Mission accomplished: We sow Ultimate Frisbee in Venezuela!

When you help someone you feel that your life also improves when you see that person's smile; but that feeling triples if it is the smiles of a bunch of euphoric children who running behind a frisbee.

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The objective was fulfilled! We visited the Bolivarian Educational Unit "Las Minas", in the rural area of Anzoategui state, to teach him to play Ultimate Frisbee to approximately 100 children. In addition to the recreational activity, we gave them refreshments and made a donation of school and sports materials, as we proposed in our proposal "Sowing Ultimate Frisbee in Venezuela: collect for social work with children in rural area of Anzotegui".

The total budget was 65 Steem Dollars: 50 donated by @dontstopmenow and 15 collected by my promotion post, which we invested in buying a ream of sheets of paper, a box of markers for blackboard, a pencil box, a frisbee , a soccer ball, a bag of ice, 1 kilogram of lemon, 12 kilograms of banana, 12 kilograms of tangerine, a pack of plastic cups and four "panelas" (a typical product based on ground sugar).

The work team was made up of @engelmiranda, who took charge of the entire organization process with me: purchase of materials, preparation of refreshments and dictate sports training; and for my dad, Guillermo Bustamante, who moved us in the city to do the shopping, took us to the school and supported us with the logistics.

With the help of the teachers of each section, the activity was developed during 4 hours, in which we worked with children from Kindergarten through Sixth Grade divided into two groups. They were taught about the Ultimate Frisbee, about techniques to release the disc and most importantly about the Spirit of Play.

All these children are brilliant! They absorbed the information very fast and showed great skill for this sport in the three dynamics we did with each group, where they had to run, jump, throw and catch. Even with the group of the biggest children we made four teams and played a game applying the basic rules.

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💡 They also taught us

Our goal was to convey to them the importance of the values that are part of the Spirit of Play and that also apply in life. We decided to teach Ultimate Frisbee believing that we would bring something important to the children, but it was really they who taught us many important things to us.

They gave us lessons in values, during the activity there were several situations where humility, positive attitude and effort marked our lives positively. The truth is that from our first meeting they proved to be very well educated children.

👟 The broken shoes

There were two things that the children in the school had in common: being bright, and having broken shoes. In addition, many of them did not wear stockings, and they also had a worn out uniform, and even they were small.

While we played, one of those children approached @engelmiranda asking if he could take off his shoes to "play better", and when he looked at the boy's feet he saw that each shoe had a hole in the area of the big toe where his fingers were coming out .

Before I knew what had happened, I had seen that child's shoes and from that moment I was watching him. I discovered that he was one of the most energetic children in the group, and honestly they did not seem to care about the holes in his shoes, he played with the same energy that a boy would play with shoes in good condition.

❤️ The joy of Juan

Another of the experiences that struck us was that of a kindergartner named Juan, he is a special being, with a physical condition different from other children, and radiated a very contagious joy, so much that he could not stop smiling if I saw him play.

He was always attentive to receive the disc, and when he threw it he seemed to use all the strength of his little body jumping up when he released it, and then laughing. I thought he was the happiest child of all, and that the rest of the children were already quite euphoric.

The last dynamic of the activity consisted of the boys being distributed in two groups, each one at a distance from the other, and in that space between each group we placed a frisbee; Each child was assigned a number, and when I said one of those numbers, they had to run to catch the frisbee, and whoever did it first won.

That's where Juan surprised us, because on the various occasions that I mentioned his number he did not get the first place but he still got to where the frisbee was, grabbed him, hugged him and celebrated as if he had been the winner. I am very confident that he would take the first place in a positive attitude in any competition.

🖐️ The child with the wound in his hand

Among the group of older children there was one who was a little serious, seemed to be upset, and was far from the rest. I was worried about seeing him like that and I approached him, when I asked him what was wrong he showed me his right hand, there was a wound there. He told me he could not play like that because it hurt, and I suggested that he play with one hand.

He didn't answer me, and I went to continue the activity. There were many children and we tried to pay attention to everyone, that's why we constantly rotated to guide each one. I forgot the boy with the injured hand until we started the Ultimate Frisbee game.

I was impressed to see that child in the team of @engelmiranda as one of the most mature players, he was taking the game very seriously, and the incredible thing was that he threw and caught with his left hand so as not to hurt the wound.

🤝 Gratitude

^{❤️ Before saying goodbye, the music teacher and the children sang beautiful Christmas songs for us and the educational staff offered us some words.}

The social work was better than we planned: we lived incredible experiences with the children and their teachers, and I feel that more than an economic contribution we made a spiritual contribution with which I hope they transcend through the years.

I'm sure that they were as satisfied as we were with the activity, because when we finished, many wanted to continue playing and asked us if we would return; They do not know how I wanted to be able to assure them that we would be back soon, because I would definitely like to have each one of them in my dream team. If I don't return to your school at least I hope to meet someone any day in a Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

Now I must dedicate a very special space in this post to all the people who contributed with this social work; and I want you to know that each one has an important place in my heart:

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• To @dontstopmenow, because he was the one who encouraged me to carry out this social work, and who contributed a lot to make it come true. Especially to him for his altruism, for helping my country when he needs it most.

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• To @engelmiranda, because he is a being of brilliant ideas that supports me in all my crazy things, and also puts all his desires so that they come out well.

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• To @anomadsoul, @carlgnash y @acidyo, because they trusted our idea and made a great contribution. I appreciate that you have believed in our proposal, and I hope that the help you gave us will be multiplied.

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• To @capybaraexchange, because they helped us to exchange the Steem Dollars for Bolivars even when they were out of their working hours only with the intention that we had the money in time to acquire the materials for the donation; and because they trusted our honesty.

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• To @matkodurko, because since we met in Steemit he has always supported me, even this time.

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• To the Bolivarian Educational Unit "Las Minas" for allowing us to teach your children this wonderful sport.

• To each teacher who works in the school, for doing an excellent job educating the children, and for supporting us in the activity.

• To Mercedes Leonett, My brother's wife and school teacher, for being our connection to reach the children.

• To Guillermo Bustamante, because although he says that I'm going to get many more gray hair with all the things I can think of doing and in which I include him, he still supports me in everything.

• To Rosaurys Torrens, because he donated rules, stories and booklets for children.

• To Jaburi Ultimate Club, my team of Ultimate Frisbee of Lecheria, for lending us the discs and cones to carry out the activity.

• To the sale of fruits and vegetables "Pernia Brothers", because they donated a kilogram of tangerines for social action.

And thanks to each person who donated an up vote or did resteem, that's also worth a lot 💙

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