Jun 18 2010
On the Importance of the World Cup
I am generally not a big sports fan…which can be a bit of a problem living in Boston. I grew up on Pac-10 football and golf, but every four years I do catch World Cup Fever.
During the last World Cup I was spending the month of July in Sarajevo, Bosnia. I had rented a small room from my beloved “adopted” Bosnian Grandma, Tecvida. She soon began to treat me as family and not just as a traveler that she had taken in to help support her meager pension. She is a Bosnian Muslim, but explained to me that I could eat all the pork and drink all the alcohol I wanted in her house; she just asked that I please not disturb her during her prayers.
During my stay, I learned many things from her. She taught me how to cook some dishes - including some vegetarian dishes, a lot of Bosnian vocabulary, how to properly cover my head so I could enter the non-touristy mosques, but maybe most importantly she taught me about football and the importance of the World Cup.
Little did I know, but Tecvida may be one of the world’s greatest World Cup fans. Every night we would sit on the couch, drink rosehip tea, and watch the matches. She knew all of the statistics, gave great commentary and explanations in rudimentary Bosnian to explain the game better to me, and most importantly, she would point out the really hot footballers. Sometimes I wasn’t sure what body part she was admiring but then she would point to the body part, give me the “thumbs-up” and wink. According to her, Portugal was clearly the best looking team, Argentina was pretty hot as a team, but she really loved France and had a massive crush on Zidane. However, every time it got close to prayer time, she would instinctively glance at her watch and listen for the call to prayer and start to fidget. No matter how close the score was, or how intense the match was she would jump out of her chair and pray. Afterwords, she would jump back on the couch and I would make a feeble attempt to explain what had happened.
So the final, Italy vs. France, was a pretty big deal for her (as well as most of the world). She assumed that I would go out that night, but I assured her that I would be back to watch the match with her and we would cheer her beloved Zidane to victory. (Actually I said something along the lines of: I later back for game. Go Zidane.) We watched the game, sipped our tea, and checked out the footballers. It was a great game and Tecvida was overcome with joy when Zidane scored for France early in the game. Then later in the game, I noticed that she got extra, extra fidgety. She kept looking at her watch and then glancing at me and giving me a half-smile. She kept saying “This is a great game!” I knew that prayer time was approaching and the game was still tied. Then I heard the call to prayer. I looked over and she was panic-struck. She looked at the TV and then upwards and then at me. Then she said, “HE will understand!! It is FRANCE VS. ITALY!!! It will be okay!” Then she relaxed a tad bit more, took a sip of tea said “Go Zidane!” Then to her horror, Zidane head-butted Materazzi! “He must have insulted his mother!” Tecvida yelled at the TV. “He is a great man!!!” Then I was totally unable to understand what she was saying, and we watched Italy win the game in the penalty shootout. Tecvida slapped her lap and said, “He must have insulted his mother!” jumped off of the couch and for the first-time in her life was late to pray. That is the importance of the World Cup.
Read more: Bosnia, Sarajevo, Soccer, Sports, Travel, World CupLisa can usually be found staring longingly at the Eastern European shelf at the Globe Corner Bookstore. However, she really wants to go to Colombia.
