Better than Arlington

Stephen shared these photos of the Estadio Municipal, in amazing El Alto, Bolivia (which has rapidly become the country’s second-largest city, with just under a million people).

The stadium’s elevation is 4095 meters or 13,435 feet. More or less. (I’ve seen slightly different figures on different websites.) La Paz’s feared Hernando Siles Stadium is more than a thousand feet lower. The Azteca in Mexico City – itself renowned for altitude – is only fifty-four percent as high.

The stadium’s chief tenant is Club Always Ready, which has enjoyed success in recent years.

The capacity is 20,000 to 25,000 spectators. The grass is fake.

Some people dream of viewing a match in the Bernabéu, the Bombonera, or Wembley. I dream of going places like El Alto.

Have I mentioned that I once rather seriously contemplated working in sports journalism, traveling to Ciudad del Este, Cusco, and Manaus to report on CONMEBOL tournaments for dedicated English-language readers? The demand for that service would have been approximately the same as the demand for what I do now.

The fall holidays

Three immanent fall breaks:

• the high school’s (Fri. of next week, and then Sat., Sun., and Mon.);
• IUSB’s (Mon. and Tues. of next week);
• Bethel’s (tomorrow).

Yesterday’s Spanish session wasn’t very well attended, and so it went much better than usual. It may’ve been the best session I ever taught. (Afterward, the student in front of whom I tore my pants stayed awhile to tell me that my lecture was crystal-clear. She’s a very kind, encouraging student.)

I began the session by showing soccer replays. “Look at how rapidly the ball travels in the high altitude,” I said. I taught about the elevation of La Paz. Then I showed photos of that city. The students gasped. Then I told them about El Alto, La Paz’s suburb, which is even higher and more populous.

I continued lecturing about the soccer replays. “Here is Ecuador’s first goal. See Antonio Valencia’s perfect first touch. The player who ends up scoring the goal is Énner Valencia, who almost got arrested during the previous game for not paying his child support.

“Here is our tying goal, scored, near the end of the game, by the same player.”

“One question,” interjected an athlete in the back row. “Ronaldo or Messi?”

“Messi plays better,” I replied (to his disgust).

“Can we watch replays of the Cubs?” asked a skinny young man in the back row.

“No.”

Then I taught about the impersonal se (as in: se habla español en Bolivia) and about the se which disavows responsibility (se me olvidó la tarea). This was the most crystal-clear part of the lecture. I was very pleased with how well I taught that day.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The previous day, little Ziva’s uterus was removed. The surgery was completed by mid-afternoon, but Ziva was groggy all evening: her jumps were too low for their intended surfaces, and her head kept on bobbing sleepily.

Now her belly has a large, shaved patch where the surgery was performed.

Despite these ignominies, she recovers more of her strength every day.

The woes of Énner

By now, you must know that Ecuador “mopped the floor” with the Chileans, 3 to 0. The first two goals were tallied before the 25th minute. The third goal was scored in the initial moments of the second half. Commentators agree that many more goals could have been attained.

Énner Valencia, in particular, put himself into scoring position again and again, only to waste chance after chance.

Shortly before the game was concluded, Énner was substituted out with an “injury.” He was taken in an ambulance to a clinic. The police jogged several yards behind Énner, putting on a show of chasing him. He was not arrested inside of the stadium.

Since then, Énner’s legal troubles have been resolved: at least, he’s been allowed to board the plane to El Alto (tomorrow, Ecuador will play against the Bolivians, in La Paz). Meanwhile, Énner is using Twitter to defend himself to the public. He maintains that he already has paid lots of support to his child’s mother (who is an inadequate parent, he alleges). He’s trying to obtain custody of the little girl so that she can go to school in England, where he resides.

All of this may yet lead to a happy ending. Please pray for Énner and his family, and pray for Ecuador to defeat Bolivia.

Here are replays from the game against the Chileans. One silver lining of Walter Ayoví’s absence is that Christian Ramírez, his twenty-two-year-old understudy, performed superbly. (I’d been worrying about Ecuador’s vulnerability at Walter’s position, left-fullback.) Ramírez even scored the second goal, flying into the box from well outside of it, expressing a shrewd sense of what was required at that time.