by Lauren Sieckmann and Shelby Sullivan

Today we woke up with one goal in mind - to beat Canada and get better as a team.

Words of wisdom from Coach Stone today were “Big game today, Aye?” That got us fired up and ready for practice.

On the way there we tried to wave at everyone on the streets because we realized it makes peoples day. Our favorite people we saw were a mom holding her little boy. While we waved at them the mom took the bottle out of the little boy’s mouth and he blew us kisses.

We practiced at the all-boys’ school, and when we arrived we were greeted by many excited Guatemalan boys to see us. We took pictures with them and they even took some for themselves. Our favorite little boy was one holding his bowl of nachos and running away because we were trying to take a picture of him.

Our practice was an interesting experience. We couldn’t hear anything because of the pouring down rain. Dr. Dyke brought us homemade tortillas, which Charlene helped make, right after practice and they were delicious.

We got back from practice and had three hours before our match against Canada. We left at six and got to experience real Guatemalan traffic. It took 40 minutes compared to the usual 15.

We won our match in three games. We didn’t play to our full potential, but we are still working to improve every chance we get.

And we just learned that if you lose, you really don’t get your fruit! After last night’s match, a winning team stole the losing team’s fruit that every team gets after their match.

Tomorrow we only have one practice and are scouting our next opponent.