However, life being life, and mine in particular having a tendency to spit me out at random locations around the world, I ended up back in the Mother City. The idea was for my long distance relationship to stop being long distance, and for him to move here to this gorgeous city to live with me.
So..he's back in CO, USA and we are back to limbo.
Isnt it funny though, how often our view of our country can be so dramatically altered by one event? Ok, so here I speak not of the mundane or the average, or of a small passing comment that shifts the universe as a butterfly fluttering its wings in a canyon. The Soccer World Cup is hardly inconspicuous. But it is just one event. And this one event has irrevocably shifted how I see my country.
I admit freely that I was one of the people who saw with dreading heart the unveiling of the decision to host the event here. Along with many of my countrymen, and a large portion of the world, I had images of strikes and transport problems, undeveloped infrastructure, unfinished stadiums. Crime, not so much, but only because unlike the propoganda of the international media I know the violence is generally limited to areas where the people who live there have few other options. Would you walk through the ghetto in your city late at night carrying a camera? Unfortunately, our ghettos are bigger than most countries, so the statistics are scarier.
The way the people of South Africa have risen to the challenge has amazed, delighted and impressed me. The response of visitors and the awe I have seen in their eyes as they walk round my beautiful city, stare at the cultural peculiarities of my countrymen and gape at the mountain range in the middle of our CBD has caused me many a moment of smug pride that I get to live here and they dont.
When it comes to 'feeling it', I have to say that few countries have quite thrown themselves in the way we have. First, we came up with a 'sound', that although it has probably deafened half of South Africa, and will forever outdo the most annoying sound in the world, will forever bring to mind thousands of drunk football supporters straining to outdo the person next them.
Maybe it helps that our flag has so many ridiculous colours? I think the simple fact that we stand out in the crowd by default is helpful to our cause.
All in all, crime rates dropped (even the crooks were watching the games) and our spirit was maintained, most South Africans supporting one team or another after we inevitably didnt make the quarters. Never to be left out, one could even see the occasional tearful South African sobbing into their Netherlands scarf at the final, and watching with grief as our new-found foreign friends flew back to their home countries.
I dont know how to express the patriotic welling of emotion I feel when I see how well we have done. The pure love for the people here that have warmly welcomed the world and blown them away with beauty, culture and variety. We have a long way to go, but dear God, we have come so far.
I have only one apology and that is for the ongoing prevalence of the vuvuzela. Admit it though, I bet you only hate them so much because you cant blow one yourself...
