Feel It? It's Here!

"Feel it! It’s here!” is the tagline for the South African World Cup experience. You see and hear it everywhere. It’s another way of saying, "Show, don't tell." 

From the moment visitors to South Africa land at our crowded airports, they feel FIFA FEVA! I wish you could all experience this for yourselves. So I thought I would take you all on a brief trip to a World Cup match in my home town of Port Elizabeth (PE).

As we leave the airport, cars whizz by flying national flags. We drive along newly widened roads. Flags flutter from fences, hang in windows of houses and buildings and festoon the front of shops and hotels. I park the car near the beach and we get out to walk.

The heavily-guarded four and five-star hotels which cater for the teams when they’re in PE, overlook the sea. So the beach front, shopping centre, and pavements (sidewalks) are abuzz with foreigners and locals, mostly arrayed in festive outfits and national colours.

The day of your visit is the day the Portuguese team play Ivory Coast, and both these nations are colourful in appearance and behaviour. Everyone we pass greets us with big smiles, laughs, cheers, and friendly comments.

You especially notice the friendliness of the people clad in the green and gold of South Africa as they wish you and other visitors "Good luck!". They are showing you "Ubuntu" - the African philosophy that we are all inter-related, and cannot live without one another.

Someone near you yells, "Ayoba!" and several shout back. This slang term expresses excitement and delight. Before the World Cup, this referred to good dancing, but it’s obviously become a soccer byword.  You jump as a taxi zooms past. A passenger leans from the window blowing a raucous plastic trumpet. It's the infamous vuvuzela. The constant buzzing of hornets you heard on your TV back home is nothing like the real thing. To your surprise, you notice many of the foreigners carry vuvuzelas.

Up ahead, you recognise the familiar smell of KFC. Along the beach front, vendors tout traditional South African food. It’s been a long time since breakfast. You eye a "curry bunny", relieved to see that it's actually curried mince that oozes from a vetkoek, a South African version of the old fashioned Dutch olliebollen. You trace a pungent smoky smell to what looks like beef sausage (which you learn is boerewors, a spicy traditional sausage) sizzling on an open barbecue (or braai as it’s called here.)

You can’t resist the smells any more. You pull money from your pocket and try to figure out how many rands and cents you need and how it translates into your money back home. The vendor spoons a cooked tomato and onion sauce over the wors, and you're ready to go.

We join a long queue of excited people of all colours and nationalities to buy our tickets for the Park-and-Ride. Half-an-hour later, we climb onto the shuttle with concertina-like joined coaches. From the excitement of the locals you realise these are new acquisitions to the city, especially bought for the World Cup.

The chatter, the laughter, the sharing of experiences, and yes, even the odd vuvuzela, makes this the most exciting, and noisiest, bus trip you have ever experienced. A loud cheer goes up, accompanied by more blasts of several vuvu-you-know-whats, as a bus bearing one of the teams drives past with a police escort, sirens wailing.

After a 15-minute bus ride, and a 20-minute walk along with thousands of others, we finally enter the stadium. Heavily armed police dressed in riot-garb stand at every entrance, guns to the ready. No one seems worried, so you decide not to be either.

Security is very high throughout the country, as South Africa is determined to ensure the safety of all its guests. Inside the stadium, a massive ring of security guards, dressed in orange, stand with their backs to the field, their eyes fixed on the spectators. They are not permitted to even glance at the game at any point. Remembering some of the disastrous moments in world sport, you feel relief. Here, in a country reputed to be high in crime and violence, you feel safe.

The beautiful world-class new stadium is packed. Before long, a roar from the crowd welcomes the teams as they jog onto the field.

They stand to attention in front of their flags. Silence—a blessed vuvuzela-free silence—falls across the stadium as the national anthems of the two teams blaze out from the gigantic speakers. Any person playing the vuvuzela during a national anthem will be immediately removed from the stadium and heavily fined.

You insert your earplugs as deep as possible.They don't block out the sound of the vuvuzelas, but they muffle it and protect your hearing. At one point you remove one to say something to me, then jolt in alarm at the explosion of sound which hits your eardrum. You hastily push it back into position, and soon master the art of shouting into my also-plugged ear.

The combined noise of the vuvuzelas is deafening—literally. The decibel level is such that spectators have been repeatedly warned through the media to wear good ear plugs to protect their hearing. But it is also magical. It is thrilling. And it is African. The African World Cup experience wouldn't be the same without vuvuzelas. At least there is no litter. No bottle-throwing. No unruly spectators. Despite the huge excited crowd of over 40,000 people, you don't feel threatened.

"La-doooooo-mah!" screams the crowd. The Portuguese thought they had scored a goal. A loud groan goes up at the realisation that the kicker was offside, and the goal doesn't count. You've learned another African word. "Laduma" is the word of celebration when a goal is scored.

A Mexican wave starts at the far side of the stadium and does three circuits of the entire crowd before petering out. At half-time, Zakumi, the S.A. World Cup mascot, walks along the bottom of the stands, waving and blowing kisses. People shout and wave back.

At the end of the game we join the masses as they return to the shuttles. No matter who's won or lost, everyone seems happy. An accidental shove, a hand reaching out to stop you falling, laughter, numb behinds from sitting too long, and oh yes—still the occasional vuvuzela. It’s all part of FIFA FEVA.

Ayoba! Feel it? It’s here!

Have you attended a function where all the senses were in abundance? Please tell us.
(For some great of photos of the "about town" excitement, see Ruth’s post a few days ago.)

SHIRLEY M. CORDER is an RN, a pastor’s wife, mother, grandmother and multi-published freelance writer. You can contact Shirley through her website or follow her on Twitter.

Flags and Vuvuzelas

Hi. Ruth Ann here. Welcome to my photo tour. We're visiting South Africa during the build up to the FIFA World Cup and the first few matches.
Hi, Aspiring Writer here. I'm accompanying Ruth Ann to give my point of view as we go along.


Signs heralding the World Cup have been in evidence everywhere for months. Flags flutter on cars, bicycles, taxis, buses, buildings, highways, walls, poles, trees, gates. . .  They adorn clothes, finger nails, false eyelashes, sunglasses, cakes, vuvuzelas, shops, markets, menus. . .
World Cup merchandise is on sale at street corners, traffic lights and flea markets as well as in shops, supermarkets and malls. . .
Vuvuzelas blare at all hours of the night and day.
Photos of  bird-shaped seed pods, bees clambering through jacaranda blossoms, beaded  ornaments and other harbingers of an emerging story world fill the memory card of my camera. 
Ever increasing numbers of characters roam through the landscape of my imagination.

On the 11th June I wake up while it is still dark to the blasting of a vuvuzela outside my house. The great day has arrived.
Someone emerges from the throng of characters. He announces that he has heard the 'call to adventure' and asks if I'll tell his story.

Later in the day I sally out to take photos—here's a happy pair setting out to enjoy the World Cup experience.

I offer to write a novel about his journey and my would-be hero sets out.

The next photo, taken inside the Loftus Stadium at one of the first matches, is used with the permission of photographer Derek of Just Footprints Foundation. Derek asks "Where's William?" He describes William as the Ghana soccer supporter in the red and yellow supporter's shirt. He's sitting in block MM, rowJ, seat 74. Can you see him? No, I can't find him either.

I've lost my hero! I can't pick him out in the crowd. The characters all look the same—they're ho-hum.

Of course, it's important to dress appropriately to show which team you support and to add to the vibe reverberating through the country.
Maybe I'll find my hero if I give him clothes fit for his quest.

Just look at all these soccer players! What wonderful memorabilia.
I find him! But he's so wooden—in fact he's a stereotype.

Even the people hard at work join in the excitement and fun.
I give my hero a real job and a goal in life.

Zakumi, the official World Cup mascot, has been sighted all over South Africa. His feet look somewhat grubby in this photo. The hospitable leopard has dyed his hair green--he feels it's the perfect camouflage against the green of the football pitch. 

Aha! Heroes are generally reputed to have feet of clay, so I give mine a flaw. I also add a quirk or two.

At first I think these are yellow bushes or flowers growing next to the highway. As we draw closer I realise they are hands, and each one says, "Ayoba!"  Ayoba means cool and describes the atmosphere in South Africa.

 My hero's come to life and there's only one word to describe him. Ayoba!

Christians have prayed that people from all over the world will be reached with the gospel during the World Cup. Here my friend, Marilyn, shows the flag she made to use in her church's outreach program.

I pray that God will use the words I write to help people to know Him better.

Yesterday the last match of the final 16 teams was played. On Friday it'll be time to put on my Makarapa (soccer headgear unique to South Africa) and watch the quarter-finals. I wonder who'll go through to the semi-finals.

And now I'll don my Writer's Hat and settle down with my laptop to write my hero's story. I wonder what adventures he's going to have.

I hope you enjoyed visiting South Africa at this exciting time. Please come back to our blog on July 8 when Shirl Corder will be sharing some writing insights about her World Cup experiences and posting more photos.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my hero. I'll update you on his adventures in a future blog.