The Universal Language

The roar of the ocean mixed with the roars of children scoring goals as the sun set on another clear-skied, humid day on the island of St Martin. With a soccer-obsessed brother, it doesn’t matter where we go, we always have to make a stop at the local soccer pitch. We sat on the creaky bleachers observing the pick-up matches, awkwardly wondering how we could become part of them. My younger brother, Liam, started juggling a soccer ball on the sidelines. The kids quickly took notice of his skills and invited us to play. 

I was 13 at the time, while my brothers were 10 and 17. The local kids fell within our age range, but only one of them spoke English. The rest of the group spoke French and/or Dutch. The island of St. Martin—or St. Maarten— is split, with one side owned by France and the other by the Netherlands. While this leads to some cultural differences between the sides, the entire island is only 34 square miles, so the influence of both cultures mixes through the island like a rip current.

After a few minutes of translations and communicating with our hands, we had split into two teams. Translating between us and the one kid who spoke English was not going to work on the pitch. We waved our arms to show we were open, pointed at our feet to signal the kind of pass we hoped would come our way, and high-fived when our team scored a goal. We found a good rhythm when all of a sudden the ball was kicked over a fence into a river. All of our faces said “oh shit” without saying a word.

A few of the local kids climbed through a large hole in the chain link fence to reach the still river. It was clearly not the first time this had happened. While the lack of rapids was in our favor, the ball was relaxing in the middle of the water, out of reach. Through translations and more pointing, we had divided into teams once again. Some were designated to use a long piece of wood to push the ball to the river’s edge, while others were to be ready to retrieve it.

You would have thought we won the World Cup with the cheers we elicited after retrieving the ball. We continued to play as the sun fell below the ocean, and lights flickered onto the pitch. As the game and night came to a close, we wished our new friends goodbye with bright smiles and waving hands. 

That one soccer ball brought a group of children from opposite ends of the world together, acting as our shared language. Even now, over ten years later, my brothers and I can still feel the energy and connection of that night. We walked off that pitch different, better people. We can’t even remember who won.