian, but he always hangs around with the Ecua- dorians (if nobody called him ’Peru’ we would all think he was from Ecuador. It is really hard to tell Peruvians and Ecuadorians apart). At first, he wasn’t very interested in football, but since we all started playing on the courts, and as more and more people (especially girls) came to watch, he signed up too. “What’s up?” asks Chema. “Two girls have signed up for the league.” Kevin answers nerv- ously. “And? What’s the problem?” Chema responds. “What do you mean? The probleeeeeeeem?” His words don’t come out well. Or maybe, the ideas don’t come out. “It’s one thing is to have them as an audience, watching the game, but it’s a different thing to have them playing with us!! “ “And me?“ says Silvia, angrily. “Do you have any problem with me? Either you don’t know what you are saying, or you’ve had a prob- lem with me since I started playing, and you didn’t want to tell me.” “With you it’s not the same … you’re different,“ answers Kevin, a little unsure of himself, “you are one of us, and you’ve been here since the beginning. “Ok “says Chema ”As Kevin just said, two girls and two boys have signed up for the league. That makes a total of fifteen, which means three teams. We’ve been really lucky with the numbers, be- cause, like this, you all get to play. And, if you are good enough and our little league helps you train seriously, we could organize an eleven-a-side team for the borough league in spring. By then, all the youngest players will be eleven years old, and all you older players will still be thirteen, so we could sign you all up on the same team.