Hot!

It is very hot this weekend.

I had soccer practice this morning and a German guy was complaining about how hot it was. Another person asked if it ever got this hot in Germany. He responded by saying it did, but he would never think of playing soccer in that kind of weather; he would sit in a pool instead. An Algerian added that this weather was like winter in Algeria. Someone said I should be able to handle the heat because of my West African upbringing and roots.

One of the reasons I love the game of soccer is this kind of talk. Not talk about the weather, specifically, but talk of culture. It's cool to talk to an Italian, German, Algerian, a Dane, all in the matter of a minute, each bringing their own culture to the conversation.

I'm not saying these kinds of conversations don't come up in other cases, but in soccer, it's all there, it all matters, and doesn't matter at the same time. We are different, we have different backgrounds, that we bring to the soccer field (for those who don't know, different cultures are known for their different styles of play of the beautiful game).

After I gave up practicing (sadly, the West African caved to the heat quicker than the Dane), I came home and jumped into our newly redone pool. You can read about the pool in my last post.

I'm not really a pool person (black people don't swim), but it was calling me. Knowing I was going to be washing my hair soon anyway, so it wouldn't matter if it got wet. I jumped in, with my soccer shorts; I think I was the first person in the pool since it had reopened last week. I can count the number of times I've been in that pool on one hand; I've lived right next to the pool for five years. But it's hot this weekend, and the heat does things to you.