Hello! Hello! My dear friends, I greet you hoping that everything is going very well in your lives 🎄.
You will think that I spend my time “hunting” around the city sporting events, and it is not so 😊 I think rather, that now I realize this part that takes place in my area and I can show them to you. Let's just say that what we think, we attract 😊.

This publication is emotional, it takes me back to my childhood.
In my urbanization they inaugurated (restored) the Ramiro García Salazar multipurpose courts. The courts are located in the Robert Serra Park in the city of Barcelona, in the state of Anzoátegui. The new courts will have a basketball court and a soccer field. Currently, it serves as a practice space for several academies in these disciplines (Portugal basketball school and Portugal soccer school) and I hope it can serve for the development of others.

What's so special about it? A lot of things.
For as long as I can remember that court has been there. Since I was a little girl I remember that social events of the urbanization and its surroundings were held there. And here is my first memory.
Mr. Ramiro was a very dear neighbor. He was an excellent father, hard worker, lawyer, sportsman and very devoted to the Virgin of the Valley. He had the dream of instructing his children in some sport, but not only to them or to take them to learn, but to do it in the community.
One of the anecdotes was that on the first day of the basketball school that he devised, only he, his son and daughter were there. And it was to be expected, since at that time there were no social networks or interest in having children in any sport; I remember that I, as a child, it was unthinkable to play something “for boys”.
Ramiro then took it upon himself to go house to house, visiting all the mothers, fathers, grandmothers and motivating them to go just once to see how it was going. He was so determined that he himself looked for the children and returned them to their homes.

In a short time “Portugal's basketball school” was founded and believe me, more than 100 boys and girls coexisted in that space, and without knowing how to hold a ball, we were learning the sport.
I believe that from there my passion for basketball began, which I still maintain to this day, and stepping on those restored spaces moved me to the deepest foundations of my memories.
Ramiro left this world many years ago, there was a lot left to do and although the school was maintained for a few more years, it was never the same again.

Nowadays, it is very common for sports venues to be given names that have nothing to do with the sport or the community, so recognizing his legacy, discipline and dedication to the community is an important step to rescue and retake that love for the sport as he had and taught us.
That afternoon, many of us neighbors who every weekend shared “on the court” some practice or championship, gathered together. We remembered how some of the stars of our professional team came to play with us, the rivalries we had “with other courts” and the friends who were also founders and are scattered around the world. When I say that emotions were running high, I am not lying, in reality we are still the same guys with the same sense of belonging as once we were formed there.
The recovery work began more than a month ago and included: complete roofing (all the sheets had been stolen), lighting (since it was totally dark), trellising, painting, demarcation of the lines of the field, arrangement of bleachers, weeding, signs, and ornamentation in adjacent areas such as planting trees. Everything looked very nice.

I believe that high-performance athletes can never be discovered if they do not have spaces where they can begin to develop from an early age. I say this because in our time, many of our parents worked and did not have the time or interest to take us. However, I saw many families supporting their children and that will help them to go further.
An athlete who has adequate space to practice has greater possibilities of learning techniques, strategies and being able to acquire skills for future competitions. I hope that great representatives come out of there in the disciplines that are played there and even though it rained that day, I was pending to take a walk (especially on weekends), to enjoy the sporting environment that many years ago was not lived in my urbanization.

I hope that the restored spaces will be cared for by all who use it and the neighbors, it is the only way for it to truly be a rescued space.
All photographs are my own.
The separator was made in Canvas.
The translator I used was DeepL.
Until the next sporting event.