The 2010 World Cup began today and it has taken Peru by storm. Despite Peru will not be represented in this year’s competition, fútbol is fútbol regardless of who is playing (just as long as it isn’t your team’s arch-rival; Alianza and U in Lima, Real Madrid and Barça in Spain, the list goes on).

During the time I spent in Lima, I saw countdown clocks til the first game, advertisements every commercial break, posters all over the city, and entire sections of department stores like Saga Falabella converted to World Cup fever. Even Wong, one of the grocery stores has promotional posters and life-size cutouts of soccer players hanging from the ceiling.

So, despite being away from the city and outside the reach of traditional electricity from Iquitos, I doubt I’ll miss very many of the games.

Case in point, we went into Iquitos today with all 40 boys to see one of the first games – Uruguay vs. France. Unfortunately it was not a very spectacular game, neither team scored a goal, but it was fun to go to a restaurant and watch the game, and just to be away from the house for a bit.

Hopefully we will be able to watch a few more games over the next month!

Here’s a commercial that I see almost every time I walk past a television.