A genuinely perfect sunday afternoon

Sunday afternoon the local team’s playing Potosí, the nearest city. Nicolas and I go with one of his co-workers, Adam, to watch.

Adam has given me a vague idea of where the stadium is; Nicolas and I weave through crooked streets in that general direction. We approach a set of stairs, Nicolas says he’s always wondered about them and I convince him we should go up.

At the top we stroll as nonchalantly as possible through the middle of a party: a collection of umbrella tables, possibly from a restaurant or maybe just random, completely blocking the street for any cars. People are listening to music and drinking, and watching us. We emerge from this and realize the entire road ahead of us is soaked and half a dozen kids are staring at us gleefully as they fill balloons and jugs (jugs!) with water. We walk slowly and calmly, as though we were passing though a pack of lions, trying to balance our careful observation of the potential assailants with the tactic of not showing fear. We pass through unharmed. When we get to the end of the block, one kid throws a globo which I dodge, laughing.

But we’re not out of the woods yet. We pass another two or three kids, and the one five year old seems like he really wants to get me, so I hold my coat in front of me and go, “Yeah? Do it. Do it!”.

He throws the globo. I deflect it with my coat. It hits the ground but doesn´t break. While we’re both scrambling for it his sister throws another one nails me in the head. I grab the globo and get him with it. Yes.. I threw a waterballoon at a five year old. If there is any injustice in this (and he started it, so maybe there isn’t) it’s corrected when another kid from the group dumps a jug of water on my back.

Now i´m definitely wet. But it´s sunny and my cell phone and mp3 player seem to be alright, so i´m not that worried.

Outside the stadium is a lineup. We find Adam. We buy globos and lob them at other people with globos. Every thirty seconds or so one flies by somewhere. Somehow we don’t get hit. A middle aged lady squirts us with a watergun that looks like a coke bottle and snickers.

Inside, we sit down and wait. Really young kids, 6 some of them, are selling pop and junk food. The game starts. Riot cops in full gear with shields are on the field. They protect the Potosi team when they come onto the field. They protect the refs from the players after the game. The crowd does it’s best to penetrate the shield and nail them with globos, or anything else that’s expendable. Behind us is a guy listening to the game on the radio. We hear something about a goal. On the field, nothing.

“Is he listening to a different game?”
“… yeah, I think he is?”

There’s a commotion behind us: A Potosi fan has for some reason sat in the Sucre section and is being pelted with globos, garbage, pop bottles.

The ref makes a few bad calls and for the rest of the game globos are constantly landing around her. Someone shoots a firecracker at the Potosi goalie and the game stops while medical checks him out. Apparently he’s fine.

The fact that it rains through the second half of the game doesn’t stop anyone from throwing globos. It’s the thought that counts.

On the way home, we follow a marching band for a while. Kids run out of doorways trying to throw buckets of water on the marching band and the crowd behind it. Some guy offers his drink to Nicolas, it seems to be singani (hard liquor made of grapes, a bit like vodka) mixed with milk, in a re-used 40. I pass on that one.

Eventually we split off and find our way home.