As a fanatic soccer fan, when I was offered the chance to travel to San Pedro Sula to watch a World Cup qualifying match between Honduras and the U.S., I accepted literally as soon as the offer was made. This was the offer of a lifetime!! Watching my original home team play my new home team....it was going to be epic.
After a fun Friday night full of soccer at The Micah Project, dinner at my student's house, and a rousing game of Spoons with fellow teachers, we were awake bright and early on Saturday in order to leave for San Pedro by 6 am. Packed in a small busito with 15 people including our bus driver, we were all in a funny mood and wished we had a video camera to start filming our new mock-umentary to air on tv.
7 hours later, due to road construction, we finally arrived. After a quick lunch, we headed to the stadium (at this point, you need to realize we are 4 hours early for the game so that we can stand in line to get in. Although we had tickets, they oversell the seats so you have to be early to assure entrance). We had to park a long ways away and hike up to the stadium, surrounded by flocks of other Honduran fans, swept along in a wave of white and blue. Everyone stopped and stared at the large group of North Americans dressed in Honduran jerseys. They could not figure out why these gringos were not cheering for the U.S. Pictures were taken of us, news crews directed cameras towards us, and still we hiked on, getting more and more excited the closer we got.
We got to the stadium and took our place in a line that wrapped around all over the place, waiting among hundreds of Honduran fans for our chance to enter the stadium. Almost as soon as we got in line, a police officer walked over to our group, handcuffs in hand. He got a few of his military buddies together and informed us that they were going to escort us to the front of the line and get us into the stadium right away. As we were walked to the front, angry cries erupted from all around us from all of the Hondurans who had already been waiting for hours. I gripped tightly to my friend Kristi and whispered, "Please don't let them kill me."
We made it in and found a seat in section "Sol" on the hard concrete seats. 3 1/2 hours till game time! I was SO excited! We passed the time by talking about the game, playing cards, doing the wave, watching 3 men jump out of a helicopter and parachute down to the field with Honduran-Flag parachutes, and all the while, taking in this beautiful culture I have grown to love so much.
Honduran fans are intense. Their team scored the first goal and shouts and cheers erupted. The U.S. quickly responded with a goal. Or so I thought. As soon as the goal went in, the stadium went eerily silent. Not a sound was made. Not even a hissing boo. Was there a call on the shot that I somehow missed?! Nope, they really did score. It was almost depressing watching the U.S. players run to the sideline to celebrate with their teammates in this dead silence. The U.S. ended up winning 3-2.
After the game we went to Quiznos for dinner and all eyes were on us as soon as we walked through the door. Despite our Honduran jerseys and insistence that we were Honduran fans, we were the enemy.
The next day we left San Pedro around 10:00 am. Packed back in our busito, we had a pretty uneventful journey until our driver decided he was tired and wanted to stop for coffee. He was gone for quite a while and we all just wanted to get home. He finally reappeared and that is when we discovered that if you spend L50 on food, you got a ticket to ride a horse, so he was off horse ridding. Go figure. Soon after, my friend Meridith was kicked in the leg by the same horse (which led to many humorous retellings of the time Mer was kicked by a horse at a rest stop....only in Honduras). She is doing better now but is still pretty bruised.
The journey continued, now about 2 hours out of Tegus, and the bus broke down. Stuck on the side of the road, people sat on rocks grading papers, making lesson plans, or just trying to knock plastic bottles down by throwing rocks at them. Our bus drive hitchhiked to go get gas, put it in, then we pushed our bus down the hill in an attempt to jump start it and sat on our rocks waiting and hoping he could get it started and wouldn't just keep rolling down the hill.
Hours later than expected, we made it home, tired and overwhelmed with things we had to get done for school the next day. With everything that went on, it all combined to create one of the best, craziest, most amazing weekends I had ever had in my life!!!! Friends, Landon Donovan, horse kickings, and broken buses - This Is Honduras :)
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