A New Game

I walked out onto the porch of the conference center a few nights ago to find a group of boys sitting in a circle with some girls form the nearby village. It's pretty odd to find a gaggle of girls on campus in the evenings, so I took notice. I wasn't really all that surprised to find a Pepsi bottle spinning in the center of the ring of hormone-crazed teenagers...but it was a little bit of a shock that they would choose to play this game on the steps of the building where all the missionaries were gathered for a meeting!

Among the group was my old friend, Reyes. He just grinned at me when I asked "¿Que pasa?" (What's up?). "It's a game," he explained with his best innocent expression (which isn't all that convincing, I might add). "Yes, I know this game," I responded. I caught a fleeting glimpse of panic before the smirk widened. "You have this game in the States!?!" he exclaimed.

"Well," he said "in this game we shake hands." Then he demonstrated by spinning the bottle and reaching across to shake the hand of one of the girls. This gesture made the girl blush and the entire group broke into uncontrollable giggles. Reyes remained as straight-faced as possible in the hopes of keeping the charade more realistic. Shortly after the gourp disbursed leaving me on the porch with just Reyes and a couple of onlookers. After a while, he gave up trying to convince me that his intentions had been to merely "shake hands with the chicas." I began a long speech in which I chastised him for his behavior and warned him against spending too much time chasing girls. He stopped my motherly oration just as I was gaining righteous steam when he asked "Did you ever play before Steve?"

Nothing more was said on the subject.