...when the streets are filled with honking after two soccer games

Tonight was huge. Tonight was the last batch of games for World Cup qualifying in the North and Central America and Carribbean section. The last games were Saturday (remember? I was Canadian for a day?) and by the end of tonight, I can say I'm proud to be an American in Honduras.

The U.S. and Mexico were already qualified, with insurmountable leads in the standings. Trinidad and Tobago and El Salvador already had no chance of qualifying. The top 3 of 6 get automatic bids to the Copa Mundial, leaving Honduras and Costa Rica still in the balance, with Costa Rica with a two point lead. So every Honduran TV tonight was basically switching from the Hondu/El Salv game to the US/Costa Rica game. Honduras had to win to have a hope of qualifying, as a win in these games gives you three points toward the standings. But they couldn't do it alone. The US needed to keep Costa Rica from getting its own 3 points to stay ahead. Costa Rica jumped to an early 2-0 lead, leading most to believe it was over.

Hondu scored a beautiful goal mid-second half, which was exciting, but relatively futile with Costa Rica ahead. Then the US scored shortly thereafter. But still, time was waning, the regulation time ended, and stoppage time began (both games were at nearly the exact same times). It looked grim. The Honduras game ended with a win, with the US still losing. Suddenly houses down the street exploded with noise. In the final minute of stoppage time, the US scored! Scraping together a tie, to give Costa Rica only one more point, thus tying them with Honduras in the standings. But since Honduras beat Costa Rica in their earlier matches, Honduras edges out from the tie and has qualified!

I know that soccer is much more important down here than I can even imagine. But people have been out shouting in the distance, and cars have been going by honking constantly for an hour now, and it's even beyond what I had realized. Quite a night. So both of "my" countries are going to the Copa. Woo hoo. I'll have happy students tomorrow. Let's see if they're studious students as well - it's been a hard week. Very very very hard. This afternoon, thoughts of buying a plane ticket once again crossed my mind. Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime.