Friday, June 11, 2010

My nod to the World Cup

Today begins the 2010 World Cup of soccer. I imagine Colombia is going to be swept up in a wave of collective television-watching for the new few weeks, even though our national team didn't make the cut.

I've never been much of a soccer fan. My upbringing in the US was influenced by our more typical sports--basketball especially, but also US football and a bit of baseball. In general though I've never liked watching sports as much as playing them.

All this said, I really enjoyed watching the occasional World Cup game in summer of 2006, when I was living in Spain. As I was finishing up my masters degree a few years ago, I made dreamy plans with fellow classmates from Africa that perhaps Caro and I could make a grand tour of southern Africa in 2010 and end up in South Africa to see some soccer. That's not going to happen, at least not this year, not this World Cup. I don't even know if I'll have time to watch much, but I'm sure many public spaces (stores, family get-togethers, etc.) will be filled with widescreen TVs blaring soccer matches, so I'll at least be able to follow the action from afar.

Anyway, I wanted to mark the occasion of this big event with an article from Raj Patel on South Africa's shantydwellers and their attempts to make themselves seen during this, South Africa's big PR blitz.

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