Viva Blooming!!! Goooooaaaaallllllllll!!!!!

With the house overflowing with volunteers, there is always someone around with whom to talk or plan an outing into town. Thus we've had a lot of excitement around here since our arrival. The first highlight was two nights spent at CruzExpo, one of the largest fairs in the world where you can find everything from live reggaeton music to autodealers to massive, prize-winning cows to cerveza gardens to crowded dance clubs. The fair began this weekend as Monday marked the day Santa Cruz was founded. The town's center is the beautiful Plaza of September 24th (photo) and Monday was a major holiday here. Dr. Douglas warned us we would be amazed by the number of Bolivian super models in attendance advertising at the various booths--we even got to see Miss Bolivia dancing in a live advertisement for a new caffeinated beverage. Our herd wandered through it all, amazed at the creation of such elaborate structures for only 2 weeks. The end of the night included jumping a fence into a jammed, and sweaty (ahem...I mean hip and happening) dance club. A good time was had by all.

While the fair was interesting, the best experience of our first week in Santa Cruz had to be our outing to un partido de futbol! To review common knowledge, futbol (soccer) is definitely the sport of choice in Bolivia. Santa Cruz's Tuhuichi Aguilera stadium is within walking distance of the volunteer house. Thus we clearly had to check out a game right away. Plus, we had the great fortune of arriving just prior to one of the biggest games of the season, a match between the cross-town rivals of Santa Cruz: Blooming vs. Oriente. This is Santa Cruz's version of the windy-city classic. Dr. Douglas and Ethan are die-hard Blooming fans while our new friend Javier, hermano de Veronica, lives and dies with Oriente. We had been caught in a tug of war between the two sides during the days leading up to the game, unsure of where our allegiances would lie. In the end, and naturally, Charlotte and I jumped onboard with the boys in blue, especially since their rival team wore green and gold. Learning the Oriente's full name was Oriente Petroleo only reinforced my choice. Viva Blooming, brother team to the Osos de Chicago!

The game was excellent and exciting down to the last whistle. Tons of hustle and passionate play by both sides. We had fun with our new Blooming gear and a loud plastic trumpet blown at key moments of the game by Mike Molitch-Hou. Oriente had the first goal late in the first half and went into the break in the lead. The fairly even, back and forth play continued into the second half until Blooming managed to get a dribbler into the net to tie it up. Then the stadium came alive. With 5 minutes to go, Blooming drilled in the game winner (all 3 goals were off corner kicks). We were on our feet singing with our section and poor Javier looked like he was going to be sick. Some Oriente fans went as far to light a few fires down in their endzone before they left. To top it off, this game knocked Oriente out of playoff contention. I felt as if we had just sent Farve back to Mississippi for a long off-season with our new fight song:

Vamos!
Vamos a ganar!
Te llevo Blooming
dentro de mi corazon!