Wednesday was an interesting day. A Malaysian documentary crew came to film our office for a series on South Africa they are putting together. When I say documentary, I mean more of a staged, somewhat true representation of what is actually happening – we did multiple takes of each scene. They had two of their crew, decked out in soccer jerseys, carrying duffel bags and soccer balls, walk around the office and ask us at each of our seats questions about GRS, what we were working on, etc. When the camera came to Sarah and me, we conveniently had the GRS webpage open and were able to drop some names. I’m excited to see the final result: Rosie dubbed over with Malaysian subtitles. I’m finally living my fifteen minutes of fame.
After the filming wrapped for the day, we headed over to UPE, the local university, where Bafana was training before their match on Saturday against Japan. It was really cool to see them so closely…there wasn’t much in the way of security or barriers, so we hung out in the stands at the stadium for awhile, watching them run counter-attacking drills, and then free kicks. 
This was the first game back for Perreira, their former Brazilian coach who left the team last year when his wife got sick in Brazil. Their coach from that point last year up until about a month ago was another Brazilian, Santana, who was sacked after they lost nine international matches since the Confederations Cup in the summer. Friday was pretty uneventful…I paid my first speeding ticket – R80 (about $11). If only they were that cheap in the States. 
Saturday was great. We took a cab downtown to the stadium, which we had yet to see. I was excited that our first experience inside would be at a Bafana game, and there had been a lot of build-up to the game, so we were ready for a huge crowd and loads of vuvuzelas (those horns people were blowing throughout the duration of the Confederations Cup). We walked in to pumping house music and painted-up fans waving South African flags, dancing and singing. It was insane. The stadium is beautiful, with a roof that people here describe as looking like a pumpkin. It seats 46,000 and 44,000 were in attendance for the match, so it was almost a full house. We wandered around for a bit, trying to find some of the coaches who said they’d meet us there. We found them 5 rows up from midfield – pretty good for R30 tickets.
We watched as the teams entered the field to a thunderous crowd cheering for Bafana as they enetered to the beat of the music. They ran what we called at Colby a Swedish warm up: 4 even lines going back and forth across the field doing dynamic stretches, clapping, twisting etc. It’s a good way to warm up, but more importantly, when done right, looks badass. Everyone in the lines was in sync and moving to the beat of the music. Had they played the way they warmed up, they would have crushed Japan. Following the warm up, the teams changed in the locker rooms and came back out for the national anthems. I think this was my favorite part of the day. The lyrics of SA’s national anthem are a combination of Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans, and English, drawing from the hymn “Nkosi Skilelel’ iAfrika” and the previous national anthem “Die Stern van Suid-Afrika.” The history of the anthem is really interesting, as the hymn was originally sung in church, but was later used to defy the apartheid government. The Afrikaans anthem was sung with “God Save the Queen” until 1957, and then alone until 1995 when Nelson Mandela adopted both anthems. The songs were merged in 1997, forming the current national anthem:
(Xhosa) Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo,
(Zulu) Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo
(Sesotho) Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho,
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso,
Setjhaba sa.
(English) South Africa, South Africa!
(Afrikaans) Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee,
(English) Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.
Translation:
God bless Africa
May her glory be lifted high
Hear our petitions
God bless us, Your children
God we ask You to protect our nation
Intervene and end all conflicts
Protect us, protect our nation, our nation
From the blue of our heaven,
From the depths of our sea,
Over our eternal mountain ranges,
Where the cliffs give answer,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.
National anthems usually make me tear up a bit, but this one was particularly special. It was amazing listening to 44,000 people singing together. One of the coaches grabbed out hands and slapped them over our hearts while we listened. It was a pretty emotional couple of minutes, and I was really happy in that moment to be where I am.
The game was a little disappointing, South Africa playing pretty flat and not having much spark in their play. We expected with their newly returned coach and this being the second to last international friendly before the Africa Nations Cup that they’d be fired up to play, but that wasn’t the case. They managed to keep it scoreless, though – better than losing. We’re all hoping they pull themselves together and are ready when the World Cup rolls around, but we’ll have to wait and see for that one.
All in all, pretty great weekend. We had a lazy day on Sunday and went out to the Maitlands, a nature reserve about 30 minutes from where we life. It’s a beautiful stretch of rocky coastline and sand dunes, and we had a great afternoon jumping off the dunes and gearing up for this week.
Love to everyone,
Rosie
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