Noah Cooper
Enough with the fireworks!
For the first game of the World Cup I asked people what they thought of when they thought of Brazil. A friend who used to live in Brazil sent me an email saying one of the things that struck him the most wasn’t the lifestyle, the people, the music. It was the incessant noise.
I have to agree. Noise is a way of life in Brazil. After a number of years living here it is only when l I leave the country that I realise how noisy it actually is. In the World Cup, though, the levels of noise go up a few notches.
What do you do when your team scores a goal? Generally, I shout, jump in the air, have a mouthful of beer and then sit down to watch the replay of the goal and concentrate on the rest of the game. If it is an important goal in an important game and I am watching with some friends I might dance around a bit and hug whoever happens to be near to me and shout a bit more.
Not so in Brazil. When they score a goal they go absolutely mental and make as much noise as is humanly possible. Shouting is just the start of it, with various ‘musical’ instruments like the god-awful vuvezela. Give them a couple of seconds and they’ll have the fireworks going off.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at this video which is called This Is What Brazil Sounds Like When The Home Team Scores a Goal.
There isn’t some huge party going on just out of camera shot. This is just a regular neighbourhood in São Paulo, where friends have got together in various apartments to watch the opening game of the World Cup, and make lots of noise.
But it isn’t just when Brazil score a goal. On the opening day of the World Cup kick off was 5pm, local time. I was up very early that day and I heard my first vuvezela (or some sort of equivalent) at 5.30am. And from then on it just got louder and louder. There were car horns blaring, stereos turned up to 11 and fireworks going off all morning and afternoon.
And of course, when the fireworks go off every dog in the area goes barmy. This means that as well as all the man-made noise there is a constant background of frantic dogs barking and howling at the bangs that they know nothing about. Perhaps, if given the choice, the dogs would support the opposing team, because when Croatia scored early in the first game the reaction was more like this:
This blog piece is a part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs series on World Cup for Kids. If you would like to follow the World Cup from the point of view of kids around the world then please go and check out the site. There are bloggers from all of the competing countries as well as articles about Brasil and how to get kids interested in sport.
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