Month: June 2010

So just to get it out of the way I will talk about the USA loss in Rustenburg against Ghana. The simple summation of the game is we had chances and didn’t finish, they had three clear cut chances and finished two. Simple as that. I may be in the minority saying Jozy played well this tournament, but I cannot deny he needs to improve immensely. At the end of the day, strikers are there to score goals, his hold up play, foul winning, and chance creation was very good, but he never finished. We really missed having Charlie Davies and a healthy Gooch. I think Dempsey played well in the final game, but it just was not enough. Landon has matured into a world class player, but he needs support. Michael Bradley was excellent in the center of midfield but without a settled partner, he could not develop enough of a creative rhythm. I could continue but 2000 words later no one would read about what I’ve actually been doing.

Funny story, when we met for the US supporters Bus in Nelson Mandela Square, it was hilarious how many British fans were trying to sell us tickets to the match. So arrogant and certain they were going to win the group…hahahaha. (Sorry schadenfreude is all we have left right now.)

The atmosphere before the match was different but fun. The US bus I took stopped a few kilometers away from the stadium at the dive of all dives called “Lucky’s Bar.” Stevan, our awesome bus organizer had to convince the cops to let the bus drive to the bar because security was much tighter for this game than for England-USA. He managed after being threatened with arrest if we drove to the stadium, so we drove to the bar with a police escort. Then 4 hours later drove close to the stadium, no problems! The bar was real Africa. They had a butchery where they sold you the raw meat that you went and braai’d (BBQ’d) yourself. (Knock on wood no adverse effects, I made sure to cook my lamb kebabs and beef boerewors close to a crisp). The atmosphere was great and outside the annoying local hustler trying to get everyone to buy him beer and the high pitched shrieks of “Show them Ghana, Show them” and “Make my circle bigger” (???)–which even makes USA-USA-USA sound halfway creative–it was a great time. We watched the South Korea-Uruguay match thinking the winner would be our next opponent, well too bad for us.

About two hours before the match we drove over nearer to the stadium and parked, with a nice tip to the house owner so that we could park in front of his place. I purchased a US flag on a pvc pipe for R50. Then I nearly lost it to a South African girl who claimed that she was an American fan but she had a Ghana flag painted on her face. I said if she washed off the Ghana flag and found me I’d give her the US flag…she found me. I was done, I had to give up my new flag.

However, I was rescued by a nice American I was talking to. She was there with her husband, her brothers, and some friends and I was joking about what happened and she offered to get my flag back. I flippantly said sure thinking no way, the girl won it fair, I’m not getting it back. Then about a minute later she is walking back with the flag pretending to be both my sister and my girlfriend (she messed up her plan and first claimed girlfriend, then sister, and then tied herself in knots explaining the two) but she somehow managed to get the flag back. I was surprised and nearly dying laughing because the story she was weaving was ridiculous, but I decided I’d keep the flag and give the South African the free Vuvuzela I had just picked up earlier thanks to Castle Lager. Seemed a fair trade, and the yellow matched her Ghana outfit better.

My seats to the match were amazing, 7 rows from the field I was really lucky to have them. In the first match I had the same category of ticket but in a much worse location, 2nd deck on the corner flag. I would have sat behind Shaq standing the whole match if we could have won, but it was a great experience non the less. Left the stadium heartbroken, wondering what could have been.

I’ve posted photos from the pregame and the match here

So in the interest of brevity I will take the next post to update more completely on my research and update on Cape Town. I went to Rosebank Market in Johannesburg last Friday and managed to get 11 different interviews, so I was proud of my industriousness. The answers were a mixed bag, from some feeling very negligible change, to others tripling even increasing 6 times over their sales during the World Cup. The majority were experiencing a benefit, but of varying degree.

I also met an interesting young man, Tedious, who was working the stall because he needed to pay for his school fees. He had to flee Zimbabwe right before his final year of school and so in South Africa no credits transferred and he has to start from the beginning at UNISA. He is going to pursue a tourism management degree. He was the most helpful vendor, actually spoke to me twice with no reservations. But most were nice and willing to speak to me, even though the market was quite busy.

Cape Town update to come. Later yall.

So I will doing an exclusively soccer post tomorrow but I am first going to write about the last couple of days of interviews and my new lodging.

On Monday I went to visit the official FIFA Fan Park at Innes Free Park in Sandton. What I discovered there was quite surprising and disheartening. The Fan Parks in Germany were a huge success and drew many tens even hundreds of thousands of people. According to the vendors, and verified by my own eyes, at the Innes Free Fan Park with the exception of the first Bafana game, maybe a few hundred people were going through the park every day. When I went into the fan park there were fewer than 100 visitors, quite possibly outnumbered by the various support staff and vendors.

I spoke to owners of two food stalls and two craft stalls of officially licensed informal traders. One food vendor “Mo Khan” sold Indian and Pakistani food and had entered into the business with his sister, who actually owned the stall. Mo is actually a driving instructor, but he was helping out at the stall. The other vendor made hallal food. “Ibrahim” owns a butchery/deli and so already had quite a bit of experience.

Both vendors related to me a story of inflated expectations and broken promises. Innes free park is an official FIFA fan park and run by FIFA and MATCH. The business plan presented to the vendors was clearly one of projections and hopes, rather than cold hard facts and realistic expectations. The food vendors each had to pay R15,000 just to rent the space for the entirety of the tournament at the fan park. This included nothing–no tent, no water, no electricity, no refrigeration, no gas. (Bringing all this in cost Ibrahim R32,000, Mo brought in some of this for R10,000). The vendors were promised advertisement/marketing and people through the park. Outside of the first match between Bafana and Mexico–when 20k-30k people came to the park–they have had neither. Ibrahim said he is currently losing R6000 a day because his inventory is sitting unused for the most part. R100,000 in stock most of which he wont be able to save or get rid of.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUCjIOJQbHo&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

Part of the problem with the fan park that I experienced first hand is that there is no parking facilities close by to the park. The signs for parking lead you across the highway a good 5k’s away and in the middle of Alex. For those who do not know Alexandra is one of the roughest townships in Johannesburg. You park your car there with no security (none), say good-bye because it won’t be there when you get back. Twice I tried to park at the actual park and they would not let me, claiming only VIP’s and Disabilities could access the lot. Considering there were 20 cars parked where 5000 could park, I was left just a bit peeved.

What’s especially surprising is that at Melrose Arch, not an official FIFA fan park but an official Public Viewing Area, the place was absolutely packed for the Bafana game against Uruguay. Could barely move. I will return to see how it is for a non South African match, but considering that the Newton public viewing areas have been packed each night as well (second-hand knowledge, will confirm soon) FIFA has really soiled the bed in many ways.

On Tuesday I tagged along with Gumani for a meeting with a potential TEP client, the Sterkfontein Heritage Lodge in the Cradle of Humankind in the West Rand. I would classify the lodge as a small hotel (only 11 rooms) but the overall area as a medium-sized business of many small businesses linked together. For example there is a Bungee jumping concession on the property, a restaurant, and a leadership development/adventure tours concession. In addition, the owners Scoop and Dejong hope to expand their sporting offerings as they already have small sided rugby fields. Listening in on the meeting was interesting and the interview had a much more optimistic and positive bent. They had their criticisms of FIFA, especially the strangle hold over how the country can provide opportunities and how badly MATCH has messed up by returning many rooms to the various accommodation providers who signed up with them. Scoop told me that in the Johannesburg area there was an original estimate of 45,000 rooms/night shortage, when in fact that is probably the surplus number of rooms in the area.

However, both Scoop and Dejong really emphasized the longer term impacts that they feel the World Cup has provided to South Africa. They believe, given conversations with a few of their foreign guests, that South Africa is showcasing itself as a very good business and investment opportunity. People actually see that things can get done in the country, the infrastructure in telecommunications, roads, stadiums, etc… Scoop also mentioned something very interesting, he believes the world cup has proved invaluable for social integration. He pointed as two examples a recent “soccer festival” they held on the lodge property which brought out all types of people of every color creed and socio-economic class, and that during the super 14 rugby final, the Pretoria Bulls played the Cape Town based Stormers in Orlando West at Pirates stadium and the bulls fans (mostly white) were watching the game in Soweto. Dejong disagreed, he believed that the World Cup only highlighted the social integration that was already occurring.

Whatever the case it was an extremely informative interview and worth the drive all the way out there. I unfortunately could not find my camera in my bag so I do not have photos of the second interview but you can see all the photos from the fan park and at Hilton and Caroline’s here.

I have to say I had a lovely time staying with my first host family. They were so hospitable, generous, helpful and warm (even if the house was not) I had a great time. I was so surprised that my time with them had already come to an end. I am now staying with Nicci and Christopher, Luke, and Bongani at their house. I spent the first night borrowing Luke’s room and then moved into the guest room. Wow, their house is absolutely beautiful. If you’re interested in such things I think the design is French Countryside. I will post some photos of the house soon. Chris is an excellent chef and I’ve been eating quite stupendous dinners.

I will post a soccer related post later. Lots and lots of interesting experiences at that match. As a teaser I met one President and another passed right by my face…more details to come!!!

So Monday and Tuesday were my first two days at work. I’m writing this blog post Wednesday because it’s a national holiday June 16th to commemorate the student uprising in Soweto, but more on that later in the post.

My first day at work unfortunately nothing really was accomplished because my boss Mahandra is sick with the Chicken Pox (ow!) and all but one of his field operatives were taking the day off…So it was just me, Batu, and the office assistant Sandra. This was not all bad though as I didn’t make a bad first impression by forgetting to set the beeper on my watch…so my alarm sounded silently–flashing at me while I slept soundly away. I feel justified in explaining that away as Jet lag, it had been non stop go go go since I landed Friday, still adjusting to the 7hrs time difference. So coming in a little later than I wanted did no damage.

My second day at work was really my first as all the other field agents or BDC’s (Business Development Coordinators) were in the office, Ntokozo and Gumani. I had my first two interviews as Ntokozo took me with him into Soweto. We first stopped at a diner and lounge in Diepskloof called Sochila. Interviewed the woman who owned the place. Interesting responses to my questions, it seems FIFA wanted R50,000 from her in order to be an official licensed restaurant and would benefit her by…. She didn’t know how it would help, she said FIFA/MATCH were never clear, so she declined. She feels that the World Cup will not benefit her business. Yet she said she had been seeing more foreign tourists than normal come to her restaurant…didn’t know what to make of that.

We then headed over to the Hector Peterson Museum in Orlando West and looked around. Hector Peterson is famous because of his martyr status and the iconic photo taken after he was shot and killed during the youth uprising in Soweto. I also interviewed one of the street vendors across from the museum. Still working on my technique to get more detailed answers and have the interviewees speak more freely.

Then, after the short stop at the museum, and a drive along the road in Orlando West where the police opened fire on the student protesters, we had to make a quick stop at Ntokozo’s Uncle’s house. Well it just so happens that his uncle lives 2 doors down and across the street from Nelson Mandela’s childhood home. He personally knows the man! Crazy, anyway you can find the album of all of today’s photos here and the some video from around Soweto here and here.

I have to say, South Africa has by far the most stark contrasts of any country I’ve ever visited. Where I’m staying, if you subtract the electric fencing and gate, you could be in any nice old part of any city in the USA and the Maponya Mall in Soweto would not be out of place in Austin. However, fewer than 10 minutes down the road is a shanty town of immense proportion with houses constructed from whatever the local population can get their hands on. Including, according to Ntokozo, various World Cup related signs for stadiums etc.. that FIFA must continually replace.

That’s all for now, hope to update again soon. Photos should be posted by tomorrow.

I made my way pretty easily back to the bus, we had to wait forever for some people to show up, and we gained some fans as people riding on the other buses organized by Stevan, couldn’t find theirs so ended up on ours. I’m up in the front row of seats, sitting in a row of three with what seemed like a relatively normal and friendly couple. One guy was Irish but a US resident, big US fan, HUGE anti-british fan (absolutely hated them) and his seemingly normal, but an obviously way intoxicated girlfriend.

For the first part of the ride home (exceedingly slow because of the bumper to bumper traffic) she was sleeping. Passed out probably a better term considering she was strangely, every 5-10 minutes or so moaning “ow ow ow” until she just stopped or readjusted how she was sleeping. Her boyfriend was being nice, trying to but a bag under her head to act as a pillow, trying to quiet her down. We stop at a gas station for a restroom/snack break, and she stumbles off, but returns to the bus pretty revived, I don’t know how she altered so quickly but she did. Then as were going along, her and her boyfriend start arguing, I don’t know about what, I was listening to my Ipod trying to sleep. Now her boyfriend is not being the bigger man, he’s antagonizing her a little bit, holding his own in the argument, but just being verbal. Eventually it gets to the point where people ask them to act their age and shut it. Well it doesn’t end and she starts hitting him and threatening to throw his passport out of the window.

It’s getting very strange at this point, she has bit him on the arm as he was reaching up to keep the window shut. She refuses to give him (an Irish citizen but American green card holder) his passport. I finally stop ignoring the two of them and actually sit between them at the encouragement of my other flustered bus mates. This lady continues to try and open the window, so now I’m having to hold it close, as well as the nice honeymooners sitting behind me. The boyfriend is not doing us any favors by trying to rally people to his side, but really not saying too much or anything offensive.

Then all hell breaks lose, This woman loses her damn mind. Screaming that she wants to be let off the bus. Mind you, we’re on a dangerous road leading into Johannesburg at nearly 2am, to let her out we might as well have pushed her off at full speed because most likely no one would of heard of her again. We refuse, by now the people at the front of the bus are all involved. She’s screaming, yelling, almost crying, and then she stumbles towards the front of the bus and starts yelling at the driver and his assistant, the guy selling snacks and drinks. There’s a gap where two other US fans are sitting, essentially on the steps of the bus and the engine cover, because there are not enough seats. These two have also got up trying to explain to her that we cannot and will not let her off the bus. Then she tries to grab the wheel of the bus from the driver, while we’re at full speed. We actually swerve a little, and half the bus that can see what’s going on are yelling their advice and the guys at the front grab and try to restrain this woman.

Then as we’re slowing down to pass through the toll booth, still screaming and crying, she manages to open the bus door. The guy standing in front of the door trying to prevent this legitimate nut job from doing anything of the type grabs her and starts to fall out the bus, luckily he also has a hand on the door and manages to stay on his feet, running backwards while the bus crawls away from the toll booth. Three guys jump forward pull the lady and the guy back into the bus and try and restrain this loon. By this point, some people seriously yell that we should leave her, and let her out. Enough listen to reason and say we just cant. Unfortunately, by now there are no cops to be found anywhere. The young man who nearly went out the bus with her, is trying to talk some sense into her, first restraining her and then try and reason with her. after a while it seems we have calmed her down….but this is not the case. The guy guarding the window looks down for a half second, and while the guy is talking to her, she suddenly grabs something from her bag, and flings it out the window! She claims it’s the man’s passport, we’re not sure. This lady has serious issues.

Very scary, especially because for a little bit, the driver was stopped and reversing down the interstate as we look out trying to see if it was his passport. We then decide, this is stupid, passports can be replaced, we need to get home. It’s already 2am. Luckily the young man at front managed to keep talking to her and eventually convince her, after some more crying, that we’re too close to Johannesburg, let’s just get back and then you can get off with everyone else. Praise the lord, we made it home safely, at 3am. My wonderful host Hilton, was nice enough to wake up and come pick me up at the god awful hour. He of course expected me 2 hrs earlier, but thanks to my cell phone, I was able to keep him updated of our progress via text. So, overall a great game, the night a little more eventful in the wrong way, but the game trumps it all.

So contrary to popular belief, I will be starting work on Monday. I’m here for the World Cup, but much more than just the matches.

However, this post will be about the epic match Saturday night in Rustenburg…great game, fun night, ridiculously crazy ending…for the first time I met a legitimately crazy person, but more on that later.

Woke up quite a bit later than I probably should have (12:15 felt like 8am…hello jet lag) but still made it to the buses on time. Didn’t mingle before hand, met the front of the march towards the buses. It was awesome, unfortunately I didn’t have the chance to take a picture, but it was quite a sight, Caroline–my first nice host mom–can attest to the huge crowd of singing Americans who enveloped her car and delayed her while she was trying to leave the drop off point. The cop wouldn’t let her go through until the 350 of us had passed. If you click on the link, I have an album of all the photos I took on the way to the match and while at the game.

Outside of a few mile stretch right before the last toll gate on the Platinum Highway the traffic was not hellacious. Those last few miles on the way to the toll gate were literally bumper to bumper for a few km’s. It’s called the Platinum Highway because Rustenburg produces 80% of the world’s platinum–all owned by the Royal Bafokeng Nation. The Bafokeng tribe also own the stadium, a nice and open bowl, so the vuvuzelas were there, but escaped to the sky as well.

The atmosphere heading into the match was electric!!! I tagged along with a couple of younger couples who were on the bus with me. One of the pairs were on Honeymoon (greatest honeymoon ever) and the other couple was from San Antonio. Really nice, had a fun time hanging out around the stadium waiting for the match to begin. You can see all the photos here.

Anyway, it was a great game. USA definitely had the chances to win. Goal was lucky but Jozy’s effort in the second half was just as unlucky as the goal was lucky, so well deserved draw. We were not run off the field, in fact we held a good deal of possession in the first half and looked the more dangerous other than England’s wonderfully worked goal. Poor defense by Jay and Ricardo, but still it hit so quick, I was just deleting a photo from my camera during their throw in and the next thing i know, i look up and the balls drilled into the back of our net.

Thoughts and prayer’s with Timmy. That was a challenge deserving of a yellow card, coming in studs up like that on the keeper, total bull that Hesky escaped without a card.
Pleased with the result, had some good work out of the team, solid team defending, great goalkeeping, some good possession in the first half. I would love to see Jose Francisco Torres instead of Ricardo in the next game, we need more possession and attacking vigor that Torres supplies in Central Midfield.

All in all happy. But now comes the crazy part….to come on the next post

FINALLY HERE!!!! 17hrs after getting on the plane in Atlanta (~16hr flight + 1hr waiting on the ground for someone to not have their passport issues resolved) and more than 24hrs after leaving Austin, I’ve met up with my first host family here in Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. Completely different from what I remember in 2007…as it should because it is all brand new.

This image may appear somewhat compromising, but I’ve managed to get tickets to the USA Group Games!!! So psyched for USA-England tomorrow! 1776 and 1950 all over again!

Nice to have a bit of fun before I start work nice and early Monday morning. I really will be doing a research project while I’m here in South Africa. I hope to gain some insight as to whether the World Cup benefits small and micro enterprise in the tourism industry. That means interviewing B&B and Guesthouse owners, small tour operators, street vendors, curio and handicraft vendors, etc… Might even be able to distribute a survey, but most likely I will be gathering more in depth qualitative data. I already learned a new question I need to add to my list for the micro businesses: “Are you a South African citizen?” according to my hosts, many of these types of businesses are run by immigrants, not the local south african population.

anyway, here’s the photo of the deliriously happy and weary traveler at JHB

Lucky!! I managed to get some USA Tickets!