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| Estadio Nacional! |
I woke up around 6:15am to get ready for my Volunteer
Program Training Day! Actually, I had
doubt there were such training arranged at all since the staffs also told me to
come on Friday instead, but of course I wouldn’t want to miss anything. If there isn’t any training, I could go to
the famous Paranoa Lake in town.
I walked out to the main road as usual. There were many buses and also traffic
congestion too! Almost immediately I got
my bus that goes to Rodoviaria (Bus Terminal).
And as usual, I walked almost 30 minutes to the Volunteer Centre, which
was a different smaller stadium next to the National Stadium. I was early at 8:30am. I met the security guard and told him where I
want to go. Unfortunately, he pointed me
to the Stadium instead after I showed him the email about my training. There were two other local, one of them a
Volunteer too, called Elaine. They
talked to the security guard but were not allowed to go in as well. All of us were directed to the Stadium. I had the feeling we must be heading to the
wrong place. Anyway, I couldn’t explain
in Portuguese and could not follow them to the Stadium. We walked halfway and saw an entry but the
security guard stopped us again. I
guessed they were trying to convince the guard to let us in and walk
lesser. When we were finally inside the
stadium, Elaine asked anyone around she could possibly find and we were
directed to so many places, but still no one could help us yet. Eventually, we were led to the main office of
the LOC (Organizing Team). Just as I
thought, the staffs there informed that we should be at the Volunteer Centre
instead!! We walked back diligently and
along the way, met a LOC member who was very nice to walk us a long way making
sure we were not lost, before he returned to where he were supposed to go.
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| waiting to collect my accreditation badge! |
At the Volunteer Centre, I met Almare again and told him
about my training. He just advised me to
wait for the Catering coordinators.
After Elaine was attended by the other staffs, we both sat at the
stadium seats, waiting together. She
doesn’t speak English and while I was trying to get her write down her name,
she gave me her phone number as well! Only
close to 10, I met Bid (the Catering assistant) again. I showed him my email
and he brought me to the Catering office where I met two other volunteers. We had some coffee and snack before
proceeding to the office together with the main coordinator, Tony.
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| Catering Volunteer members at work! |
Tony started the introduction and explained the details, all
in Portuguese. Bid was besides me trying
to translate as much as he could. The
caterer was Sapore. (The next day, I
found out from Pedro who works at Aramark that they were the food provider for
this big event, and Sapore is a local restaurant they engaged to cook the food.) Tony said we don’t have to deal with the
food. Our role was just coordinating the
operations. The Volunteer Centre was
mainly for the volunteers. However, the
food here was provided for the volunteers, LOC members as well as some FIFA
staffs. There were three other
restaurants, “Restaurante Verde” (Green restaurant), “Restaurante Amarelo” (Yellow
restaurant) and another at the Stadium Media Centre (SMC). Bid told me to relate Green to grass and
hence cheaper, while Yellow to gold and hence a more expensive restaurant! I liked his way of explaining.
There
were 26 volunteers in the Catering section and I was the only foreigner!!! 10 of us will be working on each day,
stationed at different restaurants, the Volunteer Centre or the SMC. Heard from Bid that if you are assigned to
the SMC, you will be serving drinks to the world media!! And even get the
glimpse chance of catching the match live!!
I really hope I could be there at least for a day!
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| Damn, so many numbers but no access to Field of Play! |
After
the introduction in the room , more volunteers came. There were 7 of us today including myself. The rest has collected their accreditation
badge except the three of us. Bid brought
us to the accreditation centre to get ours.
I realized my original passport was not with me. The staff at the counter wasn’t very
happy. He was doing his job and sent me
to the Problem Resolution section. I was
relieved that my photocopied was accepted eventually. Took my photo in a cubicle and then moved to
collection counter to receive my freshly printed badge! The others were already waiting for me. We walked back to the Volunteer Centre
together.
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| My free lunch! |
It
was almost 12 and lunch was self served.
The volunteer check in everyday at work with a card, values in it will
be deducted when they check out for lunch.
Hence, some of us will station at the checkout counter, some at the end
of the flow in order to prevent anyone going backwards, while some at the drink
counters to hand out bottles drink.
Since I don't speak Portuguese, Bid assigned me to hand out the bottles
drink.
We
had one round of volunteers coming in. There
was really nothing much to do besides standing the whole time. After this group, I was lucky to be the first
two going next because I was getting hungry already. As always, beans again and I liked the beef a
lot! I had a quick lunch so that I could
take over the other’s place who had not eaten yet. Around 2:30pm, everyone had their lunch
(except of course the caterer staffs) and our job was finished.
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| Sun tanning time for the grass! |
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| If you are naughty at the stadium, you will end up here! |
After
lunch, I thought we were done for the day because the caterer were packing up
too. Of course, not so soon. We got a bottle of water each and Tony started
to bring us around to those restaurants and the SMC area. One thing he stressed on was dealing with VIP
and famous people around. We were not
allowed to take pictures, ask for autograph or even utter a single word to
them. Bid put it, not even a “Hi”! If caught, we would be expelled
immediately! That sounds really scary
and suddenly I thought what if they were trying to talk to us?! Luckily, Tony consoled us that we could talk
to them if they started the conversation!!
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| Brazilian ice cream man! |
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| Breathtaking Brasilia city! |
Learned
from Bid that Brasilia is also very different from the other cities in another
way. The red soil is only found here in
Brazil and this often makes the area red and dusty. Bid was a frank guy, he told me how his
country is suffering from poverty, bad health care and education system even though
the tax is high. Sometimes, public
protest were inevitable, especially during this World Cup period because many
local actually boycott the game to be hosted here. So, they might target volunteers because we
are helping FIFA for free. However, Bid
assured that police and arm forced will be patrolling around the Stadium very
tightly to ensure the safety of all. Bid
himself is a martial arts expert. He is
a Wushu and Taekwando black belt. No
wonder he doesn’t look like 40 years old.
Bid owed a gymnasium and will be opening another big one soon with his
partner! He was very keen on kungfu and
thought his ancestor might originated from the Oriental! One funny culture of Brazilian that he shared
with me is using short syllabus words. They like to say it short, like “Hap” as in “happy”,
Eddie Murphy becomes something like Efi, while Demi Moore becomes Demoore!
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| The famous TV Tower! |
We
ended the tour at the LOC main office and ended the day. I thanked Tony and Bid brought us back to the Volunteer Centre where our bags were kept.
We left around 4pm.
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| Surprise supper from Fernanda's mom! |
The
traffic was bad and I reached home at almost 6.
The bus driver here was just like the minibus in Kuala Lumpur,
as fast and as daring. Anyway, it was
just nice for dinner. For the third
night in a row, Mavericks was like my dining room now. I wanted to order their fried noodle after so
many days of rice. Unfortunately, it was
not available in the menu anymore! I
ended having the same fillet beef I had the first night. And this time, I managed to get my onions! However, I was a little disappointed that the serving wasn’t as much as the
first round.
Walked home, showered and went straight to bed at 11pm eagerly
waiting for my first day of work tomorrow!
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