Paraguay, Nostalgia and the World Cup

As the 2014 FIFA World Cup swings into action, I can’t help feeling a little nostalgic. I was still living in Paraguay during the previous World Cup and, although I’d never given soccer a passing thought before then, the excitement was contagious; I soon found myself swept up in the World Cup fever that engulfed the entire nation for weeks. 

In Paraguay, a local “fútbol” (soccer) match is not always a peaceful event, so I loved to witness the way in which the World Cup unified the country. Flags, shirts and other merchandise were for sale everywhere you turned. Paraguay’s games were televised on big outdoor screens in the city, so even if you could not afford a TV, there was no reason to miss a game. And if, for some inexplicable reason, you happened to be wanting a taxi during a game, you may not have found taxi drivers clamouring for your patronage, but you would have found a TV playing in the taxi stand to make sure nobody missed anything!

In the city, you could even find a TV on which to watch a game while you wandered around the supermarket. During the group stage of the tournament, each aisle displayed the flags of one group of countries, with the large whitegoods aisle in the centre of the supermarket reserved for an extravagant Paraguay display. It seems ridiculous to even imagine such fanaticism here in Australia. It would be like the AFL Grand Final going on for weeks. With everyone barracking for the same team. And even that comparison doesn’t feel quite right…

La Albirroja, Paraguay’s national team, is a source of national pride for Paraguayans that has no parallel in Australian culture. They lost only one match during the 2010 World Cup, and their brilliant goalkeeper Justo Villar conceded only two goals throughout the entire tournament. It was Paraguay’s best ever World Cup performance. They were eventually eliminated by Spain, the team who went on to win the 2010 World Cup. La Albirroja did not win, but apparently winning is not everything. They nevertheless returned home to a hero’s welcome. Crowds greeted the team at the airport and watched as Paraguay’s president presented each player with a medal. La Albirroja played well and they were honoured for it.  

Living in Paraguay during the World Cup was an incredible experience. It was just such a fun time to be there. It was inevitable that the next World Cup would make me miss that little country that I came to love. Paraguay didn’t qualify for this World Cup, which I can only assume was because of who they had to compete against to do so, and so my enthusiasm for this year’s competition has faded.

I know it may sound unpatriotic, but it’s a little hard to get excited about watching the Socceroos get their butts kicked! During the last World Cup, I discovered the vast difference between the teams who are good enough to qualify and those who are the very best. At times it is like watching a different sport. I had thought of soccer as a rather boring sport until I watched the best teams play. Realistically, a nation like Australia that likes to try their hand at every sport under the sun can’t possibly expect to excel at all of them. Perhaps the Socceroos deserve recognition for performing well enough to qualify, but honestly, I’ll be surprised if they get very far competing against countries such as Chile, Spain and the Netherlands. I’ll also be very impressed! A win from the Socceroos would certainly revive my interest in this year’s World Cup!

My Favourite Things: Photography

I absolutely love good photographs. I don’t have anything against artwork and do appreciate certain styles of painting (although my sister tells me I have boring tastes in art), but I’m not sure that I could ever spare the wall space for such things. I always have too many photos to hang and not enough wall to hang them on.

I have loved taking photos ever since I was old enough to use a camera. If I remember rightly, my first camera cost me $3, which was about the same as what one roll of film cost back then. Amazingly, it actually worked! I have recently been asked by several different people to take pictures for them, so I guess my love of photography must be pretty obvious.

To me, photography is a form of art – and it’s one form of art that I can actually succeed at because it doesn’t require me to create beauty, but rather to recognize it and capture it. Of course, a good photo does often start with being in the right place at the right time. It’s a whole lot easier to take a beautiful picture when you have beautiful subject matter!

Exactly a year ago today, a friend and I got to visit Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge (Oregon). My verdict: a classic case of “right place and right time”! :-) It was absolutely beautiful. I wish we could have stayed and camped there or something. And made all the other people go away. Haha. This my favourite of the pictures I took that day:

It’s probably also part of my (rather large and not clearly defined) collection of all-time favourites, although it unfortunately lacks the sharp focus and crystal clarity that a better camera would have been able to achieve.

Perhaps one day I will be able to buy a digital SLR camera. It’s certainly on my wishlist. There are times when I don’t even bother trying to capture the shots I can see in front of me because I know I will just end up frustrated by the limitations of my camera. 

But I shan’t complain. My current camera takes great pictures for a point-and-shoot, and it’s far superior to my previous one which I lost while riding down a mountain on the roof of a car. Lol. I was rather sad to lose all the pictures on it, but it gave me a legitimate reason to buy a better camera. And at least it was a good story! :-)