As the weather warms a bit in Pretoria, the World Cup mania continues to cool. We are still experiencing the “flu” of World Cup fever…everyone and their mom is coughing and shivering away, but the vuvuzela chorus is noticeably absent from the day to day grind. Many teams being cheered on have gone home: Brasil, Argentina, Bafana Bafana, Black Stars, USA, England, and so on. People have shifted their allegiances to the teams left in the fray…whether they really like them or not. It’s semifinal time! The big boys have stayed to play! This semifinal World Cup time is juxtaposed with my last days in SA. 4 days until Disneyland AKA the USA. I’m so excited I could burst.
On Tuesday it was Netherlands vs. Uruguay. The support here is oranje all the way! Uruguay really whooped Bafana Bafana in the group games and you are hard pressed to find a Uruguayan fan around these parts. This might not be the case in the cities where the last games are being played…but in Pretoria if you can mention your support for Uruguay…step back and defend yourself! On Tuesday I met a girl in the line for the toilet who was still supporting Uruguay. I told her to watch her back and a perplexed look settled on her face. She questioned me as to why she must step lively…I asked her where she had been for the last month. I reminded her that Uruguay made the SA vuvuzela choir silent in the group games. It seems she may have remembered this clutch time in the Bafana Bafana World Cup history, but she was still sticking with Uruguay. Hey, I just wished her luck! Even Nicholas was ready to support Holland in the semifinals. He got an orange Holland shirt from his godfather and it arrived just in time for the semifinal game on Tuesday. The shirt is really huge for him and kinda looks like a Tshirt dress so he is going to have to grow into his love for the team J
(Crazy happy Nicholas, the oranje babe)
My friends and I headed to the Square on Tuesday to watch the game. All the games are on at 8:30pm these days. I ran some last minute errands in the morning. Saw a sign at the local grocery store that said “Dear Customers, please do not blow your vuvuzelas in the store. We will ask you to leave if you do.” LOL…sad I didn’t get a pic of that, but I was without camera. D’oh! Surprise and I spent the rest of the day watching movies and having some beers. We gathered some girls up and headed to Hatfield with Edwin after a bunch of annoying missioning for beer. Oh, beer…what we won’t do for you! We met Douwe and some of his friends at News Café for pre-game refreshments. When we tried to get into the Square with our 1 card among 4 people…static! The people there are really looking at IDs these days and there is a smaller volume of fans so it’s harder to wiggle in unnoticed. Compared to the USA, SA is very lax on IDs where drinking is involved…unless you look like an obvious 15-yr old. I actually have to train myself to show ID when I return to the USA cos here you are almost never asked for ID. The drinking age is 18 and it’s a pretty relaxed 18 at that. The Square is a teenage dreamland and I think they have been trying to prevent that more in recent times. I never have an ID these days cos I got robbed a few months ago and lost my drivers license. There is NO WAY I’m going out with my passport if drinking is on the schedule. No way! I am not really a superstitious person, but my group of friends have been touched by robberies and tsotsis about 5 times in the last 2 months. I am under the impression there is some dark cloud over us and I am not going to tempt fate this time. The guards at the Square know me by now and even if I don’t have ID they still let me in. The ladies don’t even check my bag too much anymore. I guess it’s good to be known. Ha ha. There is a heavy security presence in South Africa and this presence has only multiplied with the advent of the World Cup. But one of the first things you must learn in SA is that if you are kind to the little people (like security guards) they will be kind and lax to you. Always greet them, toss in a little banter, a sweetie or loose cigarette, and you are golden!
So this security static was a major bummer. We tried going in different entrances and doing all the other sneaky things we could think of, but to no avail. The problem was the chicks, they didn’t have ID, and I think Surprise got a bit fresh with some of the security staff. Bad idea. In the end we got a monster pizza from the Square, think manhole cover size, and went to a bar outside the perimeter to watch the last ½ of the game. Because of all this security drama I missed most of the game. D’oh! It was kind of annoying, but the teams that were playing are not that exciting to me so I wasn’t too upset. I would have liked to watch the entire game though. What I did see was Holland going to town on Uruguay at the end. Well done, gents. Go home Uruguay! Holland easily found their place in the final game and Uruguay will play in the “losers” bracket on Saturday. Ha ha! No love lost.
After the game we headed straight home, as Edwin has to wake up at 3am for work. We took the girls home and Surprise and I headed to his house to watch more movies and have a few more beers. I was dead tired and the mood was pretty much killed by that point so we all kind of drifted out to never never land, beer in hand and “The Jerk” on the glowing screen. I slept poorly with Surprise’s girlfriend and woke up the next day halfheartedly ready to start all over again.
Wednesday I went up to the vet campus to say goodbye to my mamas. “Mama” here is a term you can use with any black lady that is older than you. “Sisi” (sister) is a term you use for someone about your age or younger and “gogo” (grandma) is the term you use for a much older black lady. You can talk to strangers in a very familiar way here. It’s really nice. The Onderstepoort (OP) mamas are my heart at that campus. They are the ladies that clean the dormitories. Every morning I saw them cleaning away and chatting was a morning I could smile in that place that often took away my smiles. The lady that cleaned in the building I lived in, Mavis, is my South African mother. That woman knows everything about me and I know her skeletons too J As I think I have mentioned…I am actively collecting family around the world. In the event of the apocalypse…I am SO covered. On almost any continent. I’m just saying…
The ladies eat lunch from 1-2pm and I usually try to hit them up at that time. All the mamas are around and I don’t have to bother their work or search them out individually. I ended up getting to OP pretty late for lunch cos public transport and my own procrastination took longer than I expected. Oops! I had to stop and buy a new cloth in town as my other one was stolen a month ago. I went with a soccer theme print that I saw one day while walking in town and then headed off to the OP taxis. Although I was late, I did get to see my mamas a bit and that was cool. I am going to miss them a lot. I have been going up to visit them pretty regularly since I have been here. I think they will miss me too, but last time I was here I took a picture of all of us and gave it to them. It is displayed above the sink where they wash dishes so I can always shine down on them even when I’m far away. Hugs, mamas!
Mavis and I talked the rest of the afternoon away and I walked her to her bus. Said goodbye and headed back to campus to meet one more vet school friend, Takalani. We chatted for a bit and then he walked me to the taxi. It was getting dark now (danger!) and I got into town a bit later than I would have liked. It is not okay to walk alone at night in town here. I scurried off to the next taxi with my eyes doing a 360 take of my surroundings. Like I said…dark cloud around me these days and I cannot afford to be robbed now cos I’m pretty much down to credit now. I took a taxi to Surprise’s house and he walked me the few blocks to my house. After dark in SA…one can never be too cautious!
A side note on the taxi I took from town. On the group taxis here, the person that sits in the front seat next to the driver is the passenger responsible for taking the money in for the whole taxi. The money is passed forward and the front passenger makes change and returns it to the back of the taxi. I don’t like dealing with money and try to avoid taking in the money when I sit in the front seat. Often times people think this white girl doesn’t know what she’s doing, so if I sit still usually the driver just takes the money. Sorry to hide behind my whiteness…but I really hate taking the money. I actually have NEVER taken the money despite hundreds of rides in taxis. I always avoid it. But this time the young man sitting next to me said “Oh, so you will help me take the money?” I explained my front seat strategy and the fact that I have never ever taken in the money. He said that I must help him, so I did. Everything went fine and I survived my first money taking situation. Nice. Even in my last days…SA is still full of novel experiences.
On my wanderings up and back to Onderstepoort I sort of just wallowed in the feeling of leaving my other home…absorbing all my last ocular snapshots of Pretoria and South Africa. The little things I’m going to miss when I’m firmly planted back in Disneyland: guys warming hands around a streetside fire, the blur of the landscape rushing by, counting out my coins for the taxi fare, the fake (but majestic) waterfall at Wonderboom Nature Reserve, the hustle and bustle of people going home from work in town, street vendors packing up for the day, red dirt, the anxiety of being out after dark alone, scandalousness even from those you least expect it from, laughing at funny street news headlines in Afrikaans/English/Zulu, mopani worms for sale in overflowing cups, the shouts of 3 rand! 3 rand! from the fruit and veg vendors, waiting in the chaotic mass of folks craving KFC chicken, sharing a seat on the taxi with another white passenger, and so on and so forth. It’s always the little things that make a place. Although I’m excited to go home, although Pretoria vexes me like crazy…leaving is always a bit of a maudlin experience.
I arrived home one tired puppy. Fixed some dinner, cracked quite possibly my last quart of Castle Milk Stout, and snuggled in for another soccer match. Wednesday was the game between Spain and Germany. I don’t really have feelings for either side but have to go with Spain. I can’t look past seeing David Villa slap another man in the face (and get away with it), but I think my feelings are for Spain. I just don’t want to admit cos of the man-slapping thing. Also…the octopus said Spain would win. You can’t get around that! There is this fortune-telling octopus in Germany that keeps getting headlines for its World Cup winner predictions. I saw a street news headline poster saying that the octopus was all for Spain today…I guess he was right. Eish…this world we are living in…
The game was being commentated by this really annoying South African guy. I can even cringe when I hear his voice opening up the game. He is so boring and just keeps chattering away on the most annoying tangents. He is really focused on the teams the players are on in Europe and generally is just not an exciting guy to listen to. I can tell from his voice that he is a black South African and spent much of the game wondering if he would be more exciting to hear presiding over a Chiefs or Pirates (local SA teams) game. I guess I’ll never know.
The game was really interesting to watch. I was expecting to see Germany pull out all the stops and kick some major Spanish tail…but it just never happened. Spain was too much for them and ended up winning the game. Cool. At some point in the 1st half a guy ran onto the field and was captured by what looked like FIFA ninjas. Weird. And hilarious. Don’t F with FIFA I guess.
One guy I like from the Germany side is Schweinsteiger…his name, which means “pig loader” in German, is just kind of fun to say. Try it. Did you laugh a bit? If not, shame ;)
After the game it was mos def bed time. I was really tired from poor sleep the night before, walking all over town, and maybe a bit of Milk Stout. I went out for my last cigarette of the night and noticed the conspicuous silence from the Sunnyside part of town. What I did hear is more and more “Wave your Flag” and “Waka Waka” from the Hatfield part of town. I guess it is still jumping in the Square at night. The vuvuzela toots have been silenced in Sunnyside and switched to Hatfield now I guess. Interesting. When Sunnyside is quiet then you know that the world outside is really dead.
And that’s all the soccer news that’s fit to report on for now. This weekend I’m off to Joburg to see the last of my SA family. I don’t know if I’m going to watch the game on Saturday and Sunday I will be on an airplane during the final game. This may be the last you hear from me for right now. I guess my last report on World Cup will be after cruising over the world by plane, touching Egypt and landing in New York City.
Thanks for staying tuned to my World Cup banter. I really appreciate hearing from you and knowing that you have been reading. It makes me really happy to hear all the nice feedback from folks. At this point, my blog now has over 1800 hits in 1 year. It’s probably not much in the grand blogosphere, but it makes me happy. Thanks.
To my SA family…thanks for your love and support. Thanks for taking care of me. Thanks for providing shelter in the storm. Thanks for trying to keep me here. That last point always makes me feel so happy…it’s good to feel wanted in a place that is not your original home and that happens to exist a continent away from your roots. Much love and respect. Mooi bly. Salani kahle. Go well. And until we meet again :)
Hugs! And as always…keep the faith and spread it gently
Much Love
Lynsee
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