A Place to Play

I am getting involved with a project that aims to get kids off the street and give them a space to have fun, relax, be kids, be safe, exercise, channel energy, offer an alternative to the temptation of falling in with the wrong crowd, a place to hang out when there is nowhere else to go. It is really exciting and apart from the yoga class I will be teaching, there will be a dance teacher, and a hockey and soccer coach. It is going to be wonderful - there is such a need for a project like this in Langa. (Go see for yourself at Project Playground. 

We have the use of a large hall as well as another smaller room and a small outside area. There is a very nice soccer and hockey field around the corner from the project. It would be perfect if the field was made available to them in the afternoons. 

Sounds wonderful, doesn't it - a great project for all the right reasons and the facilities to make it happen. Here's the thing though -  the fields cannot be used because they need to be protected during the week to save the grass so that it can be used on the weekends for matches only.  So where are the kids who play matches practising? On the streets and anywhere else they can find space. Apparently people even try to break into the field to play! Langa could be harbouring the next generation of Bafana Bafana players and yet someone has come up with rules like these. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

Our project co-coordinator, Frida, had a meeting with the board (of the soccer section only - she has to have another meeting with another board re the hockey field) and pointed out the folly of this arrangement (her petite status belies a fierce determination to get this project off the ground). So we now await the decision of the council. In the meantime, I am thinking of practising my toyi-toyi! 

Yo soy Espanol!

Yo soy Espanol! Yo soy Espanol! 

I am Spanish - or I was on Wednesday, anyway, when we beat Germany and booked a seat in the final. It felt good to win for a change. We sat in the midst of a group of enthusiastic Spanish supporters from Madrid and sang and chanted along.

I have this on-going love affair with all things Spanish, and they were always my favourite team to win the World Cup. So decked out in red and yellow, we made our way to the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban. And we were not disappointed. The image of the well-oiled German machine that advanced on Argentina the week before, was not evident. The team seemed somewhat lost and not able to play the same kind of soccer that Spain was playing. It certainly felt good to be singing and dancing to the Waka Waka song afterwards along with everyone else who seemed reluctant to leave the stadium and go back to the real world.

And now there are four teams left and a by the end of tomorrow we would have handed over the baton to Brazil. It has been an incredible journey, not only for soccer, but for the country as a whole. We have done a good job. 

Soccer - still feeling the gees!

720 minutes - that's how much live soccer I have watched since the World Cup began! 

That's not counting the extra time or the travelling to and from stadiums, or to another city. And then I have also watched the games on television and spent time doing "soccer" shopping for the kids - supporters' caps, flags and T-shirts. Then there has been the poster up on my son's wall to record the results and speculate about the progress. Plus all the talking about the games and the behaviour on and off the pitch...There's also the visitors who have popped up from Australia, the US and Sweden, who we are entertaining. 

I would never have believed that it could be so consuming. It has been refreshing, though to see how other sports have made way for soccer in the media. So many people play the game but it has always been relegated to the news after rugby or cricket. 

There are already positive ripples in the tourism industry. I read in news that we normally have about 300 visitors from Mexico in a normal year but over this period we have around 15 000! If a fraction of them come back to visit we would have thousands more than usual. Hopefully that applies to all the other soccer tourists here at the moment and we will reap the benefits of a boost to the economy. Some restaurants are complaining that they are not as busy as usual, or as they expected to be, during this period. I wonder if locals are staying away from the hot-spots, like the Waterfront in Cape Town, as they fear that it will be too busy.

So now we are gearing up for the quarter and semi-finals in the next week. all of them are promising to be interesting, especially with the upsets that have happened so far: Italy and France have already made the journey home. I am starting to feel like a child when the holiday has been so good and you don't want it to end and go back to school. I hope we can hold on to the gees just a little bit longer!