Junior es tu papá! Yoooo soy de Junior...!

I don't know if Junior, Barranquilla's football team, just won a game or what, but the bar is playing non-stop Junior fan songs at top volume, again and again. I'm missing the vallanato. Despite my current exasperation, I do want to be a Junior fan, but I haven't had time yet to really dedicate myself to the task. At I know all of the songs now!

Here's what else I know about the team: their colors are red and white, and maybe blue, too. My students always wear Junior gear, and sometimes one of my Friday guys, Freddy, comes in wearing a red and white top hat with Pippy Longstocking-red braids sticking out the bottom. Junior is such an institution that I'm often told by the other teachers that I have to end class early so the students can go watch the game at the fruit stand across the street.

Junior's mascot is a shark. Willy the shark. Like Willy the whale, but a shark.

They also have some unofficial mascots, owls who live in the stadium, and they bring good luck. However, a few months ago one of the owls flew onto the field during the game, and a player for the Panamanian team Junior was playing against kicked the owl and killed it. That was a pretty big deal! Poor little owl.

I don't know anything else about Junior, but I did read the other day about this football fan in another city who was brought in his coffin to a game a week after his death. Big fans here!