Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Classes cancelled tomorrow


This semester I've been teaching a discipleship class at a seminary here in Monterrey. It has been fantastic - the dozen students are great, enthusiastic, asking good questions, learning - it is a joy to be teaching them.

But tomorrow night, classes are cancelled.

You see, Monterrey has two football teams in the Mexican League, and the home stadium of one of them (Los Rayados) is 2 blocks from the seminary. Tomorrow night is "El clasico", the local derby between Los Rayados and Los Tigres. And that means just one thing.

Enthusiastic chaos!

At the same time I'd normally be teaching, 50,000+ people with trumpets, flags, banners, drums and general happiness will be trying to park their cars and walk to the stadium, past my classroom. 500 transit police are being deployed into the area to try and keep things relatively under control - but it won't work!
(For Australian readers, think trying to teach a class out the front of Flinders Street station on Grand Final afternoon, or outside Olympic Park station on State of Origin night - with bands!)

Not an ideal learning environment.

So - class is off tomorrow.

Will I be watching the game?

No - it is only on Pay TV and we don't have it. But, some of our neighbours do, and I know which house supports which team, so I can keep score by listening to the cheers.

Vamos los rayados!

(By the way, "Bimbo" is the local bread company and sponsors quite a few of the teams. The players are not making a statement about their manlihood!)