I am not sure how I managed to live in my community for a year and a half and not go to a local soccer game, but I finally rectified the situation. There are two club team one is 25 de mayo and the other is 14 de abril. My neighbors are 14 fans, so by default, I am too.
I am still getting invited to play with the girls team in Fassardi. Last weekend we had an away game and I got promoted to foward. I unfortunately I didn't score any goals, but they tell me we still have quite a few more games to play.
I am not sure if any of you back home were following the World Cup, but here in Paraguay it was a pretty big deal, even though the Paraguayan team didn't qualify. Unfortunately the teams I was rooting for all lost, but it was still fun to follow the games. One game in particular was especially exciting because I was at the stadium. Mexico Vs The Netherlands. Near the beginning of this year a friend and fellow volunteer, Cara, asked me if I wanted to go Brazil to watch a World Cup game with her. I was on the fence for a while about it because I knew it would be an expensive trip, but in the end I decided it is a once in a life time experience and after all, it's only money. I am so glad I went. I was so much fun. It was the first time I had ever been in a stadium with 67,000 screaming fans.
We flew into Fortaleza, in northern Brazil, and spent four days there. On the beach they set up a couple of huge screen and have music and other games. It's called the FIFA Fan Fest. We watched some games there and others in restaurants.
On Sunday the 29th we headed to the stadium. There were free city buses that took people to and from the stadium. They busses didn't go all the say to the stadium. I think it is part of the crown control techniques. We had to walk for about 10 minutes to get to the stadium after getting off the bus. We weren't sure what lines would be like so we got to the stadium pretty early. There were no lines and we just walked right in. We were rooting for Mexico and luckily the majority of the people around us were as well. Unfortunately Mexico lost because of a questionable penalty (sorry if any of you are Holland fans) but it was still amazing to see them play live. Our seats were pretty high up in the stadium, but we could see the field and the players surprisingly well. When we left the stadium I thought we would have to wait a while for a bus, but we only waited about five minutes. They defiantly know what they are doing when it comes to transporting thousands of people.
Yes, we realiza the Mexican flags are wrong on our faces, but they were free so what can we say?
After the game we headed to a little town called Jericoacoara to finish out our trip on the beach. Jericoacoara is a tourist town surrounded completely by dunes. It is about 290 kilometers (180 miles) from Fortaleza. The most popular activity in Jericoacoara is to take a dune buggy ride to lagoons and other sites. The first lagoon we went to was called Lago Paraiso. We stayed there for a couple of hours lounging in hammocks submerged in the clear blue water and drinking fresh coconut water. The we headed put again to Pedra Forada which is a big rock with a hole it it. The dune buggies can't go all the way to the rock so we walked along the beach for about 20 minutes to get to it. The rest of out days we just relaxed on the beach and watch the World Cup. It was hard to come back to the cold of Paraguay after 85 degree days.
I hit the ground running when I got back to Paraguay. I had to plan the final week of my English class. I was hoping to have finished before leaving for Brazil, but with so much rain I had to cancel a few classes. It threatened to rain a few times, but fortunately the rain held off and I was able to wrap things up and give out certificates. Of the 53 students who came to my class to one point or another I had 16 who only missed one class and took the final exams. Those 16 received certificates. Having a certificate of completion here is a very big deal so they were excited to receive them. I planned a small ceremony and all week practiced a song to sing in English. In my class of older kids no parents showed up and in the class of younger kids only two came. That's the way things are here.
