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| Sunrise in Kwa Zulu Natal |
Every 4 years, for 30 days…
Nothing.
Else.
Matters.
We have chased the beautiful game by road on N2 highway from Johannesburg across the entire southern horn of the beautiful continent. At times, the intervals between our destinations were 12 – 15 hours, distances traveled by multiple local bus lines and through driving our own rental. The days have been a sort of ever changing mandala of real and make believe plans. It has been best to loosely grasp onto the chaos and to roll with it, to barter if you have to in order to make that next match.
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| Disembarking the Fan Bus in Soweto |
I still haven’t figured out the difference between the category 1, 2 or 3 tickets other than the price. We’ve had great views of the pitch, regardless of the category of the ticket and it seems that all of the seats along the first level belong to FIFA cronies and or corporate sponsors. Speaking of which, apparently Budweiser is an official beverage sponsor of the World Cup. Therefore FIFA (referred to by some locals and foreigners alike as “Thiefa”) regulates that only Budweiser be served at the stadiums and within a 1 km radius. This to me seemed like a crime to have one of the worst beers in the world forced on football loving fans from all over the globe. A warm cup of Ceylon tea became my drink of choice at every single match.
Probably the best match that we attended was the Ghana-Uruguay quarterfinal match. The Continent was united behind Ghana’s team and you could feel it from the earth and in the certain electricity that permeated the winter winds. We rode one of the Rea Vaya buses to the stadium from Boomtown station near our guesthouse in Soweto Township. There was quite a diversity of South African fans, fans from Ghana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria….everyone decorated in face paint of red, gold and green and Ghana’s flag. As the bus pulled into each station, glass doors opened to allow new passengers to load on. Each time the doors opened, the bus would erupt into “OLE OLE OLE OLE GHANA GHANA!!” There was a multi-generational Muslim Indian family packed into the doorway with us, the three year old with a pint size vuvuzela. The grandfather looked at me and pointed to the bus ceiling,
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| Ghana vs Uruguay Quarter Final |
“Ghana is going to the semi finals!”
“Kingson, he’s the best goalie in all of Africa!”
Somehow, from an unknown source Earth Wind and Fire’s ‘Brick House’ was playing. There were red gold and green stilt walkers in the fan parks wearing green wigs adorned with lights and Ghana flag capes.
The South African term for the 2010 World Cup soccer ball is “jabulani”. Jabulani has a mind of its own and can cause a wild uproar or a painful upset by finding its way past the keeper. Soccer, like life can be at times unfair and cruel. You can play the better game, be in complete control of the possession of the ball throughout your game only to have what would have been a goal miss the back of the net due to a deliberate hand ball on the goal line in the last minutes of extra time. The outcome of an entire tournament can then be forever changed by losing on penalty shoot outs. The end of the Ghana-Uruguay match was absolutely heartbreaking. The waves of emotion, the sadness that penetrated Soccer City stadium, 97% of which was decorated in red, gold and green left me without breath. However, the spirit of the evening didn’t seem completely dampened. Packed with thousands of fans in a bitter cold winter night in Johannesburg, the vuvuzelas were still blowing. For a moment the Continent was united. In the distance we could hear voices singing the South African national anthem in isiZulu. A gentleman next to me asked me if it was my first time visiting his country. I told him that it was and that it was also my first time ever visiting the African continent.
“Oh! You have come to the motherland. Welcome home.”
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| Young Boys we met near Capetown |
