In the morning I helped Arturo with his work, downloading pictures of Batman to make into trading cards and folding and packaging Spiderman cards. In the afternoon, I went to Fundación Dequeni to look for volunteer work. They work mainly with street kids and had been recommended to me by a Peace Corps volunteer in the hotel last week.
As it turns out, one of their current projects is a street soccer tournament. The kids, who mostly work as baggers in supermarkets, spend part of Saturday playing soccer at the foundation. Ultimately, the Foundation will choose a team to represent it in a national tournament, but the real idea is to give the kids something to do and to help learn to work in teams, etc. I’m going back for a meeting tomorrow and it looks like I will be able to help out as a volunteer for most of September.
In the evening, I went to club Olympia, where I had made friends with Julio, the guy in charge of managing the Astroturf fields that the club rents out at night. I went to say hi and to give him my new cell phone number, but when I arrived he asked if I wanted to play with the club employees. Once a week they rent one of the smaller fields for themselves and play games of 5 on 5.
I played, not so well but with plenty of energy, and made friends with Manuel, a friend of Julio’s who actually works at a call center, selling cell phone plans to Spaniards. He invited me to come play in the “barrio” with him any time and to go visit his family in the country anytime. He and Julio explained that the barrio games, usually in public parks and empty lots, are very different from the pay-to-play club matches. The soccer is better, the players care more, and shoving and elbow-throwing are par for the course. I’ll take him up on his offer sometime this week.
So that’s more-or-less what I’ve been up to. I’ll try to make the next posts shorter and more focused. Thanks for reading this far if anyone actually did.
martes, 26 de agosto de 2008
A weekend of ups and downs, August 23-24
Saturday night Arturo and I went to a karaoke bar with his employees. He runs a small shop that prints fake Dollars and Paraguayan Guaranies for kids games and piñatas. We went and collected the Saturday crew and walked down the street to an inconspicuous spot whose contents were three tables, a fridge full of beer, drunk soccer fans, and a large, new sound and video system which did not quite fit its surroundings. As it turned out, karaoke meant less singing along than it did singing over. The soccer fans, whose team had just won an important match nearby, sang stadium songs to drown out the Mexican classics and Beyonce concerts on the sound system.
Our group went home one by one: first Eusabio, the art student who said his throat hurt; then Raquel and Ruth, who had to get up early for church the next day; then Celeste, who was tired and pregnant; and finally Arturo and I, lest his señora worry. When we arrived home, not quite as lucid as we might have been, Arturo apologized and told his wife, Nanci, that it had all been my idea, that he had wanted to come home much earlier and soberer, and that we wanted to eat hot dogs. We ate, I accepted the blame, and I went to bed.
Sunday started with Arturo yelling, his still-slurred speech a reminder of the night before. “It’s 6 o-clock, Zacarias, time to get up.” I had to be on a bus at 6:30 to get across town for a soccer game at 7. The youth club with whom I had been practicing was scheduled to play the youth team from the biggest club in Paraguay, Club Olympia. They weren’t supposed to win but, if any of their players put on a good display, they might be invited to Olympia’s soccer school, where young Paraguayan stars are made. I arrived just in time to hear Profe Luis’ final instructions and encouragement. The basic message was, don’t look at their jerseys, forget that it’s Olympia, just play like you did last week.
They didn’t. They looked tight and tentative all game and only managed one real chance, losing something like 9-0 (I’m not sure even the referees kept count). Coach Luis scolded them for missing this great opportunity to be scouted, but told them that there would be others. Then he told me that he wanted me to play next week, to add speed to his line-up, and that I would have to shave and tell the referee I was 16.
We then collected Profe Luis’ family and rode a bus to another park for the embassy tournament. Defensores de Lima had already played, and tied, the Bolivian team currently in first place. They were a bit disappointed; a win would have made their road to promotion to first division much easier. But life goes on; and win or lose, everyone eats roast meat. Having the early game also meant that Defensores could minimize the hours of the day to be spent in playing form and maximize those spent drunk. I played soccer on the small field with younger kids while the men re-hydrated.
When I came over for a break, the Arturo told me I played well but that I missed a lot of chances. I responded that I was in good shape and ran well but had trouble putting the ball in the net. The word I used turns out to have the same double meaning for Peruvians as it does in English: the team got no end of amusement out of my self-proclaimed inability to “score,” providing suggestions, and even offering tutorials, if I was interested.
As things calmed down in the park, I walked back to the hotel where I stayed last week to meet up with Cristian. We had planned the day before to go to Sunday’s rivalry match between Olympia and Cerro Porteño, the second biggest club in Asunción. A few minutes after I arrived, Cristian emerged with an Olympia shirt for me to wear and we met a few of his friends on the street and walked down to the corner to catch a bus to the stadium. I had, of course, heard that these matches were crazy and I had to be careful not to be caught alone, wearing Olympias black and white in a crowd of Cerro’s red and blue, or vice versa. I wasn’t sure how seriously to take all the talk.
At the bus stop I got my first sign that they meant what they said. One of Cristian’s friends, Junior, wore an old Olympia jersey with large rips down the back and sides and the words “white mafia, pure insanity, no limits” written on the back. He bought beer for everyone and when I offered to collect and throw out the empty bottles he said “no, keep it, that’s a projectile.”
The 7 of us piled into the number 56, which was already mostly full of singing Olympia fans. Marcos, another of Cristian’s friends, sat next to me and was nice enough to speak to me in Spanish and help me learn the Olympia songs. A few general themes emerged from the lyrics: “Olympia is great, I’m for Olympia, and Cerro fans are bitches, as are their mothers, and we will kill them.”
The bus dropped us off about 5 blocks from the stadium and we walked with a crowd of Olympistas. In the U.S., the mood would have been of anticipation and excitement. Here it was already of anger. Once, a confused fan in a Cerro jersey somehow found his way onto our street and was immediately pounced on by a crowd of black and white. He escaped with scratches and bruises but only by running full speed down a side-street.
After a few minutes, we reached the stadium and, after arguing and complaining about the prices, finally relented and paid our 30,000 Guaranies to get in. We were searched and then searched again and then we finally moved into the corridor to walk to our area (the sections for rabid fans don’t have seats). Cristian and his friends stopped to buy inflatable noise-makers.
As I stood waiting for them a large guy approached me asking what I had in my pockets. I didn’t recognize him but our group had picked up a couple of new members on the way in and I thought he might be a friend. Then he started padding me down as if to search me. He wasn’t uniformed but I was confused and didn’t protest until he reached into my pocket and took out my cell phone. Cristian saw but was about as confused as I was and didn’t intervene. The man turned and walked with the crowd and I moved to follow him. I immediately came face-to-face with another guy, who had been standing behind me as if throwing a pick in basketball. He pushed me solidly in the chest and then stood blocking my way. I backed down, startled and confused. The rest of our group had since climbed the stairs into the stands and Cristian and I hurried to catch up. And so went my first encounter with stadium crime in Paraguay.
Inside, the crowd was busy jeering and singing and throwing bottles. The youth game was just ending and both sets of fans had a half an hour to warm up (or wear out) their lungs and promise to do all sorts of horrible things to each other before the soccer started. In reality, the game seemed almost of secondary importance.
Lucky for me, the songs, signs, and cheers were almost exclusively in Spanish. Banners hanging above the fan sections declared different neighborhoods’ loyalty to one team or the other. Many of the places listed had first division teams of their own, but none with the lure of the two biggest clubs in Paraguay. My favorite sign read: “your jersey, my second skin,” proclaiming the author’s superior dedication to his club. More-common, however, were signs emphasizing the inferior sexual performance or illegitimate parentage of opposing fans. The songs and cheers had similar themes. Both sides adopted each others’ characteristic melodies, cleverly replacing key words with “bitches” and “win” with “lose.”
When the match finally did start, it started fast and with violence. Within minutes, Olympia’s especially energetic left wing midfielder had retaliated for a hard tackle by knocking an opponent flat on his face after play had stopped. Though Cerro would also have a man sent off later in the match, the Olympia faithful were fully convinced that the referee was against them and, naturally, that he was born out of wedlock.
Tough and hard-fought, the game remained tied until late in the second half. Poor defense and timid goal-keeping then allowed Cerro to take the lead. Their half of the stadium did not stop shaking for the rest of match, while the Olympistas remained more or less quiet, even when a free kick came within inches of tying things up. The match ended 1-0.
Walking back to the bus stop, Cristian and friends all stopped to chunks of broken sidewalk. They devised strategies (“you throw high, I’ll throw low”), and made promises, but ultimately did not encounter any buses or cars full of Cerristas. I couldn’t help but wonder how Cristian, whose little brother was a Cerro fan, could so desperately wan to hit someone else’s little brother in the face with a brick.
On our way we witnessed another beating, this time the victim was not dressed in the wrong colors but perhaps had said the wrong thing or had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He escaped relatively un-harmed, stumbling down a side-street as riot police approached to calm things down.
A few minutes later, Marcos spotted a couple walking ahead of us, the boy wearing a Cerro hat. He pulled it off and shoved its owner as the rest of our group approaches. Juan Carlos, often the most level-headed of the group started yelling “hey, that’s enough, it’s done!” I assumed he was trying to calm Marcos down until he explained further “you should have taken your hat off, out of respect. We had to do it for you, out of respect.”
So we took home a souvenir. On the day we were down a cell phone, up a Cerro hat, down a goal, and down 30,000 Gs each for our tickets. And I, for one, couldn’t wait to go back.
Our group went home one by one: first Eusabio, the art student who said his throat hurt; then Raquel and Ruth, who had to get up early for church the next day; then Celeste, who was tired and pregnant; and finally Arturo and I, lest his señora worry. When we arrived home, not quite as lucid as we might have been, Arturo apologized and told his wife, Nanci, that it had all been my idea, that he had wanted to come home much earlier and soberer, and that we wanted to eat hot dogs. We ate, I accepted the blame, and I went to bed.
Sunday started with Arturo yelling, his still-slurred speech a reminder of the night before. “It’s 6 o-clock, Zacarias, time to get up.” I had to be on a bus at 6:30 to get across town for a soccer game at 7. The youth club with whom I had been practicing was scheduled to play the youth team from the biggest club in Paraguay, Club Olympia. They weren’t supposed to win but, if any of their players put on a good display, they might be invited to Olympia’s soccer school, where young Paraguayan stars are made. I arrived just in time to hear Profe Luis’ final instructions and encouragement. The basic message was, don’t look at their jerseys, forget that it’s Olympia, just play like you did last week.
They didn’t. They looked tight and tentative all game and only managed one real chance, losing something like 9-0 (I’m not sure even the referees kept count). Coach Luis scolded them for missing this great opportunity to be scouted, but told them that there would be others. Then he told me that he wanted me to play next week, to add speed to his line-up, and that I would have to shave and tell the referee I was 16.
We then collected Profe Luis’ family and rode a bus to another park for the embassy tournament. Defensores de Lima had already played, and tied, the Bolivian team currently in first place. They were a bit disappointed; a win would have made their road to promotion to first division much easier. But life goes on; and win or lose, everyone eats roast meat. Having the early game also meant that Defensores could minimize the hours of the day to be spent in playing form and maximize those spent drunk. I played soccer on the small field with younger kids while the men re-hydrated.
When I came over for a break, the Arturo told me I played well but that I missed a lot of chances. I responded that I was in good shape and ran well but had trouble putting the ball in the net. The word I used turns out to have the same double meaning for Peruvians as it does in English: the team got no end of amusement out of my self-proclaimed inability to “score,” providing suggestions, and even offering tutorials, if I was interested.
As things calmed down in the park, I walked back to the hotel where I stayed last week to meet up with Cristian. We had planned the day before to go to Sunday’s rivalry match between Olympia and Cerro Porteño, the second biggest club in Asunción. A few minutes after I arrived, Cristian emerged with an Olympia shirt for me to wear and we met a few of his friends on the street and walked down to the corner to catch a bus to the stadium. I had, of course, heard that these matches were crazy and I had to be careful not to be caught alone, wearing Olympias black and white in a crowd of Cerro’s red and blue, or vice versa. I wasn’t sure how seriously to take all the talk.
At the bus stop I got my first sign that they meant what they said. One of Cristian’s friends, Junior, wore an old Olympia jersey with large rips down the back and sides and the words “white mafia, pure insanity, no limits” written on the back. He bought beer for everyone and when I offered to collect and throw out the empty bottles he said “no, keep it, that’s a projectile.”
The 7 of us piled into the number 56, which was already mostly full of singing Olympia fans. Marcos, another of Cristian’s friends, sat next to me and was nice enough to speak to me in Spanish and help me learn the Olympia songs. A few general themes emerged from the lyrics: “Olympia is great, I’m for Olympia, and Cerro fans are bitches, as are their mothers, and we will kill them.”
The bus dropped us off about 5 blocks from the stadium and we walked with a crowd of Olympistas. In the U.S., the mood would have been of anticipation and excitement. Here it was already of anger. Once, a confused fan in a Cerro jersey somehow found his way onto our street and was immediately pounced on by a crowd of black and white. He escaped with scratches and bruises but only by running full speed down a side-street.
After a few minutes, we reached the stadium and, after arguing and complaining about the prices, finally relented and paid our 30,000 Guaranies to get in. We were searched and then searched again and then we finally moved into the corridor to walk to our area (the sections for rabid fans don’t have seats). Cristian and his friends stopped to buy inflatable noise-makers.
As I stood waiting for them a large guy approached me asking what I had in my pockets. I didn’t recognize him but our group had picked up a couple of new members on the way in and I thought he might be a friend. Then he started padding me down as if to search me. He wasn’t uniformed but I was confused and didn’t protest until he reached into my pocket and took out my cell phone. Cristian saw but was about as confused as I was and didn’t intervene. The man turned and walked with the crowd and I moved to follow him. I immediately came face-to-face with another guy, who had been standing behind me as if throwing a pick in basketball. He pushed me solidly in the chest and then stood blocking my way. I backed down, startled and confused. The rest of our group had since climbed the stairs into the stands and Cristian and I hurried to catch up. And so went my first encounter with stadium crime in Paraguay.
Inside, the crowd was busy jeering and singing and throwing bottles. The youth game was just ending and both sets of fans had a half an hour to warm up (or wear out) their lungs and promise to do all sorts of horrible things to each other before the soccer started. In reality, the game seemed almost of secondary importance.
Lucky for me, the songs, signs, and cheers were almost exclusively in Spanish. Banners hanging above the fan sections declared different neighborhoods’ loyalty to one team or the other. Many of the places listed had first division teams of their own, but none with the lure of the two biggest clubs in Paraguay. My favorite sign read: “your jersey, my second skin,” proclaiming the author’s superior dedication to his club. More-common, however, were signs emphasizing the inferior sexual performance or illegitimate parentage of opposing fans. The songs and cheers had similar themes. Both sides adopted each others’ characteristic melodies, cleverly replacing key words with “bitches” and “win” with “lose.”
When the match finally did start, it started fast and with violence. Within minutes, Olympia’s especially energetic left wing midfielder had retaliated for a hard tackle by knocking an opponent flat on his face after play had stopped. Though Cerro would also have a man sent off later in the match, the Olympia faithful were fully convinced that the referee was against them and, naturally, that he was born out of wedlock.
Tough and hard-fought, the game remained tied until late in the second half. Poor defense and timid goal-keeping then allowed Cerro to take the lead. Their half of the stadium did not stop shaking for the rest of match, while the Olympistas remained more or less quiet, even when a free kick came within inches of tying things up. The match ended 1-0.
Walking back to the bus stop, Cristian and friends all stopped to chunks of broken sidewalk. They devised strategies (“you throw high, I’ll throw low”), and made promises, but ultimately did not encounter any buses or cars full of Cerristas. I couldn’t help but wonder how Cristian, whose little brother was a Cerro fan, could so desperately wan to hit someone else’s little brother in the face with a brick.
On our way we witnessed another beating, this time the victim was not dressed in the wrong colors but perhaps had said the wrong thing or had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He escaped relatively un-harmed, stumbling down a side-street as riot police approached to calm things down.
A few minutes later, Marcos spotted a couple walking ahead of us, the boy wearing a Cerro hat. He pulled it off and shoved its owner as the rest of our group approaches. Juan Carlos, often the most level-headed of the group started yelling “hey, that’s enough, it’s done!” I assumed he was trying to calm Marcos down until he explained further “you should have taken your hat off, out of respect. We had to do it for you, out of respect.”
So we took home a souvenir. On the day we were down a cell phone, up a Cerro hat, down a goal, and down 30,000 Gs each for our tickets. And I, for one, couldn’t wait to go back.
viernes, 22 de agosto de 2008
Getting Started in the Guay
I promised a bunch of people that I would have a blog. I'm not sure how much you all actually want to read it; but since I told you I'd do it, I'll do it.
I arrived here in Asuncion Paraguay about a week ago. Before that, I had been in Panama since early June, working as a supervisor with AMIGOS de las Américas. That was a lot of fun and I got to work with some really great people: staff, volunteers, and Panamanians. Last Tuesday I flew out of Panama City and arrived, two delayed flights and two free nights in hotels later, in Asuncion at 10am local time. I spent the day walking around the neighborhood and getting to know Cristian and Nestor, two brothers who work in the hotel I've been staying in. I asked them how to greet people in Guarani, the native language that most Paraguayans use for everyday conversation. They've been quizzing me ever since. At night I took the bus downtown with Nestor and walked around while he went to his high school to sign up for this fall's classes.
Friday morning I went jogging and ran past a bunch of soccer fields on the way. All of them were fully occupied even while the rest of Paraguay was busy swearing in a new president and then celebrating the occasion with a special mass. Saturday I ran back along the same route, hoping to get to start a conversation with a coach or spectator and start figuring out how to get closer to the action. I stopped to watch some 8-10 year-olds practice in a public park and struck up a conversation with a soccer mom. Within literally 5 minutes she introduced me to the older kids' coach (who asked me to practice with them in the next time slot) and invited me to visit "the interior" and stay with her brother who "is always hosting Peace Corps Volunteers." I didn't have the adequate footwear (or foot-skill, obviously) and certainly did not impress anyone. Still, the coach, a Peruvian who has lived in Asuncion for 16 years, invited me to come back and practice with them Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and virtually ordered me to come watch their game the next morning.
Later that afternoon, on the advice of a Peace Corps Volunteer staying in the same Attic dorm as me, I went for lunch at a place called "Mount Lebanon" that promised "Arab Loin Sandwhiches." The guy at the register did not seem to understand my order and, since I was pretty confident I had used the right words, I asked if he was Lebanese. He said yes, and I ordered in choppy Egyptian Arabic, which he understood, with a chuckle. It turned out that he had been born in Panama, but grew up in Lebanon and was just in Paraguay for a week visiting his father, the owner of the restaurant. We chatted in a mix of Arabic, English, and Spanish and his father came over after a while and invited me back anytime to practice my Arabic and eat more of what turned out to be Shawerma.
Sunday I went back to watch the kids play well but only manage a tie. Coach Infante was happy, however, telling me that their first two matches had been "disasters," and a well-played draw was a step up. We then hopped on a bus to another neighborhood to watch Infante's adult squad, "Defensores de Lima" play in the "Embassy Tournament." They lost 2-1 after an awkward failed clearance by an over-weight defender handed their Uruguayan opponents an easy go-ahead goal. The day went better for me than it did for Defensores, as Arturo (a not-so-overweight defender) invited me to move out of the hotel and live with his family downtown.
I spent the beginning of this week trying to finalize my living arrangements and figure out where I can volunteer while I'm here. I now think I will be living with Arturo and volunteering at a foundation that works with street kids. I'm hoping they will let me organize a soccer tournament for the kids or something along those lines.
I'm tired of writing for now and want to focus on the Olympic soccer final that I'm watching. I'll write more later. For now: go Nigeria!
I arrived here in Asuncion Paraguay about a week ago. Before that, I had been in Panama since early June, working as a supervisor with AMIGOS de las Américas. That was a lot of fun and I got to work with some really great people: staff, volunteers, and Panamanians. Last Tuesday I flew out of Panama City and arrived, two delayed flights and two free nights in hotels later, in Asuncion at 10am local time. I spent the day walking around the neighborhood and getting to know Cristian and Nestor, two brothers who work in the hotel I've been staying in. I asked them how to greet people in Guarani, the native language that most Paraguayans use for everyday conversation. They've been quizzing me ever since. At night I took the bus downtown with Nestor and walked around while he went to his high school to sign up for this fall's classes.
Friday morning I went jogging and ran past a bunch of soccer fields on the way. All of them were fully occupied even while the rest of Paraguay was busy swearing in a new president and then celebrating the occasion with a special mass. Saturday I ran back along the same route, hoping to get to start a conversation with a coach or spectator and start figuring out how to get closer to the action. I stopped to watch some 8-10 year-olds practice in a public park and struck up a conversation with a soccer mom. Within literally 5 minutes she introduced me to the older kids' coach (who asked me to practice with them in the next time slot) and invited me to visit "the interior" and stay with her brother who "is always hosting Peace Corps Volunteers." I didn't have the adequate footwear (or foot-skill, obviously) and certainly did not impress anyone. Still, the coach, a Peruvian who has lived in Asuncion for 16 years, invited me to come back and practice with them Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and virtually ordered me to come watch their game the next morning.
Later that afternoon, on the advice of a Peace Corps Volunteer staying in the same Attic dorm as me, I went for lunch at a place called "Mount Lebanon" that promised "Arab Loin Sandwhiches." The guy at the register did not seem to understand my order and, since I was pretty confident I had used the right words, I asked if he was Lebanese. He said yes, and I ordered in choppy Egyptian Arabic, which he understood, with a chuckle. It turned out that he had been born in Panama, but grew up in Lebanon and was just in Paraguay for a week visiting his father, the owner of the restaurant. We chatted in a mix of Arabic, English, and Spanish and his father came over after a while and invited me back anytime to practice my Arabic and eat more of what turned out to be Shawerma.
Sunday I went back to watch the kids play well but only manage a tie. Coach Infante was happy, however, telling me that their first two matches had been "disasters," and a well-played draw was a step up. We then hopped on a bus to another neighborhood to watch Infante's adult squad, "Defensores de Lima" play in the "Embassy Tournament." They lost 2-1 after an awkward failed clearance by an over-weight defender handed their Uruguayan opponents an easy go-ahead goal. The day went better for me than it did for Defensores, as Arturo (a not-so-overweight defender) invited me to move out of the hotel and live with his family downtown.
I spent the beginning of this week trying to finalize my living arrangements and figure out where I can volunteer while I'm here. I now think I will be living with Arturo and volunteering at a foundation that works with street kids. I'm hoping they will let me organize a soccer tournament for the kids or something along those lines.
I'm tired of writing for now and want to focus on the Olympic soccer final that I'm watching. I'll write more later. For now: go Nigeria!
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