Alone and walking to the store to buy groceries, I got distracted. Just as comic book and the WB stores used to pull me in when I came within eyesight, when I see an Israeli who may give me an opportunity to learn a new Hebrew word, I’ve strayed from my path and gravitated toward that person like a Jew to Israel or a cockroach to our shower stall.

On my way to the store to buy salt and pepper, I saw children kicking around a soccer ball on a fenced-in basketball court. Even though I hadn’t played a game of soccer since I was six years old, I was eager to play any kind of physical activity as well as speak the language of Israel with 10-year-old kids.

I expected to play a game of soccer and to speak my just-learned Hebrew words (all written down haphazardly on a pad I carried with me everywhere). Instead, I was in for a surprise. About two dozen boys, smiles plastered on their faces, aged between six and 12, asked me as many questions as they could in rapid-fire succession. “What’s your name?” “Where are you from?” “Where do you live?” “What are you doing here?” They kept on trying to show off what they knew and what English words they could speak, pushing other boys so they could get closer to me.

One boy handed me a stack of post cards with an Israeli teenie-bopper star that looked like a member of N*Sync. When I refused to take the stack, they handed it back, yelling for me to do something that I didn’t understand. They tried different Hebrew words, but I couldn’t understand any of them, until I thought they might have been asking me to sign my autograph on the card. A line quickly formed. I asked for each child’s name and put that in print, wrote the one Hebrew word I knew without looking it up on my pad (“Toh-dah,” Thank you) and then added my John Hancock for their collections. The older boys asked to see my phone, and they programmed their names in.

In the middle of all of this flattery, I called my house and told my housemates (the nine other American volunteers) to join me. Two minutes later they strolled onto the court, a “Ka-door regel” (literally “ball foot,” or soccer ball) in their arms. Immediately three older Israelis, about 13 or 14, challenged us in a game of four-on-four. We played until sundown, first to score two goals, winner stays. None of us had played for at least seven years, and I played for only a season when I was six years old. Even though we lost for the first hour (and only when two other Israeli joined one team did two in our group win), we were having fun.

One member of our household, Joey, did not play, standing on the sidelines smoking a cigarette, shooting movies and taking pictures. He talked with the little kids, who, curious and eager, kept asking questions about everything. When they got in the way of some of the Israeli players, the players got angry and started yelling, but when we jumped on the court when we were supposed to be on the sidelines, they told us not to worry about anything—everything was “sebabah” (cool), even when they collided with us and hit the hard ground.

Three of the original “yeladin” (children) I met at first, the 10-12 year-olds, were eager to play a game, with me on their team. I get serious when I play sports, so when we lost after only 30 seconds of play, I was angry and disappointed. On the first goal, my teammates left the left wing open, failing to come back on defense. On the second goal, our goalie challenged the ballhandler at the top of the trapezoid and left the goal open. All three of the yeladin converged on the ball and left the rest of the court open (except the right side, where I was). When I returned to the sideline, I tried to find the one small child who could speak both Hebrew and English. I needed to know how to say, “Go to the right,” or “Go to the left” or “Go to the center” so that I could order my teammates to the right place. With all of the other kids pushing around us, I wrote it down but was back on the court for a final game without having practiced my new words.

My next game was just as disappointing, another loss, this time with me in the goal, the ball sailing through my open legs.

We walked home, me bitter and disappointed. However, my housemates cheered me up quickly. “That was incredibly fun,” one said. “Thanks for calling us to come over.” Also, even though they continuously laughed and mocked me for my omnipresent pad of Hebrew words, in private most of my roommates—all of whom I met only a day earlier—voiced awe that I had such a passion to learn to communicate.

Even though I wanted to make up for my bad play at the very end, I ended on a positive note. We were treated like rock stars. Everybody loves us and what we are doing in Ramla, and we are doing such a great thing for the community, especially the yeladin.

The next day we played them again.