Year 2 - Week 26: Bafana Bafana!

I'm going to do everyone a favor and skip over the vast majority of this week. From Sunday until Wednesday, I made my way down from Vilanculos to Maputo. We were scheduled to leave Maputo for Pretoria on an overnight bus. We're not really supposed to travel on the roads here at night. But given the choice between being on the roads at night or being in unfamiliar South Africa at night, we figured that driving was the better option.

For the first time since we've been here, we took a luxury bus. I must say: if I could do it all over again, I would take these buses everywhere. Yes, they are more expensive, but they are far more comfortable. People weren't crammed into every nook and cranny. Plus with the overnight hotel, we didn't have to pay for a hotel. That said, neither of us slept at all.

We arrived, red-eyed, in Pretoria around 6:30. The first thing we noticed was the Pretoria was freezing. Pretoria sits at a pretty high elevation. In the dead of winter -- as in, right now -- it gets under ten degrees Celsius. Flip flops were a bad choice. The second thing we noticed was that Pretoria is awfully dark at 6:30 in the morning, much darker than Maputo at 6:30. We thought about it for a second and it makes sense. Pretoria and Maputo, though separated by a good couple hundred miles, share a time zone. The sun makes its way up early off the Indian Ocean but doesn't rise over Pretoria until much later.

So there we were, in a city we've never been in, and it's still somewhat dark. The only thing that we really had going for us is that just about everybody in the area speaks English. Though a little tentative to stop to ask for help, we were left little choice. Everybody was extraordinarily helpful. As it turned out, we only had to walk about five minutes to get a mini-bus.

If weather and darkness were the first things we noticed, than the third thing we noticed were the roads. Or rather, we didn't notice our mini-bus shaking after every single pothole. Why? you ask. Because on the main highways, there were no potholes. The highways -- with proper overpasses and offramps and on-ramps and all -- are maintained immaculately. The ride between Pretoria and Rustenburg that should have taken an hour took...an hour. I could get used to this.

Once in town, we had three priorities: finding food, finding some American flag gear, and getting to our beds. The second of these priorities was shockingly simple. We walked passed a Chinese-run store that had American flag bandanas. Absolutely, we had to buy those. Then, miraculously, we came across a burger place called Yanky's. The place was covered in red, white, and blue, and besides wanted some delicious cheeseburgers, we felt obligated to go to a place that displayed such American pride. The burger, by the way, was phenomenal. It was ground meat and a real burger bun, two delicacies apparently foreign to Mozambique.'

The most difficult part of the trip -- of the whole trip, really -- was getting from the town to our hostel. The website said it was just one kilometer from town. Problem is, Rustenburg is not small, and there were no directions or signs on how to get there. We called the people and found a very nice taxi driver named Thuli. We put the two of them on the phone together and we got things worked out.

The place where we stayed -- Rustenburg Safari Camp -- was, I don't know, interesting. First of all, there was not a single sign for the place. It was buried way in the middle of a small-game reserve and they were extraordinarily disorganized. Instead of having a shared six-person dorm tent, we had a two-person tent with small bed mats. This was fine by us. I was just in no mood to deal with this shit, considering that I had been up for twenty-nine consecutive hours when we arrived. If I had any energy left in me, I probably would have snapped.

If we were smart, we would have napped. But Richie and I aren't very smart. Instead, we decided to rally and went down to the Fan Fare in town. Every host city in South Africa has set up an area with a monster TV and stage so people can watch games together. Also of note was a beer garden serving delicious Castle Lager.

Thousands of people clad in yellow and green showed up to watch Bafana Bafana -- South Africa's team name -- play against Mexico, a pretty good team. With the exception of the last ten minutes, Mexico absolutely dominated the first half. South Africa rode the momentum into the second half and, with a pinpoint accurate shot to the top-right corner, scored the opening goal. The place exploded. Dancing commenced. Fans blew vavaluzas (remarkably loud horns) to the point that everyone's ears hurt. But no one cared: South Africa was ahead. If only they could have held on. South Africa surrendered a goal soon after, and the game ended in a tie at one. Still, most everyone was satisfied with the tie.

Also of note during this time: being the idiots that we are, Richie and I went to the game decked out in our America gear. This drew us some fair attention. Before the game, while we were introducing ourselves to beer, a film crew wanted to ask us about the US-England game. That was cool. Then minutes later, a gorgeous woman from Al-Jazeera Americas also wanted to interview us. They managed to find the two people at this game who know almost nothing about soccer. We bullshitted our way through it.

On the way back, there was a movement to go to McDonald's. If you ask me, McDonald's is not the best fast-food. There are at least four other fast-food places that I would prefer. But here was McDonald's, and I was hungry. I once again indulged in a cheeseburger (are you noticing a theme?). If McDonald's is that good every time you go twenty months without, I think I'll wait until 2012 to go again.

To say that we slept well, inspite of the frigid conditions, would be a massive understatement. And it was a good thing. We had a huge day ahead of us on Saturday. Our first priority was to get more America gear. A simple flag bandana wouldn't cut it. I got myself one of those scarves that soccer fans always have. Richie went big and got a hat, t-shirt, and glasses. After shopping, I was hoping to get some money from the bank, but a strange thing happened: my ATM card wasn't working. I tried bank after bank but everything failed. Shitty. Thankfully, Richie pulled out a ton of money, allowing me to bum loans.

After watching the first game of the day -- a win for South Korea against Greece -- Richie and I, along with about sixty other people, started to make our way toward the stadium. It's a good thing we left when we did. The cars could only take ten people at a time and the traffic was starting to build up.

We got to the stadium around 5:30 for the 8:30 match between England and the United States. Of all the opening round games, this is probably the second best game, with only the Portugal-Brazil match out-doing it. England fans showed up in huge numbers, but the U.S. side would not go unheard. About a quarter of the 40,000 ticket holders were Americans. While we waited for the game to started, we gorged ourselves on hot dogs and Budweiser. How American.

Prior to arriving in South Africa, our friends told us that we had good seats. They were the last row of the stadium, but they were still amazing. The stadium was not huge -- 18 rows in the first bowl, 27 in the second bowl. If you're going to be in the last row of the stadium, you want that stadium to be in Rustenburg. The weather cooperated with us, not quite dipping to ten degrees. We would have to drink plenty of beer to keep us warm.

The game started right on time, and it did not start in a promising manner for the Americans. Five minutes in, the entire defense pretty much stopped playing, allowing England to score. Watching England come down the field is a little like watching the Red Wings skate up the ice or the Patriots march down toward the endzone. You feel like every time they crack midfield, they could score.

The American side appeared unfazed by the goal. If anything, they became more focused. The defense stood up nicely and they were getting plenty of chances on the offensive side. Finally, forty minutes into the game, Clint Dempsey fired a shot go from forever away. The ball hit the English goalkeeper in the hands, then trickled into the net. I don't think the ball even hit the net: the ball barely made it across the line. Either way, the game was tied at one, and it would remain there until time expired.

Under normal circumstances, most people would be unhappy with tie. The only people who were unhappy were all the English fans. They were huge favorites. No doubt, they should have won. American fans, on the other hand, were all thrilled with a tie. Of course a win would have been great -- a second half shot off the post robbed victory -- but we were thrilled that we could hang with the English.

In all, the whole World Cup experience was pretty incredible. Watching the South Africa game with South Africans actually gave me chills. It was probably the best part of the weekend for me. We met a lot of cool people from around the world, including other Peace Corps Volunteers from South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. And in general, everyone was in good spirits. I don't know if I'll ever make it to another World Cup, but I'm very happy that I made it to this one.