Emelec vs. Barcelona

Spork is back!  There have been many busy days since our last post but the adventures have continued.  Most of them take place Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 8:35 and 9:10 AM.  It's called Nursery PE where I do "physical education" with 23 2-3 year olds with runny noses, poopy pants and 2 minute attention spands.  How many times does 2 minutes go into a 35 minute class period?  17, which is also the number of different activities needed to keep these kids corralled in city limits.  Yes, we play a lot of "Chase that bird" and "Catch Mr. R".  This last week, I had to bring in a HazMat cleanup team to nuke the tumble mats of the snot spots left where each child rolled over face down.  The best part of this adventure is that I get to hold 23 little mini hands each class and there is a race to see who gets to sit by Mr. R for stretches.

This last weekend, I had a chance to go to the biggest sporting event in Guayaquil, The Classico, where the 2 futbol teams from Guayaquil play each other.  By no means is this a "friendly" game between both teams and fans.  This game included truck loads of riot police, home made flares, confetti made from confidential business records, confetti catching fire from home made flares, 1 coach ejected, 2 players from the same team ejected, 1 player playing with his arm in a sling, 1 fist fight among fans supporting the same team, and 3 goals scored by the apposing team within the first 20 minutes.  The last one, most of all, enraged the fans so much that water bottles were being thrown at players and coaches while also recieving not so nice comments about their madres (mothers).  The most alarming point came when our Ecuadorian friends suggested we leave for safety concerns if there was another goal scored.  News flash for gringos: If an Ecuadorian is concerned about safety, you should be no where near that area!  Fortunately, there were no more goals.  Check it out:     

View from the stadium.

There is no better way to arrive at a Classico than in the back of a truck!

Home made flares: Besides catching the confetti on fire, the smoke was so bad that most fans left their seats for the open air hallways so they could breath.  Not a lot of forsight.

Christian and Orlando ready to get the game started.