Feel It. We Are Here.

Friday, June 18^th. This date has been important to me for about the last 5 months, as that’s about how long I’ve known that I’ve had tickets to the World Cup.

The day starts with a meeting with Mrs. Patterson, the director of St. Joseph’s, to go over the questionnaires that Quynh and I have developed. We have to simplify a few of the questions so that we don’t confuse our interviewees, but other than that we just have to do some brief editing, as well as find the contact information for a bunch of AIDS care programs in Cape Town. During this search, I realize that I’m going to be talking to an organization that I researched for my Global Health class- the Desmond Tutu Foundation, makers of the Tutu Tester- a mobile AIDS clinic that I tried to adapt for TB research. A lot of organizations are also doing something I kept writing about in my Global Health class- taking patients and converting them to counselors and therapists. There’s a really cool group called Mothers 2 Mothers where mothers with AIDS act as group leaders for newly-infected mothers to help them get through their sickness. Who better to talk about these things than the people themselves? In a strange way it reminds me of some old Maury Povich shows where they used to make troubled kids talk with hardened criminals.

Lunch is really funny because Quynh’s host mom loves giving her meat, so I always end up with chicken hot dogs.

In the afternoon, we helped set up for the “black bag” fashion show. Since many of the kids have left St. Joseph’s for the 5-week holiday, the programs now integrate all of the children. For this one, each child was given a black garbage bag and told to make their own outfit (Project Runway for Kiddies). The pre-show entertainment was a young boy who sang and dance to Thriller by himself. So awesome- Michael Jackson is like the only musician who exists in St. Joseph’s (more on this below). Afterwards, the younger kids came out, most of them really shy and holding on to the volunteer for dear life and clinging to the number that the judges would use so that no one could read it. Then my Sweet Basil boys came out.

I should’ve seen this coming. The day before, Quynh and I had been playing with my ward and all they wanted to do was either color, play with clay, or dance. They would jump on stage and play with the curtain buttons and surprise us with dancing, which I failed to videotape because my camera battery died. As they came out during the show, each of them had converted their bag into some sort of superhero costume, with some even having Zorro bandannas. Each of them, however, had a different Michael Jackson dance memorized. Popping, locking, jumps, spins, and crotch grabs. So many crotch grabs. I’m pretty sure that for some of them, their dance solely consisted of them jumping up and down and doing crotch grabs and shouting.

I stayed at Patsy’s before the game, and we watched part of the USA/Slovenia game (by the way, USA GOT ROBBED. ROBBED I SAY! MAURICE EDU DID NOTHING WRONG EXCEPT GET HUGGED BY A SLOVENIAN). Quynh again scolded me for having wine at her house. Two of Patsy’s friends- Martin and Agnes- were going to pick us up and take us into town. Martin and Agnes are a really sweet couple- I think Martin is of some East Indies descent and he always looks like he’s going to cause trouble, while Agnes is really quiet. He is soccer-crazy, having tickets to 7 games throughout South Africa. Somehow for this match, he has finagled VIP box tickets from his friend who works for one of the governing boards for the World Cup. We park near the Civic Centre where he works and use the Fan Walk, a 2.4 km path that winds through the CBD (central business district) of Cape Town out to Green Point Stadium.

The walk to the stadium is so alive. Every few blocks, there is some form of entertainment along the road, whether it be a concert, dancers, jumproping teams, a guy singing You Raise Me Up. The road is mainly packed with English fans and smaller clusters of Algerians. As you get closer to the stadium, informal sellers are hawking vuvuzelas, scarves, and food, all for much cheaper than the official FIFA goods inside the stadium. Green Point glows magnificently on the right- it’s shape is supposed to be that of a protea, a flower that looks sort of like a bowl and, although not South Africa’s national flower, is really, really popular. As we go through security, it becomes increasingly more apparent that this is the effing World Cup. There is a huge soccer ball you can sign, a penalty kick simulation, karaoke, a drum circle, and all the Budweiser you could want (for some reason, Budweiser is the official beer of the World Cup).

Martin and Agnes leave us to go to their fantastic seats, so we go head to ours. We’re like an hour and a half early, but we cannot wait to find our seats. We got category 2 seats, so we’re on the corner of the stadium, but we’re in the topmost level. Though this sounds bad, we have a full panoramic view of the field and the rest of the stadium. Everything is bright white from the lights that ring the open oval roof. People have come early to line every single wall with English flags, with a few Algerian flags, and a Norwegian and an Uruguayan flag thrown in for good measure. The cool thing about the English flags is that a lot of them are personalized with team names, family names, and inspirational messages for each of their favorite clubs, but all are still English nevertheless. Montages of the qualifications of each of the teams, sounds of Wakka Wakka and Waving Flag, and stats on all of the teams play on the screens as English and Algerian fans file in. The Algerians are all concentrated in one place across the field, while British fans fill everything else, except for the mobs of South Africans (still wearing their Bafana jerseys) behind the goals and in the top levels.

I stand up to watch the English and Algerians warm up. I never thought about the fact that the refs would have to warm up (they run just as much as the players- I wonder if there are match statistics for refs for how much they have run and their percentage of BLOWN CALLS AHEM SLOVENIA), but there they were in the middle of the field doing toe-touches together (really helpful for the line judges I imagine). The game opens with the traditional walking out of flags and singing of anthems. Some really drunk guys next to me take the opportunity to sing “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”. The English fans tried to rile up their team by singing their anthem repeatedly and doing their cheers (how do you learn these cheers anyways? Is there a book? Training sessions? A sing-along DVD?). Midway through the second half, some Algerian fan started shooting off really small fireworks, which were quickly stopped by cops, but in the meantime was sort of crazy that someone managed to sneak them in through “strict security” (a metal detector). The South African contingent really wanted to start the wave, and tried so in both directions. Unfortunately, the most serious of the English delegations were on either side of them and had really gotten into the game, so every time they tried, it fizzled out in seconds. I really wanted to do the wave.

Unfortunately, the game ended as a scoreless draw. Algeria (whom I had been rooting for) really played well and looked sharp, especially on the left side, though their finishing was not top quality. The English really looked lazy and ragged, and only got good shots based on individual skill. The English fans were quite unhappy, booing Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, and Wayne Rooney off the field (Rooney later had a shot where he looked in the camera as everyone booed and said “Thanks for your support”). 60,000 fans came and ended up booing their own team. It’s eerily like the South African fan base here, who have started to remove their flags and shirts in the wake of the loss and anticipating the result of the SA/France game. Especially for Bafana, there is so much pressure on them from the country (and subsequently the continent hoping for some African success for once). Even though club soccer teams like Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates have been around South Africa for years, as well as the legions of Man U fans roaming South Africa, this World Cup has really made most of South Africa fans of soccer. Even my host families, who rarely watch anything outside of rugby, have sat down to watch the games and comment on making substitutions and comparing to other teams. Regardless of Bafana’s results (they most likely won’t make it out of group stage, though they would be forever the first host nation to do this), the legacy of South Africa’s World Cup won’t be their team’s success, but the success of a developing nation in hosting the world’s greatest sporting event.

We left the stadium and, although we were supposed to meet up with Tasnim on Long St. we were sort of tired and decided to head home. But we managed to run into Martin and Agnes again.

Martin is a G. Probably an OG. He informed us that his VIP seats allowed him to sit with Princes Harry and William, Zinedine Zidane, Jerome Valcke, and Cafu, among others. WHAT THE HELL MAN? The only other time I had been this shocked was when Nazrina subtly informed us that we could have had backstage passes to the opening concert for the World Cup, but that she doesn’t roll that way. He’s the chillest dude ever though- he knows everyone in the street, he smokes all the time, he’d be the type of person who, if someone tried to rob him, he’d just rob them back. At one point, Agnes fell behind and he told her, “Agnes, my dear, I may have to sell you. It’s like if a horse goes lame, you shoot it and get another one.” As we drove home, he blasted a mix CD one of the top DJs in Cape Town had made for him, with surprised onlookers in the street getting hit with heavy bass from David Guetta and some house tunes. Epic.