Futbol

Yesterday was a big day for Colombian soccer.  Next year the World Cup will take place in Brazil.  Soccer is of course the biggest sport here and every Colombian wants their team in the world cup.  Right now the qualifying games are being played in order to get a bid into the World Cup.   We have been here for 3 of these games for Colombia. When we arrived their team needed 2 more points, which meant they either needed to tie or win 2 more games.  The first game they won against Ecuador and the second they lost against Uruguay.  Sot it came down to yesterday's game against Chile.   They have not made it into the World Cup since 1994.   Here is a little tidbit I got from ESPN about the 1994 World Cup;  Colombian defender Andrés Escobar scored an own goal against USA that helped knock his team out of the competition. A few days after he and his team-mates returned to Colombia, Escobar was shot dead by gangsters amid speculation his error had cost drug barons millions in gambling losses.

We live very close to a park surrounded by a lot of restaurants.  When Colombia has a game, they put up an enormous screen in the middle of the park.  In front of the screen there are a bunch of bean bag chairs.  Every restaurant has a huge Colombian flag or balloons in red, yellow and blue.  Almost everyone you see is wearing a Colombian jersey, yellow with blue stripes going down the sleeves.   There will be vendors on every corner selling jerseys, flags, and horns.  In the park there were 2 people decked out in Colombian colors on stilts with their faces painted.  All the cars are rushing home or to a place to watch the game.  (which was awesome for us because there is no traffic during game time so Brian got home a little early)  You can feel the excitement in the air!  

Caleb loves all sports.  He will watch any sport, baseball, football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, golf, seriously any sport!  So since the game came on at 4pm, I put the game on for him (us) to watch.  He watched and played his own game as well, by bringing in his soccer ball and goal.  When Colombia was losing, in his game, Colombia won 24-3 :)  We of course were cheering for Colombia.  But don't worry, Caleb is very clear that the United States is his favorite team!

The game started off badly and by halftime Colombia was losing 3-0.  It was completely silent outside! But they came back in the second half and with only a couple minutes left tied it up.  Colombia only needed 1 more point so a tie would get them in.  When they scored the last goal to tie it up it was so loud!  Everyone was screaming and blowing their horns!  

The entire night you could hear random people celebrating, screaming in the streets, blowing their horns, or honking incessantly!  Even when we went to bed around 10pm, people were still honking and blowing horns.  

We are really happy Colombia won and will be in the World Cup!  I am sure I will have more crazy soccer stories as it gets closer to the World Cup!  Vamos Colombia!!

Ollie getting into the soccer spirit!

The shutdown

So the federal government shutdown today.  I will not get into how I really feel about it, but it is affecting a lot of family and friends of ours and of course us as well.  So here is how it is affecting us.  Obviously Brian is a federal employee as he works for the State Department.  He was told yesterday that if the government shut down he was to report to work as usual.  But we have no idea if he will be paid for the work he is doing.  The embassy in Bogota is the largest in South America and 3rd largest in the world.  So it takes a lot to keep it running.  So Brian is working as normal today and will continue to, we just don't know if his work will be compensated.  We are of course praying that he will be paid retroactively.  But luckily if we lose out we will be ok.  Having a financial officer as a husband means that we have enough in savings to get by for awhile.
The boys and I are having a normal day as well.  Caleb was happy to go to school today since he stays late on Tuesdays to go swimming.  I had to run after him to say good-bye.  Elias is feeling a bit under the weather.  His tummy is bothering him.  Ollie had a good night last night and therefore has been in good spirits.  That is the wonderful thing about their ages, they have no idea what is going on at their daddy's work.
We have and will continue to pray for our government and those who are harder hit by this shut down.