WAVES Community Surf Program Blog: ‘Friends and Fights’
‘THWACK!’
The unmistakeable sound of an open palm hitting bare flesh proceeded one of those aching silences which always ensues once a child receives a bump out of the blue or in this case a smart slap to the face. I hadn’t seen the fight brewing as I was leading the kids back from the beach and chatting to a little grommet called Noe at the time. I hadn’t seen Kenghi kick Alexis in the back and had only turned once the latter responded with an open palmed right hook.
The silence was slowly filled by the bubbling gurgles of Alexis’ sobs. Kenghi, clearly shocked, was silent with his back turned and his head in his hands. As I walked back I got to Alexis first. His crumpled face was bawling through snotty tears and I knew that his sobs were not from the back pain he blamed them on. His broken and red face took me back to the intense feelings of shame, guilt and anger that I had once felt at his age, getting into irrational fights with my mates. Karen, one of the local kids that assist in the community surf program, got to Kenghi and started walking back with him. I was really grateful for her help and that I had a local person with me. I had suddenly been hit with a realisation of what I was doing and, for a brief moment, it dawned on me how out of my comfort zone I was, dealing with a group of kids whose backgrounds I had nothing in common to relate to and who all looked to me to take control and establish order on this situation!
I had a brief conversation with Alexis and, after calming him down, we managed to get all the kids back and into the house. With some strong encouragement we avoided them using all our water for showers, stopped them from trampling on our front garden, kept them out of the kitchen and far from the risk of chopping their hands off with our knives and somehow fought neoprene for long enough that, eventually, we had eight fully changed wet haired, salty faced, tired and stoked little Lobiteno grommets ready to go home.
Surfing gives us great friendships, hence we can help to create a supportive social network for young Lobitenos.
I hadn’t forgotten what had happened though. It had been playing on my mind and I was certain that we had to cut it out. In the water, behaviour is never an issue, mother nature sees to that pretty quickly. But this community surf program is not just about being in the water its about solidarity on land, cohesive fraternity and mutual support. With this in mind I got all of the kids together and sat them in a group outside of the house.
‘Look guys, we all know that there was a fight on the way back from the beach today and I want to talk to you all about it a bit.’ I said, praying my Spanish would hold out. ‘You guys have been coming to class for a while now and we have created a group. But not only that, we are a group of friends and even more, we are a group of surfers. We have to help each other, not fight each other. If somebody does something to hurt you, you mustn’t hit them back. You must come and talk to me and we can solve the problem sensibly.’
I looked around and looked at quiet and humble young faces. To ensure that I was understood, I asked, ‘Who can explain to me and the rest of the group what I just said?’ The usual hands shot up, I waited for the meek, creeping paw of one of the shier kids and got him to recount it, which he did successfully. ‘Good’ I thought, something is sinking in, now for the hard part!
‘Kenghi and Alexis, I want you to apologise to each other and shake each others’ hands.’
Silence.
‘Kenghi?’
No reaction…
‘Alexis?’
Nothing…as I looked between the two of them I could feel my inspirational speech drifting off into a long forgotten past.
‘Right, well we are all going to wait here until you can look each other in the eyes and say sorry’, my last ditch attempt seemed pathetic, hopefully they didn’t realise my threat was empty!
To my relief Alexis slowly stood up in the centre of our circle, conspicious in his humility, and quietly but sincerely muttered ‘Disculpa’, his little hand stretched out in tentative armistice. Kenghi looked at me with the corners of his mouth turned up into a nervous smile, and I stared back, expectantly. He also stood up and replied uncomfortably but audibly, ‘Disculpa’. The two shook hands. At this point I lost my head, I started applauding and grinning stupidly, handing out high fives and the like. I brought them in for a group hug and then sent them on their way with Karen to their homes in Primavera feeling like I had dodged a bullet.
Some shakas and high fives after a good session!
It didn’t hit me until later when I was talking to Pepe a.k.a « El Diablo », another local who works as an assistant to the community surf program, that this little story is in someways indicative of the lifeblood of what we are doing here at WAVES with the surf program. Pepe said to me,’ Si, Seth, es chebere, no es solamete sobre el surf, estamos ensenando…como…’
‘…Sociabilidad?’ I finished his sentence.
‘SI! Esa! La sociabilidad!’
Surfing is great. Its fun, its healthy and it makes for really good photo opportunities for marketing campaigns. Brilliant. But we’re not saving the world by getting kids stoked on surfing, far from it. What we are doing with the community surf program, however, is giving a small group of kids a few hours in the day when they socialise with their peers in an organised atmosphere and develop new forms of peer to peer relationships. If we can rub off a bit of friendly compassion and social responsibility in the process then all the better for it.
