Elections and Football

We arrived in Medellín, Colombia on Sunday. We were supposed to arrive on Saturday late at night. But instead we got to spend hours and hours in the Miami International Airport. The three letter code of the airport is MIA which presumably is both short for Miami and stands for Miami International Airport. But I have now figured out the truth. It stands for Missing International Airplanes. But, to be fair, we did make it eventually.

View from the balcony of our apartment

Sunday was a very exciting day for Colombians. It was Father's Day, but that wasn't the reason for the passions to be aroused. Sunday was the presidential runoff election. They had already had their general election and since no candidate had a majority of the vote, the top two vote getters had the runoff election. I won't pretend to know anything about Colombian politics. I can tell you this: the two candidates were a progressive candidate who is the successor of the current president and a far-right candidate who is an attorney. The current president cannot run for re-election, because in Colombia, a president is limited to a single four-year term.

Another view from a different angle

The election was super close. The initial count said that the far-right attorney won by an impressively narrow margin. When this result was announced, there was passion in the streets. For hours people were honking their horns. Pedestrians were carrying Colombian flags and jumping up and down. That was in my neighborhood, which must be pro far-right attorney. From the media I read, in other parts of the country there was passion on the other side, protest.

One more view including a pretty girl

The results were contested. The current president accused Israel of interfering in their election. But a couple days later, the progressive candidate conceded.

I love the flowers here

But politics aren't the only source of passion in Colombia right now. Perhaps even more intense, and one in which the country is united, is the passion for football. (Naturally, I mean soccer.) As you know, the World Cup is going on. And Colombia's team is doing well. And Colombia couldn't be more excited.

A bird of paradise (the flower, not the bird. It's metaphorical.)

There has been one game in which Colombia took part since we arrived. They have a huge screen set up in a nearby park and everyone comes together to watch. We didn't go, because it was a very late game and I had to teach very early the next morning. But on Saturday, when Colombia plays again, we will go and experience the passion in person.

It was pretty funny though, because we can hear when the people shout and cheer from our apartment. We were watching an international broadcast of the game, but clearly we had a bit of a time lag. Because we would always know when Colombia was going to score a goal about two minutes before it happened on our screen. The Colombian feed was more live than ours was. Personally, I didn't watch until the end, because I had to get up early. But I am told it was very exciting.

I am excited about sharing in the crowd swell on Saturday. Naturally, I will be rooting for Colombia (if I know what's good for me.) But I guess it will be interesting to experience whether they win or lose. They are playing Portugal which is a very good team. Portugal is the favorite, being considered the 5th best team in the world. Colombia is considered the 13th best team. I don't know who calculates this, but presumably football experts.

I hope we won't stand out too much as the only people not wearing the shirts of the Colombian team.