25th June 2014

Beaches. Caipirinhas. Partying. Football. Yes. We. Can.

The two weeks I spent in Natal felt like more like four days. I had a great time meeting new people every day, most of them FIFA volunteers from all over the world. China, USA, Canada, Germany, Italy all represented by people who pay their own way (flights and accommodation!!) to help out in the stadiums for the world cup games, they do everything from managing car parking, to managing media, basically operating as stewards most of the time. They were all very nice people and we had lots of good nights together.

The highlight of Natal for me was drinking Caipirinhas on the beach all day, watching the sun go down, then playing football with tourists and locals as a Mexican mariachi band played and a massive impromptu beach party kicked off beside the pitch.

Going to the games in the stadiums was obviously a highlight too. Each forthcoming match day brought an influx of fans for the particular game to the beach at Ponte Negra, so the beach went from being a 3 day mexican party initially (for Mexico Cameroon), to massively full of Americans with some Ghanaians making themselves heard playing live music (Ghana vs US&A), then finally lots of well-mannered Japanese fans arrived for Japan Greece. Lots of Italians turned up for the last game but they didn’t do anything of note on the beach or in the match.

At the USA Ghana game I started off in the American End Zone. They were all very loud and boisterous, and their main song would be laughed at with hilarity in an English ground: “I believe that we can win, i believe that we can win.” Haaaaa! Total cheese! I hope USA get to play Mexico so that they can get “PUTO” screamed at them regularly. In the USA game I moved to stand with the Ghanaians as they were the most fun, they brought instruments into the stadium and did not stop playing apart from when USA’s second goal went in. Apart from that unfortunate minute of silence — we sang and shouted all night and it was a great atmosphere.

The Japan game I did the same thing, lots of empty seats at the games so you could move and sit where you wanted. I moved at half time to stand with the Japanese screaming and hollering as loud as we could, they have very organised fan chants and did not stop the whole game. Very committed. Very impressive. I had an amazing time at that match even though everyone says it was a dull game, it was not dull were i was standing! It was a non-stop party with a football match of great meaning happening in front of it. The Japan supporters were great, lots of great costumes.

My host/s in Natal were a Brazilian family kind enough to rent me a large room for two weeks. They were very kind and generous to me and Thiago drove me to the fan zone for the opening Brazil match and two other games i was going to, which was really great because sometimes there was heavy heavy rain (like a river coming down the sides of the streets), or bus strikes, and bad traffic. Lots of military police here all with automatic rifles on show, they closed down the main route into the stadium two hours before kick off for 20 minutes just to let the team buses go down the motorway unhindered and with a massive accompanying force of bike police and military vehicles stuffed with soldiers. It was a bit like being back in Belfast, felt like overkill but i suppose they did shoot two bullets through the ITV booth down at Copacabana beach.

Thiago also took me surfing but i still cannot stand up. I also got to try his family’s authentic black beans with rice and chicken a couple of times which was really nice. I will have to work out how to make it.