Handball, Bosnia, and Brandy, What Could Go Wrong?
I was cheering for the green team. I didn’t know their name. I didn’t know where they were from. I actually didn’t have a real good idea of where I was, but I was cheering for the green team.
Mostar, Bosnia is just over the border from Croatia. About a forty-five minute drive from the walls of Dubrovnik. I went to Bosnia to be one of the few Americans there without a gun. The old town of Mostar had obtained a reputation of violence and uneasiness, but that all vanished with the handball match.
As my tour-guide pulled me into a makeshift handball court, actually a community center, I found myself in a sea of color. Split down the middle of the bleachers was a side of green and a side of white. I was pushed into the green and looked around. I was the only one not wearing the correct color, or even a scarf of any kind.
The referee blew the whistle and the whole crowd broke into song. They were singing in Bosnian and I could only catch every seventh word which had long j’s and a y in practically every word. Along with singing there were hand motions that needed to be memorized. It was like a large game of paddy cake in which I didn’t know the rules.
Looks were being thrown my way from every direction. Like knives being hurled from tear ducts. So, I did what anyone would do in that situation, I stood up and just started cheering. This is not recommended.
Being that I was watching a sport that I had no idea how it worked, and cheering for a team that I didn’t know, it’s really easy to screw up. So the white team scored, I screamed and waved my fist. The greens around me glared, harshly. Apparently a green guy isn’t allowed to run in front of a white guy and get away with it. I didn’t know that. So when said thing happened and a foul was issued, I cheered and was hit in the back of the head with a paper bag.
After half-time or quarter-time, whenever there’s a break in handball, I finally figured out the rules. You can’t block a guy once he’s in the air, but you can while he’s running, but only at quarter speed. The outside line is worth two points, everything inside that is worth one. So I thought.
By this point the man next to me was hammered. Every time his team scored, the green team, he’d take a shot out of his bottle of a brandy. His language that I didn’t understand already became even more difficult to catch because it was now slurred. As he became more and more impaired he also became more of my friend, forcing drinks my throat whenever he didn’t feel like taking a drag of the bottle. Did I mention that handball can be an extremely high-scoring game?
Forty-two to thirty-eight. That was the final score to the handball match. Each team scored about twenty point points in the second half, which was the half in which the man decided to share. My tour guide was laughing at me as I shuffled out this community center. The sharing man caught me outside as I was leaning against the car and trying to determine if I was going to get sick. He came up to me and said, “(Bosnian words) American.”
I didn’t know what he said, but my tour guide who translated for me said it was along the lines of, “You drink pretty good for an American.” I laughed and returned to what I knew better, Croatia.
Mostar, Bosnia is just over the border from Croatia. About a forty-five minute drive from the walls of Dubrovnik. I went to Bosnia to be one of the few Americans there without a gun. The old town of Mostar had obtained a reputation of violence and uneasiness, but that all vanished with the handball match.
As my tour-guide pulled me into a makeshift handball court, actually a community center, I found myself in a sea of color. Split down the middle of the bleachers was a side of green and a side of white. I was pushed into the green and looked around. I was the only one not wearing the correct color, or even a scarf of any kind.
The referee blew the whistle and the whole crowd broke into song. They were singing in Bosnian and I could only catch every seventh word which had long j’s and a y in practically every word. Along with singing there were hand motions that needed to be memorized. It was like a large game of paddy cake in which I didn’t know the rules.
Looks were being thrown my way from every direction. Like knives being hurled from tear ducts. So, I did what anyone would do in that situation, I stood up and just started cheering. This is not recommended.
Being that I was watching a sport that I had no idea how it worked, and cheering for a team that I didn’t know, it’s really easy to screw up. So the white team scored, I screamed and waved my fist. The greens around me glared, harshly. Apparently a green guy isn’t allowed to run in front of a white guy and get away with it. I didn’t know that. So when said thing happened and a foul was issued, I cheered and was hit in the back of the head with a paper bag.
After half-time or quarter-time, whenever there’s a break in handball, I finally figured out the rules. You can’t block a guy once he’s in the air, but you can while he’s running, but only at quarter speed. The outside line is worth two points, everything inside that is worth one. So I thought.
By this point the man next to me was hammered. Every time his team scored, the green team, he’d take a shot out of his bottle of a brandy. His language that I didn’t understand already became even more difficult to catch because it was now slurred. As he became more and more impaired he also became more of my friend, forcing drinks my throat whenever he didn’t feel like taking a drag of the bottle. Did I mention that handball can be an extremely high-scoring game?
Forty-two to thirty-eight. That was the final score to the handball match. Each team scored about twenty point points in the second half, which was the half in which the man decided to share. My tour guide was laughing at me as I shuffled out this community center. The sharing man caught me outside as I was leaning against the car and trying to determine if I was going to get sick. He came up to me and said, “(Bosnian words) American.”
I didn’t know what he said, but my tour guide who translated for me said it was along the lines of, “You drink pretty good for an American.” I laughed and returned to what I knew better, Croatia.
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