PHOTOS COURTESY OF DAVID NAHOL
[quote style=”2″]Hermiston Man Takes Trip of a Lifetime to South America[/quote]
On his way to pick up some medicine, David Nahol decided to take in a soccer game or two. And, oh by the way, his medicine was in South America and the soccer games were part of a little thing called the World Cup.
“I didn’t go there for the tournament,” said the Hermiston man. “I was looking for some alternative medicine. The World Cup was close by, so I took the trip and decided to do two things at once.”
“I met so many people and had a chance to explain to them how wonderful the United States is,” Nahol said.
His trip began June 10 as part of a quest to find some alternative medicine for a mysterious illness that has plagued him for several years. Nahol believes his symptoms – weakness, rapid heart rate, muscle cramps and twitches and drooping eyelids – are due to a possible exposure to chemicals during his time working at the Umatilla Chemical Depot. He sought answers for his ailments from doctors here, Washington, California and Mexico, but no one had an explanation or medication that would help.
He was told there was medication in South America that could help and, knowing the World Cup was about to begin in Brazil, decided to make the trip.
By the time he returned to Hermiston on July 12, Nahol had traveled more in a month than he had in his whole life. He discovered that the World Cup matches were played all over Brazil. In fact, to get to one game, he had to take a three-day bus trip from Porto Alegra to Fortaleza that covered 2,001 miles.
“This reporter from the Netherlands got mad at me for the word soccer,” he said. “Then a Russian guy joined in yelling, ‘It’s the most popular sport in the world! Why you think you need to change name from football to soccer!’ Then a Columbian guy started yelling at me. I say, ‘Hey, I’m sorry, but I don’t have the answer. I apologize.’
“One guy stands up and says, ‘You need to call it football!’ I say, ‘I agree.’ What else could I do?”
Nahol found a lot of anti-American sentiment coming from the people of South America. He said it was the result of propaganda coming from state-run media. Nahol, who came to the United States in 1990 speaking no English and having no money or job, enthusiastically defended his country to anyone who would listen.
“I would tell them that United States is a free country – you can do anything you want,” he said. “A lot of people there blame their country’s problems on the United States. I tell them it’s not true. United States is the greatest country.”
Nahol found it ironic that people espousing anti-American views were freely spending their money at American establishments such as McDonald’s, Burger King and Starbucks, and talking on iPhones.
“American companies are everywhere in South America,” he said. “I thought, ‘This looks like America.’”
“I looked at the names of the cities and saw Pendleton,” he said. “That sounded strange to me. Umatilla? Milton-Freewater? What are those things? Then I saw Hermiston and that sounded like Houston to me. That sounded like an American name.”
He got a job as a farm worker and, thanks to his frugal nature, saved up enough money to buy his first house. Remarkably, he was able to pay off the mortgage in three years.
“I thought if the United States gives me the opportunity, I’m going to work like hell,” he said.
He later went to work at the Army Outreach Office on Main Street, and then with URS at the depot site.
During his 32 days in South America, Nahol was able to take in four World Cup matches and find some medicine that he hopes will help. He’s glad he had the opportunity to attend the world’s biggest soccer – uh, make that football – tournament, because he knows it was a once-in-a-lifetime event.
“It’s the first and last World Cup for me,” he said. “Too expensive. I had to pay $10 for a beer and $10 more for the cup!” But he also made some new-found friends and enjoyed playing the unofficial role of American ambassador.
“Every day I had new people to meet,” he said. “And everybody was open to hearing what America is really like.”
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