Intercollegial

All my students have been thinking about this past week is Intercollegial – a large sports tournament that occurs across Asuncion. Many of the private schools in the city host their own tournament, all called Intercollegial, ASA just happens to always host the first one. I’m not sure if they are all as big as this one, I doubt that they could be as I don’t think many other schools have the facilities that we have. This particular tournament is over two weekends (oh the joy, that means my students won’t be worth much this week either), has 20 schools competing, and includes 5 different sports (football, volleyball, basketball, futsal and handball). It is no wonder that all of our fields and courts have been pressed into use over the weekend. The tournament itself is not such a surprise to me, particularly when you take into account the Paraguayan love of sports. What has been a surprise is the number of people who turn up to watch the games (the guards estimated about 5,000 per day), the crazy cheering sections schools bring (more on that next week), and the amount of advertising that is on campus. There are booths covering our courtyard area and half of the parking lot, places where you can buy crocs, compete at dance revolution with a blue mascot, play air hockey at the cell phone provider tent, or buy food to snack on. When I was told it was big I never imagined it was going to take over the campus! My goal for the next week is to just try to keep my students somewhat focused until Friday, and then to enjoy watching sports again.