Resistance Is Futile

Yes, it's a Star Trek reference. Yes, I'm a Trekkie. (For those of you who don't get it, the Borg are a fictional pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms depicted in the Star Trek universe. They assimilate every race they encounter, using the strengths of each to get closer and closer to "perfection". With their ability to adapt quickly to new technology, they are virtually impossible to defeat, thus their mantra "resistance is futile.")

Moving on...

This past Saturday Brandon and I went with four other friends to a Paraguayan futbol game. Well, six other friends actually, but two were cheering for the other team so we won't count them. It was a huge match between the two biggest rival teams in Paraguay. Brandon had been to a game before, so it may sound familiar to those of you who read the blog regularly. I was the only newbie; all the others had been to at least one game before.

Getting Ready: The rivalry between the two teams is intense to say the least. And even some native Paraguayan, die-hard fans are leery to wear their jerseys to and from the games. Many will bring them with them in a bag, or wear a neutral colored shirt over their jersey and only expose their true team colors within the safety of the stadium. Trying to stay neutral meant avoiding red, blue, black, white and yellow. Hmmm... Hawaiian flower print tank it is! Cameras, cell phones, rings and belts were left at home, not wanting anything remotely "flashy" to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves. And if you did happen to make it to the gate with your belt on, security would have you remove it for the game, promising to return in afterwards. Good luck with that.

Driving There: Aside from the usual excitement from driving through the streets of Paraguay inherent in the lack of lane lines, disregard for right-of-ways, and pedestrians crossing whenever their heart desire, there was additional energy in the air as we made our way to the stadium. Most road-side shops were closed, many houses and businesses flew flags in support of their team, and groups of young men paraded across the streets, waving their jerseys and singing their team's songs. Police officers also started cropping up regularly at intersections, trying desperately to help control the flow of traffic as we neared the stadium.

Parking: I don't know what I was expecting in the parking department. Well, actually, I do know what I expected. A parking lot. Albeit rough and probably without much American "order" to it, I expected at least an open plot of land where we'd stash the car during the game. But no. Not a parking lot to be found (unless you count the handful of houses with driveways large enough to host a handful of cars). The streets were littered with cars jammed into every available space. Self-proclaimed parking attendants assisted with maneuvering into the impossibly tight spaces and charged for watching the car. The man who helped us said that it would cost 20 mil to park there (twice what was expected). Our driver was leery to pay the extra, but, not wanting to come back to a car with rocks through the windows or slit tires, we promised him 10 mil up-front and 10 mil when we returned. He left a note for himself under the windshield wiper. Reminding him to get the extra money when we returned? Or marking it as an "off-limits" car for pillaging? Both?

Walking to the Stadium: We were several blocks from the pitch so we quickly navigated over the broken cobblestone sidewalks and through the barricades keeping cars off the streets closest to the stadium. Arriving at the stadium, it was a strange mix of familiar, expected new, and unexpected new.

Amongst the familiar? Families sporting matching jerseys, dads hoisting their sons of their shoulders to see over the crowds, food vendors with drinks and snacks, people selling team paraphernalia.

The new that I was expecting? Chipa rather than churros, heightened security, team songs being sung by fans of all ages, and a less "flashy" stadium.

The new that caught me by surprise? Where do I begin? I didn't realize that heightened security meant an all out frisking (complete with the officer squeezing my back pockets and running her hand between my breasts). I didn't expect to see the local channel 13 news parked on the corner, setting up their glass table on rubble from the street with few lighting props or barricades to keep non-news folks off the "set". I was bewildered by the lack of advertisements within the walls of the stadium; plain cement walls surrounded us on all sides, uninterrupted by ads for nike, espn and coca-cola. Even the food vendors caught me off guard as they weren't run by a particular company (as far as I could tell), but were independently run with homemade snacks and sodas poured immediately into plastic cups rather than left in their plastic bottles. (My best guess as to why is two fold: one, it's easier to collect them for recycling money if they never leave your hands, and two, it's one less item for the fans to hurl onto the field in anger)

And the biggest shock to my system: no assigned seats. Maybe it's my own OCD tendencies, or just my "American" frame of reference, but I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that the tickets we bought were for a particular section of the field (that ran the entire sideline), but that our exact seats were up to us and depended entirely on how early we arrived. And arrive early enough we did not. Cassie and I (the two girls in the group) managed to get two aisle seats, one in front of the other, while the four boys with us camped out in the aisle, sitting on the concrete steps during "tranquilo" moments in the game.

The game itself was indescribable. The crowd moved as one, standing, sitting, chanting, and singing in unison at key moments in the game. It was impossible to stay seated with everyone standing around you, or to stand once everyone else sat. It took a few stand-up-sit-down rotations to catch on, but soon we were sucked into the momentum of the crowd and joined the seamless movement of the fervent fan base. Catching onto the lyrics of the songs was a bit more difficult, but that didn't exempt us from clapping and waving along to the drum beat that exuded from the far end of the field, where the ultra-intense, hooligans sat. For a moment, we were a part of it all. We belonged, if only somewhat.

And it felt like home.