I woke up this morning feeling completely disoriented: I looked around my room at res and couldn’t figure out where I was. Then I turned on the hot water tap and my fingers nearly froze and I thought: “Aah, home sweet home…”.
The inevitable has happened: the World Cup is over, and life must return to normal. Radio stations are going to have to find other songs for their playlists- songs which don’t contain the phrases “wave your flag” or “this time for Africa”, or even “2010”- because that’s all we’ve been hearing for the past month or so and as patriotic as I try to be, there were times when I wished I could just sream at how cliched the whole thing had become.
And the TV stations are probably going to squeeze some more money out of all the advertising campaigns that have been on a loop during the World Cup. Who knew poverty and ill-education were such lucrative prospects? I mean, don’t get me wrong: I understand how important education is, and someone out there (if not every single one of us) should be doing something about it. Visit join1goal.org to sign your name for a noble cause.
I suppose it’s my cynicism about the way celebrities’ endeavours in philanthropy are so highly publicised: it makes it seem like they’re not serious about what they’re doing. This is why everytime I see the 1Goal ad on TV I just want to flip channels. The sad thing is I’m probably not the only one who feel this way, and if enough people are as cynical and reluctant to show support as I am, it could hurt the credibility of the campaign…
Another thing which the World Cup brought us was the thousands and thousands of overseas soccer enthusiasts who set foot on our shores to witness this great tournament. They showed us their crazy match day customs with their funny wigs, warcries and other ‘rituals’ and did not seem to be bothered by the cold June weather at all, as some of New Zealand’s male soccer fans proved when they took their t-shirts off and waved them over the heads as a show of support during one of the group matches.
Those more cynical than I am will probably be heard complaining about how these same tourists are to blame for the increase in prices of almost everything- from groceries to accommodation to clothing- but I don’t really think they had much to do with that…?
Either way, for the short time that they were here, overseas soccer supporters made South Africa an even more festive and exciting place to be than it usually is and, even though I never had any direct contact with any of them, I’m going to miss the impact they had on our lives.
At the beginning of the tournament, I wasn’t really all that excited. I’m not a soccer fan. I don’t understand the offside rule, and even after my dad explained the points system to me, it made no sense. My family wouldn’t let me off the hook, though, so I watched the evening matches. I soon discovered that rules weren’t the only thing about soccer: it was also fun watching the referee and the players get into arguments- I wondered which language the foreign nationals were shouting at each other in? And the acting in some of these matches: I now know that it is possible to be tapped on your shoulder and tumble down screaming in pain because you think you’ve hurt your ankle. It’s even probable that you’ll get awarded a penalty (or whatever it’s called) for it.
The World Cup had the world’s brains set on “crazy” for a whole month, and it was fun, but now that it’s over it’s going to be difficult to get back to our daily routines.
I myself am going to take things slowly for at least the first week: practice getting out of bed early (because breakfast at 12:55 just doesn’t cut it in the real world), find new topics to discuss with friends and try desperately to get the lyrics to all the various “official World Cup songs” out of my head.
And while I’m doing that I think I’ll take a crack at finding a new slogan for that “Feel it…” guy. I’m thinking of “Did you see it? It’s gone”…
Nkhensani Manabe 