El Mundial

Unlike the U.S., the World Cup, or Mundial, is huge in Honduras. Soccer is the main sport played here and everyone plays it. When Honduras qualified for the World Cup everyone went crazy celebrating and the next day was declared a holiday! This is the first time in 28 years that they have qualified and it meant a lot to the people. Everyone kept asking us if the people in the U.S. were excited that the U.S. had also qualified and were shocked when we said that a lot of people probably had no idea. That is just crazy to them since it is such a big deal here. That said, it was an awesome experience to be here for the World Cup. In the months leading up to the event, there were signs, banners, store windows painted, and World Cup paraphernalia everywhere. Even the movie theaters participated with World Cup trivia on the screen before the movie.

The first game Honduras played in the World Cup against Chile started at 5:30 A.M. but that didn’t deter anyone from watching. We were in Tegucigalpa and got absolutely no sleep because there was a party outside of our room and they were playing the World Cup songs (you may not know this but there are two World Cup songs, one by Shakira and the other by K’nann and David Bisbal) and a Honduran artist Polache over and over again. We finally got up at 3:00 A.M., put our Honduras jerseys on and headed to T.G.I.F. with a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers to watch the game. Fridays stayed open all night and when we got there at 4:30 there were quite a few people. By the time the game started it was full and they were bringing out more chairs. Needless to say, Honduras lost and everyone was sad but they still cheered. It was a great experience because everyone was so into the game.

For the second Honduras game against Spain, we were staying with a friend in a small town. We went to his host family’s house for lunch and to watch the game. It was a bad game and super hot and Shannon fell asleep after eating lunch. The Honduran men present gave her a yellow card for sleeping during the game. Needless to say, Honduras lost again but it was another good experience watching the game at someone’s house and talking about it with them.

We watched the third game against Switzerland at our site-mate’s house since we no longer have cable (Kev actually goes over there for every game even the ones at 5:30 A.M.). Honduras finally played a lot better in that game but was still unable to score a goal and ended up tying 0-0. Honduras controlled the game and had plenty of scoring opportunities but was just not able to put the ball in the back of the net. We could hear shouts from the neighboring houses when a bad call was made and when the power went out for a few seconds.

So Honduras left the World Cup without having scored a goal but they left proud to have made it that far. People still wear their Honduras jerseys and they wear them proudly knowing that they proved to the world that they are a force to be reckoned with and vowing that they will be back in four years and this time will score lots of goals!