Bad News Bears

Sometimes my youth group drives me crazy, and sometimes they try really hard and things just keep going wrong. They’re trying to raise money to do a leadership retreat with youth from Horqueta and Concepcion. The big fiesta back in July was a disaster – they lost 2.000.000g. The next event was a ‘happening’ where they just played music and charged a mere 2.000g to enter, the idea being a low-key danceable fiesta with few expenses. Though few people attended, the costs were so few that we made a bit of money, but the borrowed sound equipment broke so we had to pay to get that fixed. Next event idea: sell hot dogs on the corner. The first night the kids showed up late and there was no one around to sell hot dogs to, so we cancelled it. The second time at the meeting during the day to plan the hot dog selling it was revealed that no one present actually wanted to come and sell hot dogs, so that was cancelled. Then they decided that a tournament of indoor soccer was the way to go – a big event, but a popular one. I kept questioning if we had the dedication to pull off a complicated event like that if we couldn’t even sell hot dogs, but was assured that it was a sure win. Plus we could sell the hot dogs at the snack bar during the game. We got the use of the field for free from the mayor, and got two sheep donated as prizes for the winning mens’ and womens’ teams (pigs and sheep are common prizes for team competitions here – afterwards the team kills the animal and eats a huge asado). We found some soccer balls and referees to come help us. We sent invitations to all the businesses that have had soccer teams in the past and publicized over the radio. All systems were go for the tournament to start Friday October 19 and continue on Saturday, Tuesday, Friday, and then finally the big final on Saturday the 17th. But the first night of the tournament we had to cancel because there was a huge political party for the Liberale political party (haha) that had gotten rained out from the night before. So we were psyched for the second night, everything went as planned, I was proud of the kids. But no one showed up. No teams came to sign up, no people came to watch the game (which is good since there wasn’t one). So we decided to regroup and send more invitations and do more propaganda on the radio, and even though I was going to be out of town, we were (mostly) confident it’d work out ok for the following weekend. But it turns out that on the radio the dj was announcing that the entrance fee was 10.000g instead of 1.000g, so no one came. Apparently the kids were all there, all set up, and one team came to register, and few people came to watch. Then, late that night, the youth group’s president’s mom had some sort of heart attack and she had to go with her to the hospital in Horqueta (everyone’s saying it’s a heart attack, but she’s in her 30s and pretty high-strung, I wonder if she had some sort of anxiety attack). Even though the president responsibly called another group member the next day and asked her to take charge for the game that night, apparently no one showed up to help her so there was no event that night either. Oh, and the hot dogs have gone bad. So at today’s meeting we decided to do a one-day tournament instead, all taking place at the field next to the river, which is where everyone spends all day Saturday and Sunday in the summer. We’ll have to wait another two weeks to do it, because there’s a rodeo next weekend (!), which gives us time to think of other advertising ideas and also see if the radio will compensate us with free propaganda since their mistake screwed us over last week. So there’s still hope. We have lots of publicity in the sense that people are talking about the tournament and wondering if it’ll happen. And if we can get the use of the field from the mayor we’re pretty much guaranteed a success – literally the entire town goes to the river on Sundays. I really hope it goes well this time. It’s funny – I feel very frustrated and worry that the kids are also losing interest/hope, but they seem not to be disheartened at all by the lack of actual accomplishment. Is it that they’re used to things not really working out? Are my expectations still too high? Am I still too high strung? Do I need to be more tranquilo and not freak out if something doesn’t work out right the first time? Or is it that they are so apathetic that it doesn’t even matter to them?