Dude

Man, it really sucked when we had our Canon G10 camera stolen. For a lot of reasons. One of the main ones for me was that I lost the opportunity to take good (not great) macro photos. I had started really getting into this. There are so many bugs, so much bigger and more interesting than what we are used to seeing in Auckland, here in Bolivia.

For me New Zealand not progressing in the World Cup shares this level of gutted-ness. It was all so new and surprising up until that point. It was refreshing, it distracted me. It distracted me to the point of having a new view on things. In the case of bugs I had started to humanize them and found them cute and in terms of New Zealand football I started “to believe in One Shot For Glory.” Ha-ha.

The thing is that soccer has not even been a significant part of the sporting imagination in New Zealand. Though, to Wellington’s credit, there are now some real fans and a team that can compete for them. Before this many people had always enjoyed revelling in our previous A-League and national team’s inadequacies. It is that kind of ridicule that has confounded me. It seems to me that people also say that we suffer from Tall Poppy Syndrome. So which is it? Are we dismayed by losing or by winning?

While I am massively disappointed about not taking the points from Paraguay I am adopting a Pollyanna-type frame for this and enjoying what the All Whites have accomplished. Why? Por ejemplo: a large group of Paraguayans sat next to us to watch the game. They mocked my vocal supporting and I harassed them with obnoxiously loud clapping every time they failed to score. The truth was we were both irked by each other the whole way through the match. Once the game was over it was accepted as playful rivalry.

This will be something that I will hold onto after I have left South America. From a very Western perspective I really enjoyed the novelty of having “real life” Paraguayans taking the piss and screaming “puta” as we watched the Mundial together. I enjoyed supporting my own country in the biggest sporting event in the world. I enjoyed being in another country seeing other nationalities cheer for their team while they played against Aotearoa. Holy shit. What is not to like about this moment in New Zealand sporting history? Before it was over I got to turn my attention to something in a way I never had before; insects are kind of cute and the All Whites punched well above its weight.