Viva FIFA!

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months you are well aware that yesterday kicked off the 2010 FIFA World Cup (no pun intended).  Futbol is not the favorite sport in Mongolia, they'd much prefer wrestling (traditional, Sumo or otherwise).  Regardless World Cup is pretty big here this year.  Various beer garden-esque tents have popped up around UB with soccer balls and World Cup logos painted on their sides.  The Prime Minister even called for a curfew extension for all UB bars in light of the upcoming matches (alcohol still limited to midnight or earlier).  I'm not usually one to follow sports, but I'm pretty keen on watching soccer and thus have been pretty excited for the next month's festivities. 

So for the first game of South Africa versus Mexico I joined my friend Batmunkh and his "home-boys," as he put it, to watch the match on the big screen.  I ate dinner with the Spring 2010 SIT students prior to and took the bus into city center to meet Batmunkh.  He said we were going to meet his friends behind the central library, but when we arrived I was a tad surprised by the venue.  A large, colorful circus tent had been erected in an empty space between apartment buildings.  Through the gaping flaps I could see a smoky haze over a gathering of people all facing the west end, their faces aglow green of the Johannesburg stadium's grassy field.  We walked in and met a group of his friends, ordered a few Jalam Khar beers and sat back for the game.

At one point Batmunkh leaned over to me to ask if I wanted to bet on the winner.  "How much?" I asked.

"How much do you have?" he replied.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out 100 togrog (about 7 US cents) leftover from my bus fare and showed it to him.  "Which team are you rooting for?" I asked.

"Ladies first."  So, for sake of home-field advantage, I placed my 100₮ on the table for South Africa hoping to double my money at the end of the night.  No shortage of excitement nor jollity were present throughout the match, but I had no such luck.  When the match ended in a draw half the crowd started to disperse and only the die hard fans (or those too inebriated to walk home) remained, planning to sit out the next two hours to wait for Uruguay and France to take the field.

While I would have loved to stay for the next match I was thoroughly exhausted and my eyes were burning from the lofting cigarette smoke.  So after saying my goodbyes I returned home for the night beginning to recognize that World Cup probably would not be conducive to my work these next couple of weeks.