Raw Humiliation, High School Style

I left the office yesterday at 4:30 so that I could arrive at Fedearroz, the agricultural engineering company where Armando works. We were scheduled to leave Fedearroz at 5:00pm for the game that Armando's team had in the agronomist intramural league in Espinal (an hour away). I arrived at 4:45 and hung out chatting with some of my new Enlgish class students. At 5:00 there were 4 people there (the team is 12 strong, and they play with 8 on a side, so 4 was clearly insufficient). Slowly teammates trickled in, and at 5:30 we pulled out of the parking lot. I was awarded a middle seat in the back row of the mini-bus, between two of my students, Christian & Henry. They are both very sweet, and very dedicated to learning English, so we had a mini-lesson in the back row.

As seems to be the norm here (and maybe in the US too), I laughed the whole time. The newest comment I get from people is "You are pure laughter, huh?" I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing to be pure laughter, but I seem to ease tensions that way, and people tend to laugh with me, at least.....

We got to Espinal and the other team had not showed up. One of my potential new recruits for the English class, "Piedrahitas" as he is known, bought some green mango with lime & salt, one of my new favorite foods, and gifted it to Amalia and I. YUM.

The team won, and we rushed to a bar in Espinal to watch the Tolima game against Independiente of Buenos Aires. We made it in time to watch the full second half, and though Tolima outplayed Independiente by a long shot, the game ended 0-0. Since Independiente had scored 2 "away" goals in Tolima (despite that also being a tie game), they have more points in the match up, so they continue on in the South American cup, and Tolima is out. :(

We boarded out mini-bus, stopped off to buy another bottle of Aguardiente, and began the hilarious journey back to Ibagué.... Piedrahitas was sitting next to me, and people started chanting out names, asking whether he was happy sitting next to me (seriously?!), and finally Christian turned and asked him, with me sitting next to him: "So, Piedrahitas, how is Casey?".... So awkward. Everyone was staring at me, and they forced a few shots of Aguardiente into my hands, and then chanted my name until I drank it down with a grimmace. So awkward.

We headed to a restaurant at 10:45 for a soup specifically made for drunkies, (some of my companions were quite over the hill in terms of blood alcohol levels - there was an older man who just looked at me and laughed, leaning in, slowly falling towards my face, and also gave me like 20 or 30 high fives.......), and then I drove everyone home, as I was the only sober one. I DROVE HERE, which is scary in itself, since people drive like maniacs, but there were almost no cars on the road, so it was fine. One thing I noticed more so as a driver than a passenger: these roads are AWFUL. Don't take those roads back home for granted - they are heavenly.

Here are some heavenly shots of a plant in the office. It is magical.