Oranje Oranje and Ghana

On Thursday, we had tickets to the Netherlands-Cameroon game. And not just any tickets, FRONT ROW TICKETS ZOMG. We got a ride with our crazy friend Martin again, who was trying to listen to the Italy game on the radio. For a government official, he's damn insane. Among the insane things he did that night:
1) Played the mix CD from his DJ friend that he had previously told us about and blasted it as we drove through the city
2) Made a new tradition of playing "Wakka Wakka" whenever a team was eliminated and called it "Wakka Wakka Wah Wah"
3) Declared that no one in Cape Town would be allowed to eat spaghetti after Italy's loss
4) Constantly abused his city parking privileges, proclaiming to each police officer we passed, "Do you know who we are? We're the damn council!"
5) Hypothetically procured semifinals tickets in Cape Town for US$140 for us (I don't think this is actually happening)

Anyways, the game itself was so orange. I'm convinced that prisons in the Netherlands sell their jumpsuits to fans so they can dress up. Orange tuxes, orange cowboy outfits- anything that could be orange, was orange. I'm also fairly sure we ended up either on TV or a foreign newspaper because of this guy next to us who had a huge leather banner saying that he was Robin Van Persie's biggest fan. Our seats were right next to one of the goals, and when Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scored his game-winning goal he slid sort of towards us. Also, the wave (which apparently is properly called the Mexican wave- that would be really cool if that's how you were supposed to greet people in Mexico) worked out really well at this game, as one wave made 3 or 4 laps around the stadium. Also, people have developed something with the vuvuzelas that I liken to how in wars centuries ago, soldiers would send volleys of arrows or bullets all at once. Here, people would all blow their vuvuzelas every second for something like 15 seconds to produce some mutant of an emergency siren and an explosion.

At work on Friday, we had to help run a World-Cup-themed holiday program for the kids. After playing soccer with a little plastic ball in the main hall for a while with 2 kids who called themselves Kaka and Messi (there was also a kid named Craig. I don't think that's his real name, but I swear he called himself Craig.), we set the room up for the program with posters we painted with the older girls.

The highlight of the program was a clown named Shop Shop Jabulani. Though Shop Shop isn't so much of a clown, but really an award-winning magician named Matt Gore who does more juggling and magic tricks than crazy clown things. And by award-winning, he is currently the South African junior magic champion and competes in all of these international competitions and has met David Copperfield and apparently comes from a long family of magicians. He also calls himself the "ginger ninja" (it rhymes in South African accents, also I'm glad people still use this term). Quynh and I also became very, very good at face painting, especially the South African flag. Unfortunately, I later found out that we were painting it reverse, as when it hangs down vertically the red is supposed to be on the left side (it's the same thing with the Philippines flag, but I was just copying what the other social workers had done so sorry South Africa). Another funny thing I've realized here is that the kids are a lot smarter about their diseases and know how to use them (something I've mentioned before). We had to give the kids soda (cool drinks), and so we had special soda for the diabetics. No less than 10 kids all tried to pretend they were diabetic to get some Sprite Zero (Sprite Zero isn't even that good), after which the real diabetics called them out. I also half-attempted to learn the Diski Dance (it's supposed to be like a guy playing soccer for the World Cup, so think the Soulja Boy x a billion), which is still in the process.

To continue our World Cup frenzy, on Saturday we went back to the Waterfront to watch the USA-Ghana game with Emily and Tasnim. In a sudden surge of patriotism, I decided to run into the mall and buy a huge American flag to wear as a cape (at one point, one of the merchants told me that she had run out of all things American, and "didn't I want something Brazilian or African anyways?"). I didn't realize until a few hours before that Ghana would be the USA's opponent. Being in Africa, I had been a supporter of African teams and of course wanted Ghana to progress for the sake of the continent, which had seen its more likely contenders like Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, and Nigeria fall victim to high expectations, the coaching carousel, the Group of Death, and referee decisions. I have never felt so lonely rooting for a team in my life- most of the American supporters were in the outdoors portion of the bar while we grabbed dinner, so trying to find friends was hard-pressed as South Africans made themselves honorary Ghanaians for the day.

The cardiac-kids style of play (read: we need to warm up the car for 20 minutes before the engine can really start turning) that America had used throughout the tournament failed us again, and the cheering for Ghana present in the bar was a reduced (but still as enthusiastic) version of what we had seen during the SA-Mexico game. After heading to Long St. to meet up with my German housemates, the streets were flooded with Ghanaians (and other Africans looking to pose as Ghanaians) honking their horns down the street flooded with drums, people, and cars that magically had Ghanaian flags next to South African ones. At one of the clubs I went to, an older British woman (whom I was paid 2 rand by my housemate to chat up and dance with) serenaded me with a song, to which the words were "Going home, going home, going hoooooome".

Good luck to Ghana (unless they ever play the Netherlands, in which case at least they made it that far). The state of African soccer is relying on you. For a continent where soccer and politics have uncanny parallels to one another, the success of a team from Africa in what has been called an "African World Cup" can do wonders for the other national teams hoping to have success outside the African Cup of Nations. From importing international coaches (notice how none of the African coaches are African, save Algeria's) to the failing economies of African countries hindering domestic play and development to the annual export of the continent's best players to foreign leagues (even a commercial that plays every day here shows how the African "all-stars" of this World Cup all left their countries early in their lives and now are taking this opportunity to come back and play for Africa), the success of an African country would prove that teams have started to amend and overcome these barriers. If the continent can pretty successfully host a World Cup, why can't it win it?