Daily Archive

When Joy picked the munchkin up from school yesterday, she was informed that today would be a rare “don’t wear your uniform” day.  Instead, the children are supposed to wear green.  In fact, Joy told me, she and I should wear green too.  “Why?” I said, trying to recall if there’s some kind of holiday on Friday, June 11.  (In San Miguel, it’s about a 50-50 chance that any given day is a holiday.)  “What’s happening at 9 o’clock in the morning tomorrow?” she hinted.

Oh!  Right!  Definitely wear green.  Definitely do not wear yellow, if you don’t want to be pelted with rotten tomatoes.  Mexico plays South Africa in its first game of the World Cup today and the whole country will be watching.

Except . . . we’ll be in Spanish class from 8:30 to 11:20.  I was really ticked off when I learned the time of the match.  It’s not that I’m a fanatical fútbol fan.  I like it a lot–I used to go to Revolution games when I lived in Vermont, and enjoyed them even though it was way too cold because my then-husband was fanatical enough to go to an outdoor sporting match in Boston in October (the only event for which I would have suffered that kind of weather, left on my own, would have been a Red Sox playoff game).  And the World Cup is of course even better.  But to be in a football-mad country during the World Cup when that country’s team is playing–that’s excitement.  I planned to be gathered around a TV, in a bar, in someone’s store, whatever, with Mexicans, for the first matchup.  And then I asked when the game would be on and learned that during that time, I’d be diligently learning the subjunctive.

Fortunately, half the teachers in the school are football-mad, and there will be TVs set up at the breaks and probably right through some of the classes.   I’ll get to catch at least a few minutes, and I hope the second Mexico match is better-timed.

And I’ll be wearing green.  I don’t have any clothes here in bandera green (the green of the Mexican flag), but I do have a shirt with “Mexico” printed in light green and black.  It’ll do.  And I can practice my subjunctive:  Vaya vaya México!