On This Day...

On this day eight years ago, I embarked on an adventure that would change my life and change me forever. Today marks eight years since the day I left for (and, 5 flights and 36 hours later, arrived in) Paraguay. I had never flown anywhere before then and I had no idea how to navigate my way through an airport. I think I was more concerned about the logistics involved in actually reaching my destination than I was about what I would find once I arrived! Having never been out of Australia before, I didn’t really know what to expect from a foreign country, particularly an obscure little country like Paraguay.

It’s funny how much one’s idea of “normal” can change in just a few short years. When I arrived in Paraguay eight years ago, I mostly took photos of things that seemed abnormal or unusual to me. This picture of people drinking tereré together is one of the photos I took during my first couple of weeks in the country:

Tereré seemed a little strange at first, but it quickly became a normal part of my life.

When I returned to the Manila guest house last week after field conference, I moved into a different guest house apartment and was able to settle in and unpack my suitcase. I also made myself some tereré. It was then I realized that this thing that seems really weird to most of my friends (and that was once a bit weird to me too) now has the power to bring a touch of normality to my life during a time of transition.

This move to the Philippines is very different to that first move eight years ago because the Philippines is now the seventh, rather than the second, country I have spent time in. As my concept of “normal” expands, I find myself taking fewer pictures. An overloaded vehicle or a tangled mess of power lines no longer seem particularly noteworthy; instead, I photograph green vegetation and open spaces when I find them.

This is a picture I took out of the car window when I was in Bataan (a place a few hours out of Manila) earlier this week. I took this picture for two reasons: 1) it’s so different to the concrete jungle of Manila, and 2) it is where I and two other new couples will be moving to learn Tagalog once we find places to live. We are planning another trip out there on Sunday. Please pray that our house-hunting expedition will be successful.

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!