TRANSCRIPT FOR SILVA BASHLLARI
JESSICA HONEYCUTT: ODYSSEY OF SPORT
September 22, 2014
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00:02 (Silva, tell me a little bit about yourself.)
Well what can I say, okay so I am from Albania uh I am 18, I am a freshman here, I am going
practically to study history and European studies and possibly minor in philosophy and religion
so I am a big fan of culture and also a big fan of sports.
00:28 (Cool! Did you play any sports growing up?)
Well yeah, I did try to play a lot of sports. I started basketball and I started, I can say I started
because I never really continued anything to the end of it. Um volleyball and swimming a lot, a
lot, a lot.
00:45 (Did you do it mostly in school or like in outside school clubs?)
Volleyball it was something like it was an in school thing because our gym teacher, she was like
a great vollyballist when she was younger so she really pushed us to play. Basketball was
outside of school but I went there because some of my friends went there so we went up
there all together. And swimming because I come from a town which is seasided so
swimming, it is, you know how to swim when you are a baby, 3 or 4. There you cannot, it is
a must you know we swim from May to September normally and then people swim even in
December so.
01:26 (Do you have like big competitions for like swimming or big basketball tournaments?)
Yeah, actually, uh actually the most popular sport there was football, like everywhere American
football, um not American sorry, European football soccer as you might call it. But uh we in
basketball are also very competitive, especially for the women. They uh are very competitive
and mostly between high schools. And for swimming yes, I mean from my town there are a lot
of good swimmers that want (won?) in nationals and even international competitions.
02:02 (Oh cool, um is there, so like when you guys. Do you guys have any like traditions or like
any holidays or like athletic events that go along with like religion or like tradition or culture or
anything like that, along those lines that you can think of?)
Um, well you see Albania is not a very religious type of place, type of country. We have
practically half and half Christians with Muslims and the number of devoted people is very little.
It is not like we are big religion, tradition followers but we are very keen on our traditions.
They are not so much so many sports as much as there are dancing uh but uh you can say that we
have this like, okay you can call it a sport, because we do shooting. You know shooting with a
gun, so it might be considered a sport.
03:00 (Yeah definitely!)
And it is really for example when a child is born, when a son is born they shoot, you know
up in the sky, and when a girl is born, traditionally women cry, because so it is kind of like it
is a weird tradition. It is patriotic; it’s about masculinity and um the appreciation, more
appreciation toward the males than the females. And as for traditional sports, well it’s not like we
many like, we, we are not. I mean the most praised sport in Albania is a soccer. Yes people
go crazy over it. Crazy, crazy over it. And we have, Albania is relatively a small country,
so even teams they like, they come from cities which are right close by each other but they
are like crazy at the football match. And everybody is at the stadium and shouting and
yelling and so deeply devoted or dedicated to it you know.
04:03 (Yeah, that’s awesome! So like would you say that that’s a way that like your country
like unifies, through your soccer?)
Yes, absolutely, especially when we are playing against another um team from another
nationality. We are extremely, extremely uh patriotic about that one. And there is this
football player, uh who has uh the Arabian Eagle symbol, Eagle here on his shoulder and uh he
was playing a football match and scored a goal. But he plays with a team in uh another country,
I think maybe in Italy or Switzerland, I am not sure. And he took off his shirt and he was
pointing at the Eagle and he because the idol of every Albanian person possible at the time.
04:49 (Oh my god that’s really cool. Um lets see, do you have like a uh, a best memory related
to a soccer match or do you have a specific um, just like what’s your best like um)
Best achievement?
(Or anything, did you ever attend a match or anything in high school or like competitive,
anything?)
Uh it was actually we, there was this game actually. My friend she is volleyballist , not in soccer
but in volleyball. She is very good at it and uh there was this match. It was between our school
and another school in another city, but it was like a national competition and my friend did the
final hit and I mean I was cheering and cheering my heart out there ya know? And uh so I was
cheering my heart out for that friend because she was so good at it and we were all friends
since we were the first grade. Everybody was there knowing each other their whole lives.
We were crazily you know involved in the match, more than anybody else. Like they did even
and F-word and were like “oh yeah there you go!” So uh sports are related to being a fan of it
but in Albania since it is such a small country it is also about the people that you know. For
example somebody knows my neighbor is playing in a football match and I’m crazy fan for that,
for his team and not because I am a crazy of his team but because I know him. It is more about
support.