A Different View of the World Cup

Ok, so it took 2 weeks but it finally occurred. I had a little run in with some bad bacteria and was sick for 4 days this week, missing 2 days of work. However, I am back in good health and good spirits, jamming out to Waving Flag by K’Naan (World Cup Theme Song) and letting my thoughts loose on my computer (expect a long post soon on my job and other activity in the next day or two).



I cannot get enough of that song. The official song is in English, but there have been different guest singers and mixes in different languages. K’Naan who wrote the English part of the song, is a Somalian emigrant who lives in Canada. Quite an interesting story that adds meaning to the song and its role as one of the themes of the first ever World Cup hosted in Africa. Please do me a favor though and do not allow yourself to associate all of the positive feelings from the song with the name brand placement of Coca-Cola throughout the video. I am furious at Coke for advertising itself like a health drink here during the World Cup. Their brand presence in Nicaragua is really unbelievable. It may just stand out more because I am not constantly inundated with marketing here like in the United States, but every 5 minutes you are reminded that Coca-Cola is “deliciosa” and thanks to posters everywhere you know that when it is hot out you should buy one (and yes, its always hot here). Enough Coke hating for one post, there will be a future post entirely inspired by the sugar high madness here.

In the meantime, I have been joyously sucked into World Cup pandemonium!! Soccer, I feel ignorant for calling it that, is really a blast to watch. The U.S. and Slovenia game had me acting like it was the Cubs in the playoffs on Friday. Unfortunately, the U.S. team fell victim to a Chicago Cubs like incident. In the final minutes of the game on a beautiful free kick by Landon Donovan the U.S. scored with a header to go up 3 – 2, only to have it immediately negated by the referee for no clear reason. I have confirmed with all of my soccer-obsessed students here that it was a terrible call, but this article also does a good job -- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-gude/usa-robbed-mystery-call-r_b_617553.html. The Everton Manager David Moyes said on BBC,

"I've just seen that disallowed goal for the US again - and not only was there no foul by a US player, there are probably two penalty-kick offences being committed by the Slovenian defenders. Shocking decision."

Regardless, the U.S. still has a chance to advance to the next round if we defeat Algeria in the morning of Wednesday the 23rd.



Today I watched the Brazil and Ivory Coast game at a bar with some of my friends/students from MASINFA. The bar was packed, people are crazy for Brazil here. So naturally, the bar was full of bright yellow shirts and jerseys and each time Brazil scored, 3-1 final, the place went crazy. There is a general feeling of support for all the teams in the World Cup from the Americas in the World Cup. So people here are pulling for the United States, but Brazil and Argentina are the main attractions.

Every day here during the Cup is like the Super Bowl in the U.S. Sports Center (from Mexico) is 98% World Cup. Hours and hours of discussion between "experts" analyzing the days events, predicting tomorrows games, and of course the obligatory 5 minutes of footage every hour of Mexico's team doing basic drills or just jogging around. Every morning when I walk to work every store or house that I pass with a TV on is blasting a game. I have to hope that eventually the U.S. will catch on to the excitement of the World Cup. The lack of U.S. success in the World Cup is likely part of the reason there is not as much interest in the games in the United States as around the world. Hopefully, even if our team takes an early exit this year we can accept a healthy dose of humility and rejoice in an event that has captivated every corner of the world.

My First Post from Nicaragua

The six interns in my group, and one of our FSD directors.

Hola de Nicaragua!


It is Tuesday and I am finishing my 3rd day in Nicaragua. I am spending my first week in Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua. There are a total of six interns in the Ciudad Sandino region of Nicaragua beginning their summer session this week. Each intern is a student, four from California (University of San Francisco), one from a school in Ohio. It is good to have company to share my experiences with for the first week. Out of this group I am the only one going to Masaya, but there are two college students from the U.S. interning there now.

I am writing this from the kitchen table of a wonderful family. It is a young couple with a 9 year old son. The hospitality here is truly on a different level.
The family has been extraordinarily welcoming, and the food incredible! * I will do a future post about the food* It has been fun connecting with their son Jose Angel. We have played soccer in the back patio the last two nights. Both nights I have redefined sweating. While a thermostat may say 80-90, the humidity is more than I have ever felt before. The rainy season is generally from May to November, so there has been some rain, and I expect a lot more.


The street outside the house for my first week in the rain.

In my first night in Nicaragua I left Ciudad Sandino to have dinner with a very good friend from Notre Dame who is from Managua. It was a bit of an adventure finding her, an early indication of how different it is here than the U.S. Nicaragua does not have official addresses. So on fully paved streets an address is still given based on landmarks and descriptions of the general area. For example, my address in Masaya is “3 and a half blocks south of where the courts (judicial) used to be.” One of the FSD employees set me up with a cab and before we left I sat there and listened while my friend Alejandra kept giving different landmarks until he recognized one. The first song in the cab was “poker face” by Lady Gaga, oohhh how U.S. culture spreads to the world. Certainly provided for a moment of reflection, listening to a song I would hear in a cab in South Bend, while I am in such a foreign place. In conversation with my cab driver I discovered that soccer is extremely popular here, but baseball is the heart of Nicaragua!! I will be sure to catch a couple of games here during the summer, and hopefully I will be able to play once I get comfortable in Masaya. Seeing Alejandra in Managua was a blast. Unfortunately, she left on Monday for New York for the summer. But maybe it is a blessing that will keep me stretching my comfort zone! Her family was persistent in letting me know that if I ever needed ANYTHING to let them know. Thank you Notre Dame for allowing me to meet such quality people!

I can already tell that my experience with Spanish this summer will be an inexhaustible tug of war. In my first three days I have found myself all across the emotional spectrum with the language. Each day we have had a series of speakers explaining their expertise on a particular element of life and culture in Nicaragua. We have learned about the economy, the health care system, politics, and various elements of the culture. Today I was excited to have understood nearly all of the doctor’s explanation of the health care system here, only to be severely let down by my inability to comprehend a long and vivacious presentation on Nicaraguan politics, by a local (feminist) activist. I understood her passion and frustration, but failed to comprehend a lot of the details of her explanations -- missed opportunity. When I am talking with native speakers I find myself desperately searching for alternative ways to verbalize my thoughts, the struggle of a 21 year old brain and 1st grade vocabulary. My frustration motivates me to learn, but the incredible feeling of being able to successfully communicate at times is driving me to be persistent in learning vocabulary.


View from the pier in Managua.

The best experiences so far have been without a doubt our daily “habla nica” activities. We take breaks from presentations and get an assignment that we have to carry out in the “mercadito.” The market is made up of roughly 100 small shops and street vendors. Our assignments have been to discover elements of Nicaraguan life and culture, like Nica words that are different than traditional Spanish, or popular meals and drinks. Yesterday, we were given 2$ to represent the daily wage of a person at the poverty line according to the World Bank (roughly 40% of Nicaragua), and asked to buy food for a family and make economic choices based on hypothetical family needs. Lesson learned: 2$ a day is not enough for anyone to be able to break the cycle of poverty, the family can be fed but any other expenses mean little or no food for a day.