The Soccer War (Page 149-184)

When Kapuscinski got to Latin America it wasn't easy for him to feel comfortable. He had gotten used to the life of scarcity in Africa and was amazed by the amount of useless things this people had. In the chapter were he describes Latin America he tells an anecdote of each of the places he went to until he reaches the Soccer War. I loved this chapter because I think he mentioned the exact details that describe this part of the world. He uses the perfect words, I have never heard such a precise description of a place. In this chapter Kapuscinski proved himself not only as a reporter but as a fabulous writer too.

Throughout the whole book I have been wondering why the war between Honduras and El Salvador is called the Soccer War, but I never imagined it had to do with soccer. This war happened because El Salvador is a very small country with a huge population and many of it's peasants were moving to Honduras which is much bigger and has a smaller population. Then Honduras was going to redistribute the land and the Salvadorian people were going to be send back to El Salvador. This created tension between the two countries, and the incidents on the soccer matches were the drop that spilled the cup.

It is unbelievable that Kapuscinski was present the whole time. This shows his adventurous spirit once more. He is a a wonderful reporter who risked his own life to inform Poland and the world what was going on. First, he left the hotel to send information, knowing that everything was absolutely dark and that the government had said no one can leave their houses. Then he went to the border of the two countries where the fighting was taking place. His description of everything that happened is very intense and different from all the other war descriptions that are shown in movies. He tells us the real thing and how hard it is."In reality a soldier sees no further than his own nose, has his eyes full of sand or sweat, shoots at random and clings to the ground like a mole" (page 180). He also shows us how the soldiers didn't even know what they were fighting for, and that they had to make up a reason to fight for. In the case of one soldier he wanted to hide the boots of all the dead soldiers to then give them to his family which couldn't afford shoes. This chapter is the climax of the story and it is definitely shocking.