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Chronicle of Two World Cup Qualifiers

Category : Sports
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World Cup qualifiers are special matches. In South America, there are only 16 meaningful matches over four years to decide which 5 soccer mad countries make it to the World Cup. In North America, there are only 10.

Each game is a grinder. The pressure is high. Any screw up can mean dropped points and the potential to miss the World Cup. In most countries outside of the US, the entire country stops for each match. On match day, Chileans gather round their tvs to watch the game, accompanied by friends and family, piscola, beer and sometimes day long asados. The national mood rides on the result: a win national ecstasy, a loss, national depression, followed by assigning blame and national soul searching.

Last week, Chile sat in 6th place, on the outside looking in after 9 matches. On Tuesday they lost a hard fought away game to bottom feeder Peru 1-0 where they should have drawn and the entire country went into depression.

Next up was Uruguay, probably the best per capita soccer team in the world and a team Chile hadn’t beaten in something like 25 years. At 3.8m people, Uruguay are the reigning South American champs and took 4th place in the last World Cup. Chile needed a home win or else they would be in deep trouble and were at risk to miss the first South American World Cup since Argentina ’78.

My friends Mike (visiting from the US), David, Pepe and I got tickets to go to the match. It was my first South American World Cup Qualifier, though I’ve been to US qualifiers and World Cup games in Germany and South Africa. We met up in my apartment to have a few beers, then took a taxi to Chile’s Estadio Nacional. We got there just in time to hear the national anthems.

Estadio Nacional, Chile/Uruguay
Estadio Nacional, Chile/Uruguay

Our tickets were for a general admission section in the corner and it was really full, but we ended up with seats low down, but still with a good view. The crowd was electric, willing Chile to score. Chile obliged in the 11th minute, scoring right in front of us. The crowd went nuts. Chileans really believe they could win. The crowd was on Uruguay’s striker Luis Suarez the entire game, especially after he punched a Chilean defender in the face and got away with it.

Uruguay pushed back from the start of the second half and Chilean fans were suffering badly. Fans cursed players and screamed abuse at Uruguayan players and refs, while singing songs to support the team. Our section had a significant number of families attending together. Fathers attending with their young daughters all screamed as if they were alone with their best friends. Chile scored again in the 77th minute and the party was on. Uruguay brought on Diego Forlan who had a few close chances, but it wasn’t enough. Chile had won. Everyone left the stadium happy. Everyone was together, something that doesn’t happen very often in Chile. Chile was back on track, moving up to a tie for 4th.

We walked a bit, then caught a cab to watch the US take on Mexico in Mexico City, a place the US has only won once in 75 years. We watched surrounded by dejected Mexican fans as the US got its second away point in Mexico in World Cup qualifying and solidifying their road to the world cup. Although the US still doesn’t have the passion for soccer that much of the world does, the vocal US crowd in Denver in a driving snow storm for the victory over Costa Rica and the over 7m tv viewers for USA/Mexico shows that soccer is growing and gaining popularity. At 60% of a typical monday night football game, that’s huge progress.  If you get a chance to see a world cup qualifier even if you’re not a big fan, take it.

Privilege

Category : Personal Thoughts
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“What does it feel like to be mistaken for an upperclass Chilean?” asked my next door neighbor Marcy, over Thanksgiving dinner in Wisconsin.

It was a great question. I knew I had some privileges by being able to pass for an upper class Chilean (until I speak of course, my accent gives me away instantly), but I hadn’t really given it much thought. It made me reflect on my privilege both in Chile and in the US, as well as privilege in general.

I am very lucky. I was born in 1985 in the safety of suburban Milwaukee, WI, USA to two loving, hard working parents with advanced degrees, with grandparents who thought I could do no wrong.

My life would have been very different if I were born into a black family in the throes of slavery in the 1820s American south, or in 1985 into a poor family living in the slums in India, South Africa, Brazil or Chile. I got lucky. I won the sperm lottery. But I didn’t always realize this truth.

When I was a kid, we always learned about the American dream. If you work hard, it said, everyone has the opportunity to succeed. Many people even claim everyone has the same opportunity to succeed. As I got older, it was clear that’s it’s just not the case. And its even worse in many countries outside of the US.

While some societies allow for more social mobility than others, the US much more than Chile for example, there’s no doubt that it is much harder for someone with my exact intelligence, drive, entrepreneurial skills and good looks, but born into poverty, to achieve what I have at age 27. It’s a truth that many of us are not willing to admit.

The first time I truly recognized my privilege was in 2006 when I was 20. I was buying and selling tickets outside of a sporting event. I had 20 tickets left and I knew the market was going to drop. I quickly dumped 15 tickets to another broker for $40 each, or about 25% under current market value. A half hour later, those tickets were worth $10 at best. The buyer was furious. He was going to lose ~$400.

He got in my face and demanded his money back. The tickets were fake, he said. I knew he was full of it and called his bluff. Let’s walk into the arena and see how many are fake, I proposed. I’ll give you double, $80 for each fake one we find! He knew they were real. He grabbed me, reared back as if he were going to punch me in the face, swung, but stopped inches short.

He realized I wasn’t getting scared so he tried to grab into my pocket to get the cash. I wriggled away and ran to the front of the line and told the ticket takers that a guy was trying to rob me. Security took one look at me, then at my premium ticket and let me pass. They took one look at my irate attacker and threw him out.

My attacker was a 6’ tall, lower class, furious black man. I was an upper middle class, clean cut, scared looking twenty year old who probably looked sixteen. If it weren’t for my racial and class privilege, security probably wouldn’t have let me in and I would have gotten beaten up and robbed.

Going back to Marcy’s question, it’s a strange feeling. Chile is one of the most classist countries in the world. It’s one of the things I most dislike about being in Chile. But I clearly benefit from implied upperclass or “cuico privilege” even though I am a foreigner.

For example, last week I had an hour between meetings in a nice part of town. I was looking for a place to sit in the shade and read to kill some time. I saw a small garden with a bench that was clearly part of an apartment complex. I walked across the lawn, plunked myself down onto the bench, took out my kindle and started to read. The concierge quickly came running over to see who trespassing in his garden, but stopped short and starred at me through a big window, clearly trying to decide if he should kick me out or not. I pretended not to notice and kept on reading. He watched me for another 45 seconds, then left without saying a word. There’s no doubt in my mind he would have made me leave instantly if I were lower class. Or a foreigner who looked low class.

It also works the other way. When I take the bus or walk around in the centro, some people look at me strangely, like “what is he doing in here?” I’ve even had a few drunken guys at a bar in the center ask me straight up “what are you doing here” and when I answered in my gringo accented Spanish, they changed their tone completely. To answer Marcy’s question, it’s strange, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

I believe we must recognize privilege, but there is no use feeling guilty over something which we do not have any control. At the same time, we must recognize the innate advantages we have based on being born at our specific time, to our specific family, to our specific race, to our specific class, in our specific country. We must act conscientiously of this privilege. We must remember that someone with our exact characteristics with fewer privileges would likely not have the same success as we do. And if they did, their success would have been much more difficult to achieve.

Try one of my favorite thought experiments. Take a step back. If you were born with your exact same qualities, drive, passion, smarts, good looks, work ethic, morals and ethics, but in the body of someone without the advantages you currently have, would you be as successful as you are today as easily as you did today? For me, the answer is clearly no. What about you?

Travelogue: LA and Rose Bowl 2012

Category : Travel
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I made my third trip to LA the past few days and found myself changing my opinion a little bit. The previous two times, I didn’t really like LA that much and actually disliked it for a number of reasons.  I had fun both previous times, but mostly because of the people I was with, not what we actually did.  This trip, I found myself warming up a bit to LA. Its hard to dislike a place where you can go running on the beach in shorts and a tshirt in the middle of winter.

I still can’t see myself living there. It’s too spread out, traffic is horrendous (1 hour backup getting into LAX at 11pm on a Friday) and its very status conscience. I still don’t like those parts of LA, but I started to discover some of the more laid back, interesting parts of the city.  As my friend Weber put it, “LA is a magical place that gets a bad rep in my opinion from a little bad traffic and a few fake people.”

This trip, I mostly stayed in Santa Monica, Venice and Marina de Rey, with a quick trip south to Long Beach and a day in Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. I really enjoyed Santa Monica: its reasonably priced, has great restaurants and interesting places to go out. I went to the 3rd street promenade and had some creative food at Misfit. The highlights were a lobster slider with fresh tomato and a creamy aoli and a spicy chorizo mussel dish. Another big plus: most restaurants and bars have GREAT beer on tap. Much bigger variety than in other big cities I go to.

I spent new years in Marina del Rey at a friend’s beach house, then went out to a great bar with over 50 interesting beers on tap at decent prices. I went out in Santa Monica and found people to be more laid back than downtown or Hollywood, which is much more my style.  People seemed much more approachable and willing to just have fun.

On new years day, my parents took me whale watching. They’d gone on the same trip last year, but they only saw dolphins. This year, it was a beautiful sunny day and we headed out of Long Beach. We saw huge pods of dolphins as soon as we cleared the breakwater and were steaming out looking for grey whales. The captain sighted a grey whale off in the distance, but got a radio report that there were a group of killer whales five miles away. The passengers voted to go chasing them. 45 mins later, we found them.

We found a big pod including a mom and a young baby. It was incredible to see them up close, surfacing, coming close to the boat. The captain said he’d been doing these tours for 10 years and had only seen killer whales one other time in his life. I apparently have very good luck looking for animals: when I was in south Africa we saw the ONLY cheetah in the national park, and the ranger who was taking us out had never seen him before in his year-plus working there.

On Jan 2nd, I organized a pre Rose Bowl party for 25 friends and family outside the game. We set up shop around 945 in the golf course that’s just north of the stadium with thousands of other tailgaters. I really liked the setup, even though there were thousands of cars, they spread it out enough so that we each had our own spaces. The weather was perfect an it was great to see my friends from all over who I hadn’t seen in a really long.

We spend the day eating, drinking and playing games, then headed into the stadium. I ended up sitting in the Oregon section with two of my friends and although we were the only red people in our section, all of their fans were really nice to us. We had a lot of fun talking back and forth and besides for the final result, I couldn’t have asked for a better game. Just like last year, a few badger mistakes cost them the game. I’d love to see a Wisconsin-Oregon series again like from 2000-2001. We hung out in the golf course for a few hours after the game waiting for the traffic to clear; the weather was perfect.

Although the Badgers lost for the second year in a row, I’ve got a newfound appreciation for LA and am excited to check it out again sometime soon.

A Tribute

Category : Personal Thoughts
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It was April, 2009 and we were in Milwaukee at the neighborhood church where my grandparents had raised my Mom and her family. As I listened as the minister gave the eulogy, I heard a few stories about my grandma that I hadn’t heard, but I knew they fit her character. After the service, we went to the cemetery for the burial. Each family member told a story about how we remembered my grandma. I was struck by how many of us members talked about different ways my grandma has helped other people or used her time, effort and resources to do help accomplish something remarkable . How she took in relatives, worked with church ladies on community projects or helped others achieve their dreams.

I forget who said it, but one of my aunts or uncles said something about how whenever there was anyone in need, grandma tried to help them. As I was listening to everyone’s memories, I knew I wanted use the bit of money that she bequested me to carry on her legacy. I wanted to spend it in a way that she would be proud: helping people and making others’ dreams come true. I’ve tried to follow your example and it took me over two years to find things that I think you would have liked. Grandma, here’s a few of things I’ve used your bit of money to make the world a better place.

In August 2009, two of my best friends, were getting married. They were the first of my close friends from college to married and all of my friends were really excited. One of our best friends who lived on our dorm floor freshman year was living in London. She had decided to travel the world after college, instead of getting a boring office job (awesome!). When she got the wedding invite in London, she realized that she wouldn’t be able to come home for the wedding. All of her savings were tied up in money for rent, food and were going to be used to continue traveling.

I asked our friend from London if I could make her my wedding gift to my friends. She refused, she wouldn’t let me. After weeks of convincing, she finally relented and I made it happen. We didn’t tell anyone. At the rehearsal dinner, I asked my friends if I could give them their gift early. They looked at me strangely, but agreed. I made the signal and our friend walked down the stairs. It was incredible and I know you would have loved to see it.

A month later, I was messing around on Facebook and a post from a college friend caught my eye. She was a teacher for Teach for America in New York City and posted that her class really wanted Time for Kids subscriptions, but couldn’t afford them. I loved reading these types of magazines when I was in school and think that they helped me stay interested in current events, politics and history to this day. Grandma, you gave me subscriptions to National Geographic for Kids, Smithsonian, Science and Discover for Christmas growing up and I loved getting them each week. I knew passing this gift on to more kids was a perfect use of your money. Since then, I’ve used Donors Choose to pick out a bunch of education projects that I know you’d support too.

In December, I found another cause that I knew you’d like. Since my sophomore year in college, I followed an online wisconsin-themed sports message board. It’s where I go to keep up to date on Wisconsin sports. A few years ago, one of the regular posters started a Holiday Fund, a message board wide drive to raise money to buy gifts for families who need help. Each family is screened by a charity and then submits a list. The message board community donates money, then some of the active posters buy the gifts. We used your money to help bring Christmas cheer to families that wouldn’t have otherwise been able to buy any presents.

A few months later, I read Three Cups of Tea, an amazing book about Greg Mortenson’s quest help educate rural Pakistan and Afghanistan’s girls. He was climbing one of the worlds tallest mountains and ended up in a small village called Korphe. He promised to build them a school and did. Fast forward fifteen years, Mortenson has built over 131 schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan, educating over 55,000 students. We used to look at National Geographic and watch The Learning Channel growing up and I know how important education was to you. I know you’d like to know that some of your money is helping educate girls in Afghanistan.

In January 2010, a huge earthquake decimated Haiti. UW alum and ex marine Jake Wood took matters into his own hands and led a team into Haiti to help people. His team beat the traditional aid organizations and was helping people within 36 hours of the earthquake. Team Rubicon was funded by people who read his blog and I knew I had to donate. Grandma, your money went to support the Hatian relief effort. After Jake got back to the states, he formalized Team Rubicon as a non profit with two missions. First, to help bridge the gap in disaster relief and second, to help war veterans transition back into society. Your money is helping Jake change the world and make it a better place.

In March, my friend Becky told me about Going For Ten Thousand, her goal to raise $10,000 to donate to Multiple Sclerosis research in honor of her mom and a family friend. I helped Becky set up her website and donated some of your money to help get her started. I’d like to think that our early donation helped motivate Becky to keep going. Two years later, she’s raised over $40,000 and become a force for good on the UW campus. Your money not only is helping scientists research MS, but helped inspire hundreds of students.

In January, a friend started a nonprofit to help women in India start small businesses. She needed a bit of money to help get her business off the ground. I used a bit of your money to help her meet her goals. Since then, thousands of other donations have flowed in and her non profit has helped hundreds of women start micro businesses that have changed their lives. I’ve also used your money to make loans on Kiva to microbusinesses in Tanzania that allowed a family to purchase more inventory for her store, which in turn let her make more money so she could send her children to school.

Grandma, I’ve used your money to support a friend walking to raise money for breast cancer research, to take a trip with an awesome girl that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to, to support our local library and support some promising small time entrepreneurs I met while in Chile and South Africa. I’ve used it to see my family and friends and make it home in time for my brother’s graduation. I’m very thankful that I have the luxury to use your money this way, Merry Christmas Grandma!