June 11: South Africa v. Mexico

It is nearly impossible to be able to attach words to the experience here. For the opening match I found myself sitting on the beach listening to the waves crashing and watching South Africa play Mexico in the opening match with 25,000 other vuvuzela blowing fans all dressed in their Bafana Bafana gear- yes 25,000- and no I didn't add a few zeros. As everyone knows now South Africa played incredibly and despite having some opportunities to win ended up tieing Mexico in a huge game- much to the credit of their keeper Khune who played incredibly. Well only a few days earlier I was less than 3 feet away from Khune when I was in Soweto on Vilikazi street (the only street in the world where two Nobel Peace Prize winners live-more on this experience in a different post) and he was in his car leaving church.

Well the real experience encompassed so much more than just watching a soccer match. Walking into the viewing park you are greeted by hundreds of police who are searching your bag and patting you down-if you fit a certain racial profile. Needless to say the 5'0" small white american girl did not fit that profile.

I found myself watching person after person go through and the same groups of people receiving the same security check. I can't say that I am necessarily surprised but to see the racial profiling so bluntly and obviously right in front of my face was incomprehendable.


Once inside you enter this massive fan city with food vendors, soda and beer vendors, and a huge tv all on the Durban beach. You can sit in cement bleachers on the one side or stand directly in front of the tv on the sand. On the way to find my confortable overcrowded standing place for the next few hours I saw thousands of fans interacting.

The most interesting of these interactions was the white south africans forming circles with the Zulu South Africans and learning a traditional Zulu dance and dancing together. This was not just an isolated group either but many different sections of this same interaction was happening. I saw people of all races contesting who could blow their vuvuzela louder. The cross cultural interaction between South Africans of different races but also between foreigners and locals was exciting to say the least.


One example and definitely one of the funniest quotes so far: While I was in line this older Australian guy and I were chatting about soccer and Australia. I was mentioning being at the VB cricket final in Brisbane and seeing Ponting hit a century. Well this man looked at me stunned grabbed his friends together and said "this American is telling me about the VB cricket finals and seeing Ponting hit a century- bloody hell what kind of American are you?"