We won! (a sports break in Colombia)

By David Connelly, KF10 Peru/KF11 Colombia

Blogging in from Barranquilla, Colombia. I plopped down here just a bit over a week ago and right near the end of the Colombian national football* league’s season-ending tournament.Now, this entry doesn’t have anything to do with microfinance, but since the mission of our blog is “to allow Kiva Fellows to have the opportunity to share their experiences living and working abroad,” I thought I’d share some local color, especially what I encountered here last night.

A little framing. This was the second of a two-game series. Barranquilla lost the first, which was played in Bogota (a two hour flight or 20-odd hour bus ride away from this Caribbean port city). Folks here take sports seriously, and football’s king. Junior, i.e. the boys from Barranquilla, have a history of building up and then letting down their fans I’ve been told, but the city still seemed guardedly optimistic going into the final.

By the 7 o’clock start time, every bar and restaurant in town was packed to the walls with enthusiastic fans draped in red and white flags and jerseys.

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That footage was shot over about a two and half hour period following the game. The party when on until 2 or 3 AM (it was a work day, after all). The triumphant Junior squad also followed the celebration into town, tracing through the city in a celebratory procession until the whee hours of the morning.

More on microfinance and the activities of Kiva field partner Fundación Mario Santo Domingo (FMSD) coming soon!

* Football meaning soccer (for American readers)