Soccer in El Alto and Shoe Shiners

Yesterday was quite an adventure. Ramiro used to be a shoe-shiner and lived a good portion of his life on the streets. He invited me to come play soccer with some of his friends in El Alto. El Alto is unique for the area because it is very flat. It's also much higher than La Paz, and therefore has less oxygen.

We took a bus up to El Alto and walked about a quarter mile to the soccer field. Once I saw the size of the field and felt my heart rate from the light walk we had taken, I knew I wasn't going to be able to play. I'm glad I didn't. All of Ramiro's friends are shoe-shiners from the streets, so I was envisioning a rag-tag bunch of guys getting together to play a pick-up game of soccer. How wrong I was. It was a finely orchestrated event. All of Ramiro's team gathered around as they passed out custom made jerseys and uniform shorts. Then came a long, strategic placement of the opposing team's stat cards to figure out who would cover who. Then the game started with full officiation. Within two minutes somebody got a yellow card. It was an intense game with people using their feet like paint brushes whisking the ball over heads, between legs, and in crazy directions that did not make sense to the laws of physics. In the end it was a tie, 2-2, much like the Bolivia vs. Uruguay game.

What really surprises me about the whole thing is that these people are content with a tie. They feel satisfied in knowing that it was a complete game and their abilities were very similar to the opposing team's abilities. In the U.S. a tie means that the whole event was a failure because one team was not able to triumph over the other. We crave someone to win. We would like our team to win, but if not, it's still okay, just don't let it be a tie! We invent a thing called overtime or go into the next inning to ensure that someone loses and someone wins. We cannot accept equality in sports. How far does this sentiment extend in our society? Does it exist with the way we view our neighbors? Can we accept a tie with the size of our houses, or the status of our cars? In the end, it is not a question of equality, it is a question of values. I don't fully understand why Ramiro and the shoe-shiners were satisfied with a tie game, but for some reason they were.

In Bolivia it is customary to celebrate a triumphant game of soccer with the inebriation of the whole team, but Ramiro cares about his fellow shoe-shiners and over time has redirected the drunken ritual to a new outlet. To celebrate our tie, we all went to a wally-ball court and shared bananas, apple juice, and bread. I don't know how many games of wally-ball we played, but by the end I was almost dead. I'm happy to say I was able to hold my own in wally-ball, although I wasn't as fluent with my feet as the rest. After that, everyone went their separate ways, and me and Ramiro went to downtown La Paz and walked around a bit. We were both too tired to actually do anything so he dropped me in Alto Obrajes, and I took a trufy up to sector A and went home. It was a good day.

There was also Fa's birthday party that night, but you've read quite a bit of this blog and I'm ready to wrap it up.

Tomorrow is the big march on congress to pass the referendum (see Oct. 14 post). The congressmen have been camping out in the building for the last couple days, and downtown La Paz is congested like crazy right now. Schools are closed and I may or may not be going to my Spanish class tomorrow. There's a chance I'll go and spend the day with Faith and Greg at their house.