The Kelefors

During our week in Johannesburg, we were without phone or Internet connection, so the laptop was barely been opened. Lots to tell, including this final entry about the football…

We saw six matches in all in South Africa and they seemed to get better and better. The first was a dull affair, a nil-nil draw in Cape Town between France and Uruguay. In hindsight, we witnessed the beginning of the end for the French, who have proven to be a group of talented individuals in search of a team. They were the first of the favorites scratched off my list of possible Cup winners. Next came the US-England draw in Rustenburg (I wrote about this one earlier), and while the English might blame the Jabulani ball for their woes, I was inclined to think that the US came to play.

After a safari stint, we spent a week in Jozi and got to attend four matches and see three real contenders: Argentina, Brazil and Spain. Argentina simply outran South Korea in a 4-1 rout. Gonzalo Higuain got the glory with a hat-trick, but I’ll remember the play of Tevez and Messi, who hounded the Korean defense relentlessly. One of the ESPN writers, Jeff Bradley, got it exactly right in an article about Messi: you have to see him in person. “Television doesn’t do him justice.” I was also pleasantly reminded of the pride, spirit, and humor of the Argentinian fans. They got loud when it really mattered, singing above the din of the vuvuzelas. And they sold their own tee-shirts, superimposing Maradona’s hair onto Messi’s face, with the motto: “The legend continues!”

Several days later, Brazil took Ivory Coast to football school, demonstrating how the game is played when you’re really out to win. And they have one other advantage: everyone likes a winner. In addition to all the folks who trekked from Sao Paolo to Johannesburg, there were throngs of “Brazilians” who donned the yellow and green to root for the champions all across the Soccer City Stadium (which is a gem). I was pulling for the Elephants myself, but even in an African city, the orange shirts were few and far between.

Then there was Spain, or as I’m taking to calling them, David Villa & Friends. They were slick as you like, and they got a good result against Honduras, but the real story of this match was the appalling lack of depth of the CONCACAF region (that’s where the US and Mexico hail from). With all due respect to my Central American friends, Honduras just didn’t belong at the tournament… and I think that’s the only team about whom I would make that assessment. I wonder if it would have been any different had Costa Rica made it through.

Tucked in the middle of this soccer week was our second US match, this one against Slovenia. Again, we got to sit with the American faithful and again we got to witness a horrible start. By half-time, I was downright embarrassed. They were just pathetic. And yes, we also got to witness one of the great comebacks of World Cup history, with Landon Donovan jawing at his teammates to step it up. And yes, we were already jumping with joy by the time the ref mysteriously called back our winner. But, really! Down 0-2 at half-time to Slovenia? Maybe the US didn’t come to play after all. (We were on a plane for the Algeria thriller and I was stomping around my living room during the Ghana match. Not sure where I land on the overall performance; still thinking about it.)

From a football perspective, I couldn’t ask for more from our World Cup experience. Take out the France-Uruguay sleeper and we saw five cracking games, seventeen goals, a thrilling come-back, and a parade of many of the best players in the world, some of whom even lived up to their billing.

Besides being committed to the beautiful game, we’re committed to learning more about daily life in South Africa for people unlikely to ever attend a match. Our recent connections through IDEX with the Whole World Women Association in Cape Town illuminated the troubling and heart-braking circumstances of women and families struggling to re-establish their lives in South Africa.

Historically Cape Town has been an international crossroads, with a permanent Dutch settlement in 1652 pushing the indigenous Khoina (originally from Botswana) from their ancestral land. The slaves brought to the Cape were from Malaysia and other parts of southern and eastern Africa (e.g. modern day Madagascar, Somalia). A more recent wave of immigrants to Cape Town, as we learned from WWWA project coordinator Mary Tal, includes African immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Uganda, Cameroon and Zimbabwe, displaced by war, economic hardship, the threat of female circumcision and political conflict. The WWWA, founded in 2002 as a self-help and support group to refugee women and their families, provides women with knowledge, resources and referrals to alleviate their struggle to establish themselves in new circumstances. It is an advocacy organization seeking to develop a more tolerant society through various means, including writing workshops. Several of the women have published their poetry and autobiographies. We met Epiphanie Mukasano, a former teacher who fled Rwanda in 1994 with her husband and three children seeking a place where human rights were respected. Recent xenophobic attacks and less blatant discrimination have made the transition to South Africa painfully difficult for many women, as the following poem by Ephiphanie Mukasano reveals:

I am the woman

you despised the other day

throwing out wicked words

which cut like a sharp knife

I am that woman

at whom you threw burning pots

and whose clothes you scornfully tore away

chasing me with a broom out of your house

I am the woman

who wandered naked

in the dark street

wondering where to go

I am the woman

full of scars, but

I do not hold a grudge

Today I am stretching out my hand

Will you take it?

Published in Living on the Fence: Poems by Women Who are Refugees from Various Countries in Africa, compiled and edited by Mary Magdalene Yuin Tal and Anne Schuster.

Out of the struggle comes fortitude and at times an astonishing capacity for forgiveness. Adela and I attended part of a half-day workshop sponsored by WWWA and a partner NGO, Magnet Theatre Productions, where a talented group of women planned and choreographed an event for World Refugee Day to foster awareness of refugee issues through spoken word, dance and song. As we sang and danced with them, as we read their poems, we are honored to be a small part of the community and collective spirit nurtured by WWWA for the betterment of us all.

At times, a tie can feel like a win. And so it was for us walking out of the Royal Bafokeng stadium in Rustenburg after the US held off England’s late barrage and secured a 1-1 draw in its opening match of the World Cup. For me, it was far and away the best World Cup match I have ever attended. We sat amidst chanting and cheering American fans. Across the stadium, a banner said, simply, “1776, 1812, 1950, 2010.” 1950 was the last time the US beat England in a World Cup match; the other dates you’ll have to figure out for yourself. We may have been outnumbered by English flags, but we felt mighty.

Then the players arrived on the field. For England, a veritable all-star team. Rooney. Lampard. Gerrard. Cole. Stars for their respective top flight teams. For Dylan and me, having watched them on TV week in, week out, it was daunting to see them next to the US players. Donovan. Dempsey. Altidore. Howard. No slouches, to be sure. But could they keep up with the top players in the game?

The match started brightly and when England opened up the American defense for an early goal right in front of us, it looked to be a long night. But the defense tightened up, the offense got dangerous, and England’s keeper made a horror show of a Clint Dempsey shot; the ball squeaked under him and rolled quietly across the goal line. The Joburg paper called it a “galactic clanger.” 1-1, in any case. All square.

The second half brought more chances for England than for the U.S. but we held our breath as Jozy Altidore muscled off England defender Jamie Carragher and rifled a shot off the keeper’s hand and the crossbar. A collective groan went up from our section, quickly followed by cheers of anticipation and appreciation. Most among the American faithful were begging for a win, expecting nothing less. But I knew what a draw would mean – a valuable point toward the second round and bragging rights against one of the top teams in the world – and was quietly hoping for the clock to reach 90 minutes. As the end neared, I found myself screaming at the referee to blow his whistle. When he finally did, my cheer was the loudest. And even with the weight of a tired girl on my back, the long walk back to the car felt like floating on air. ¡Olé!