The Great Escape: Xelaju Super Chivas

Last Saturday night, August 5, we went to the home opener of Xela's national league fútbol team -- Xelaju Super Chivas. It was quite an experience.

The game started at 8pm, but we bought tickets early upon recommendation. Someone in our school or in a host family even mentioned getting there (and staying there) starting about 3pm for the game. Futbol is HUGE here, as it is in most of the world outside of the US. And it being a World Cup year (why Zuzu, why??), the excitement was that much higher for the home opener of Xela's beloved Super Billy Goats.

After a quick dinner at Tacos No Mas, we headed to the stadium. It was crazy and will be hard to capture in words (particularly because we are losing our ability to speak in English after talking like a third grader 5 hours a day).

The stadium isn't what likely comes to mind -- Death Valley, Rose Bowl, Old Trafford, even Ladd-Peebles. Think more....well, don't really think about stadiums you have seen. The newly constructed stadium seating at one end dominates the seating. Everything else is about four tiers high all the way around, with prime seating being on top of the 20 ft. concrete walls enclosing the entire structure. We got a pretty good spot down front in the large stands behind one goal.

Streets were blocked off all around the stadium. Venders were everywhere and all seemed to be getting lots of business. It was packed and the energy was high. Yet we still had no idea what we were in for. Small and large groups had already started chanting as both teams warmed up an hour before kickoff. Trumpets blasted mostly regognizable melodies as people chanted the often profane words (we'd met a 6 ft. 8 in. Peace Corp Volunteer earlier in the day at the glass blowing factory that stayed with us and provided some translation...not that we really wanted to know what they were saying).

The best, and most shocking, came as the teams formally took the field through the tunnel. The opposing team was greeted with a series of "boos" and a few other extremely unpleasant comments and gestures.

Then it happened.

Xelaju took the field. We thought it had been wild the hour before? HARDLY! Everything kicked up about 50 more notches. Fireworks...EVERYWHERE. And I don't just mean a stadium sponsored fireworks show while the crowd clappend and cheered. I mean FIREWORKS. I think we might have been some of the only people in the stadium not carrying our own stash. Sparklers. Flare-looking things. The usual bottle rockets. Strings of m80s (at least 1000 went off over the insuing 5 minutes).

And my favorite -- the hand held bottle rockets. I'm not even sure how to describe them, but as we looked behind us, dozens of people were holding their hands straight out and somewhat shielding their eyes. It looked like they were holding skinny, colored, paper towel tubes. But believe me, this was no paper towel tube. Out of the end was a seemingly endless supply of quick shooting small white flares. They typically went about 30 or 40 yards through the air, making a high-pitched whistling noise before dying on the field, in the air, or before hitting someone else in the stands! (Jeff aptly proclaimed, "They're shooting at us! They're shooting at us!)

It was GREAT! And the game hadn't even begun.

The rest was just details. The Super Chivas prevailed on a shutout 3 goal performance. A great way to open up the home season. A few pics are below for your viewing pleasure. We will hopefully see a few more games in and around Guatemala over the next month or two and only hope for just as much fun!