Time to Switch Sports

Alas, I did not make the V.I. National Soccer team. When they named people who were selected for first cuts, they said some people were not selected either due to not having a valid passport or being injured. I'm fairly confident they considered me in the injured category. A bit disappointing as my foot had been getting better and I think it was fine last Sunday for game. I have the feeling they made the final decisions before the game though. My coach said I was player of the game which was nice to hear too.

Strangely, on Wednesday I got a phone call asking if I'd be willing to be the alternate in case anyone from St Thomas/St John couldn't make it to St Croix for the final cuts. I agreed to do it, but turns out they didn't need me after all. Probably for the best as I got a bit banged around on Sunday, including getting hit in the head with a ball and an elbow. I felt a little dizzy afterwards so I had decided to take the next two weeks off from soccer and get perfectly healthy again before continuing in the league. The league is on hiatus right now while the national team gets selected and ready for their game against Tortola (a British Virgin Island) on April 1. I am interested to see how many of the women I've been playing with on St Thomas make it to the national team. Hopefully the April 1 match will be on St Thomas so it'll be easy to go cheer on our team!

In the meantime, I'm thinking about getting a bicycle so I can do one of the many triathlons on St Croix this year. A mountain biking tour group is selling some of their bikes, but I'm hoping I can find a reasonably priced road bike. One of the drawbacks to living on a small island - not a lot of choice when it comes to buying goods. Just about everything is overpriced.

The last week was busy and full of exciting things to blog about. My parents were here and we went on a great trip to the British Virgin Islands last Monday to celebrate their 35th anniversary. Pictures and more details to come!

Even More on Soccer

Yesterday I made it into the Daily News for the third time since we moved here. Believe it or not, I scored a goal in my soccer game on Sunday! Here's the short brief from the sports section:

****

Women's Soccer League results

ST. THOMAS - Pearl Morton tallied five goals to lead the Golden Stars to an 8-3 win over the Baby Rays on Sunday in the first of three games in the USVI Soccer Association's St. Thomas Region's Micro-Six-a-Side Women's League. Morton's first goal gave the Golden Stars an early 1-0 lead, but Dyann Peltier soon tied the game at 1-1 with the first goal of her hat trick for the Baby Rays. Morton then took over, scoring their other four goals while getting scoring help from Monique Chetram and Ann-Marie Dublin.

In the second game of the day, Don't Blame Us cruised to a 10-1 win over the Baby Rays. Rachel Brown led Don't Blame Us with four goals, followed by Vita Charlery's two and one goal each from Kendra Nielsam and Audath Mockovciak. Jenae Richardson scored the lone goal for the Baby Rays.

Play continues in the league at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the UVI field with three games.

****

Don't worry about the little inaccuracies in that clip, like how the goals in my game only add up to 8-1, while the Daily News tallies it to 10-1. The ref said it was 9-1, so who knows. The important part is - I scored a goal! My teammates had to pass it to me and assist me at least three times before it finally happened, but we clearly weren't hurting for goals so it was okay.

Something I keep forgetting to mention in all my posts about soccer lately. We play at the University of the V.I. soccer fields, which are right by the airport. I've never been outside so close to an airport this much before. The helicopters land super close to the field, and we've hit at least one with a ball so far (don't worry - it was parked). It is kinda funny when the coach is yelling at us and suddenly a 747 lands or takes off and we can't hear him at all but his mouth is still moving. It doesn't happen that often though, less than once an hour I'd guess.

Because there are so few major flights, a lot of people here seem to know the flight schedules pretty well. For instance, when I mentioned my brother-in-law and his wife were arriving on Monday from North Carolina around 4pm, I heard "oh that's nice, they must have gotten the non-stop on US Air." Guess that's what happens when you live here long enough and the airlines keep their schedules constant.

The best thing about playing at UVI though is that during Tuesday afternoon practices, we can hear a steel drum band playing. I assume the band is practicing at UVI. It's fun to listen while we play and it reminds me that here I am in the Caribbean trying out for the V.I. National Soccer Team.

On Sunday I've another soccer game, the last one in this half of the league's tournament. The tournament resumes in mid-April I believe. Also on Sunday, the coaches will announce which 16 players from our league have been picked to go to St Croix to continue try-outs for the VI National Team. It's also my birthday and my parents will be here. So the weekend should be fun and action-packed.

Homemade Local Goodies

A woman who works in the clerks office at the court gave me a copy of a local cookbook a few weeks ago. It has tons of recipes for all the local foods we'd never heard of before we moved here - like kallaloo soup, soursop ice cream, plantain pie and pious nuns, fungi, dumb bread, johnny cakes, benye, banana fritters, sea grape marmalade, and sugar cakes!

The weekend after we got the recipes, we decided to try making sugar cakes. We tasted sugar cakes for the first time at the Havensight Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, and then we had them again at Miracle on Main Street. They are made from coconut, sugar, and water, plus optional flavoring. We had tasted the standard almond flavor, plus ginger, and maybe plain. We've made them a few times since that weekend, trying new flavors each time. I was quite popular when I brought some to work. Everyone told me they'd never tried to make them at home, and always just made sure to get them at the agricultural or food fairs, or holiday events. My favorite flavor is pineapple, and Dave's is almond. We've also tried plain, vanilla, and peppermint.

Coconut Sugar Cakes:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 1/4 cups grated coconut

Mix everything together in heavy sauce pan. Cook slowly, stirring only occasionally to avoid sticking, until mixture forms a soft ball when dropped in water that is room temperature. (Really just cook it until it looks like it'll be able to keep its shape.) Remove from heat and beat a while. Add any desired flavoring while beating. Drop by spoonful on cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Let cool. Enjoy the sugar high!

Soccer News

So I've been having lots of fun playing soccer. We have practices 3 times a week and we just started a tournament where the games are played on Sundays. The paper had a recap of this Sunday's games:

Women's soccer league opens

ST. THOMAS - The Stunners' Digna Washington scored twice to lead her team to a 2-1 win over Don't Blame Us on opening day of the St. Thomas Region's Women's Micro 6-A-Side Soccer League on Sunday at the UVI field. Rene deJongh of Don't Blame Us scored on a high-arching shot from outside the 12-meters box to give them a 1-0 lead in the second half, but then deJongh took over and got the Stunners a win in their first game.

The first game of the day ended in a scoreless tie between the Warriors and the Golden Stars. The third game, Lily McMeramin scored two first- half goals and Alexandra Scully scored one as they led the Warriors to a 3-1 win over the Baby Rays. Dianne Peltier scored in the second half to give the Baby Rays their lone goal of the match. Darkness caused the suspension of the last match of the day - between Don't Blame Us and the Golden Stars - at halftime. With no score in the game, the second half will be played on Thursday at 6 p.m. at UVI.

********

So I guess if I score a goal, I'll get in the newspaper! My team is Don't Blame Us - I was playing goalie in the last game. I was glad when they decided to call it quits at halftime because it was mighty dark and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to see the ball if it came near me.

This is the first time there's been a "micro-league" for womens soccer on the island, so it's apparently a big deal. In our first game, I got taken out after about 10 min of the first half, the coach (and everyone on the sideline) said 'you're limping!' My feet haven't been thrilled with soccer. My right ankle seems to have lost a lot of flexibility - it's just really tight, but it means I can't run very well, definitely can't sprint, and walking uphill is difficult. So, I didn't play much of the game.

We're playing twenty minute halves on small fields. I played part of the second half as well, but just when i was about to ask the coach to take me out, he took me out. So that was fine with me. The only other person with experience playing defense came out for an injury too, and then my team just fell apart. It was a bit frustrating to be on the sidelines, but that's how it goes. Playing keeper for the second game was better since I didn't have to run around much. There are quite a few coaches since we have 5 teams, and 2 or 3 of them told me to skip tuesday's practice and rest my foot. So I did!

Also we didn't end up doing the 8 Tuff Miles race last Saturday because of my foot. I figured I'd rather have a shot at trying out for the soccer team than do the race. I kinda felt like if I did the race I wouldn't be able to jog for a long time afterwards... We gave our bibs to a coclerk and his wife and they did a good job for us. "Dave" finished in under 1.5 hours and "Kendra" was just over 2 hours.

I've got lots more blog posts written up in my head, I just need to find time to type them out. So stay tuned to read about my adventures with the Dollar Bus, our joint adventures into baking local sweets, and much, much more!