The World Cup is here. Well, almost. One week until kick-off of the first Cup on the African continent. But, our journey begins today with a marathon flight from San Francisco to Singapore and then on to Cape Town. As luck would have it, Dylan and Adela met a couple of kids – Dominic and Rosie – in the security line and became fast friends. Down the jet way, I watched Adela holding hands with Rosie and overheard her say, “We love each other, right?†Seems like an auspicious start to the trip.
For weeks now, we have been bursting in anticipation of our adventure in South Africa. Dylan has been deeply obsessed with the Cup itself, assiduously considering the odds of various teams advancing to the knockout rounds and making it to the final in Johannesburg. Jeannette set him on a project to create cards for each of the 32 teams in the tournament, drawing the flags, maps, and jerseys and filling in information about the best player and a few demographic tidbits. He not only completed it, but also had the cards laminated, spent hours sorting them, and packed them away with pride into his travel bag. His resulting store of soccer and geography facts is impressive, matched only by his insatiable thirst for more news and analysis of the teams.
Adela, I think, is viewing the experience as one grand playdate. She is highly motivated about anything that gets her out of school, so the prospect of a three-week hiatus holds real appeal. The animals that we will see in Madikwe are a draw, too, and I won’t be surprised if she asks to live in the game reserve forever.
For Jeannette, the trip is a return to southern Africa. Thirteen years ago, she brought 10 high school students to Zimbabwe on a truly ambitious exchange program, one that probably transformed several lives. Now, amidst the soccer mania, she is making sure that our time in South Africa connects us to the culture there. Through contacts at the International Development Exchange, Jeannette has managed to have us visit with several non-profit organizations working to improve the lives and status of women.
And me? After watching the last two Cups on the small screen, the prospect of being dipped into the World Cup experience is a return of sorts, or perhaps a chance to mark the passage of time. In Italy in ’90, my Cup was about stepping out into the world alone for the first time. In ’94, it was about (naively) believing that my sport would finally catch fire in the US. In ’98, appropriately in France, was about sharing soccer with my true love. Now, with the kids old enough to travel well, 2010 seems destined to be about passing the beautiful game on to them.