Island Hoppin'

It's over. It's finally over. Our long and arduous basketball season has come to an end, and I as the coach, get to finally take a break. I wrote a bit about coaching the JV team last year and I had a blast doing it. Last year I wrote about the interesting dynamic and balance kids have when it comes to sports. They view sports as an extracurricular activity rather than life. That is healthy. It was much of the same this year. We had a pretty solid year, going 9-5 with a group of young and inexperienced players. It was similar to previous years with one exception, tournaments. In international schools, the varsity teams are often sent to cool exotic locations for tournaments. This year, it was the beautiful Caribbean island country of Trinidad and Tobago. We would be going with our boys basketball team and our girls soccer team.

Great Basketball Season

 Now, the trip was awesome. Amazing even. However, while my trip was paid for by the school, (being coach has its perks) I was not able to bring my whole team. It was an expensive trip, and as a result I only brought 5 players to the tournament. In case you didn't know, the minimum for playing a basketball game is 5. If I had any injuries, or kids got tired, or someone fouled out...tough. It was a tough task to take on, but still...we were going to Trinidad.

Last week before we left, we gave the whole speech about behaving properly and partying and all of that stuff to the team. The morning we left, we met up at the school at 5:00am and boarded up. We were in the air by 7:00 headed for the islands. When we landed in Trinidad, I was taken aback a bit by the sweltering heat. I lived in Florida for 5 years before moving to Ecuador, and I was accustomed to the kind of heat that makes you baste in your own sweat as you slowly roast from the inside out. This was something different. The heat was intense and unwavering, but within minutes, a cool Caribbean breeze settled in on us and all was right with the world.

A bus picked us up and took us to the school for an opening ceremony. I have never in my life been to a country where they drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel was on the right. It was quite an adjustment to me. Every corner we came around I was momentarily convinced that we were going to be in a head on collision and end up in more pieces than a jigsaw puzzle. It is very disorienting.

Representing Ecuador

We did a little opening ceremony where each team and each coach was introduced. This was also the point where I looked around and saw that our competition was stock piled with rosters of 11 or 12 each, some full of 6'5 grown men. I looked at my tiny collection of tiny boys and sighed. But then I was comforted by the fact that, yes I was in the Caribbean for free. Also, our kids have a healthy view on the balance of sports and life. All good. The ceremony also featured national anthems with kids singing at the top of their lungs, some even sporting their country's flag like scarves. That was pretty cool. It's not often kids get the opportunity to display such nationalism. Sure they since their national anthems in school and pledge their undying allegiances to people, places, and ideas, but how often do children get to REPRESENT their country? It was kind of like a mini-Olympics for them. The countries represented were Ecuador, Trinidad, Venezuela, Panama, and of course our hosts, Trinidad and Tobago.

Fab Five Fought Hard

After the ceremony, our kids were whisked away by the brave and helpful souls of parents from the school in Trinidad. They were eager to take our kids in, feed them, and provide transportation to and from the school. Hopefully the kids saw the kindness of their hospitality and behaved accordingly. Maybe they even picked up some culture along the way.

The games started the next morning and we were up in the second game. We played a school from Panama and lost a close game. It was clear to me that with more games left in the day, my kids were going to be exhausted. So is the game of basketball. Our second game featured the home team from Trinidad and they sported two giants. If I would have saw them on the street I would have assumed they were 28 year old body builders who worked nights as bouncers at a local club. We got smoked in that game. My kids didn't know what to do when one of the bouncers dunked. "But coach, he was so high he could have bit the rim..." Oh well.

That afternoon, the kids went out to a local mall and had a chance to hang out with the kids from the other schools. I took the opportunity to go to a local grocery store and buy some spicy sauces and curries native to the island. I also loaded up on the luxury goods we can't get in Ecuador that Shannon and I value so highly. This included buffalo sauce, M&Ms, malt vinegar, dill pickles, and the like.

That night after our hosts whisked away our responsibilities players, and we had a coach's social. This consisted of having a local beer or two and eating copious amounts of incredible and spicy food from Trinidad. We talked about what it was like to live in each country. We had opportunities to vent about the frustrations we had with our living situations, and also praise the incredible opportunities we were given. It was a really cool and unique experience.

Speedboat Chaperoning

The next day we had one more game against the Dominican Republic before heading out for our "cultural outing." We lost the game but were quickly consoled with some good food and put on a bus.

Cultural Day on a Private Island

After a 20 minute bus ride, we arrived at a local dock and all of the teams hopped on speedboats. Side note: In the United States, many families who have the means to, buy their children a car when they reach 15 or 16 as a milestone gift. In Trinidad, at least with these international school kids, they get a car and a speedboat. So the children of our host school took their speedboats and drove us through the Caribbean Sea to a private island residence. Fact: It's impossible to NOT smile on a speedboat going full speed. There, the kids had a party. There was a ton of food, drinks, a pool, a jacuzzi, a private beach, and well...we were spoiled for the day. I want to wait a second to let that soak in. We were taken by the kids, and their speedboats, to the residence of another kid, ON A PRIVATE ISLAND. The kids had a blast.

We Really Had it Rough

When it was time to return, we were all exhausted from the games, the sun, and swimming. Poor us. The kids got picked up by their hosts again and the coaches went out to dinner again to gorge on more spicy stuff, fish, and other local delicacies. The days were long (6am-11pm every day) but they were fun.

The last day we were there, we played hard and lost in the playoffs. Our kids were rewarded with some more delicious food, food trucks, a carnival at the school, and a party at the school that night. All in all they got to play sports they loved, meet kids from similar situations, see incredible sights and have fun.

Gearing Up for a Tough Game

Our trip back was somewhat eventful as it involved getting immigration and customs forms squared away for ourselves and our players. We also had to sprint across an airport in our team gear at the airport in Panama to catch a connecting flight. We made it. We had fun. We're home now. The season is over and we can rest.

Culturally speaking, in my experience the people from Trinidad were very warm and open. They speak English which was comforting to me after wading in the land of Spanish. (Although admittedly it took me a day or two to decode the thick Caribbean accents that lace their words) The food was spicy and featured a lot of vegetarian and seafood options. I had two personal favorite dishes in particular. The first was the double, which was basically a fried casing containing some sort of chickpea concoction and tons of sweet and spicy pepper sauce. The second was called bake and shark. It consisted of the same fried casing, kind of like a soft battered pita pocket, fried shark meat, cucumbers, spicy garlic sauce, and pineapple. WOW. It was out of this world. I was a little surprised at the sheer overwhelming number of people of Indian decent. I had never read up much on Trinidad but that was a surprise and a really interesting part of my experience on the island. The people, food, temperature, and everything else was fantastic.