World Cup-Soccah Fevah

This morning at 6:15am, we woke up to the sound of vuvuzelas being blown in town and tonight as I write this, 7:50pm, we still hear the sound of vuvuzelas. The atmosphere around town and in the entire country is electrifying with soccer spirit. I had to go Pick-n-Pay today for a few groceries and wow the store was crazy. Everyone had South Africa jerseys, coats, blankets, scarfs, hats, and wigs. People were even blowing vuvuzela's inside the store-they are so loud. But honestly it is really a fantastic time to be living in South Africa.

A quick trip back in time. Just over four years ago we moved to Welkom, South Africa. How is this so easy for us to remember, we arrived just before the World Cup started in Germany. We were also hosting a young team at the time and we watched soccer almost every night with them. That was the first time we had ever watched World Cup soccer and we actually enjoyed it. If you don't know us, neither of us are big sports fans but from time to time we do enjoy games. Wow, the last four years have gone by so quickly and so much has changed--we have 2 kids! How'd that happen? Ok, don't answer that question :)

Because of the hype and history that is being made today for the World Cup we decided to embrace it. The guys worked until noonish and then came over to celebrate. Not only are we celebrating the World Cup but also the progress that has been made at the Village. The fence is nearly completed! As a Thank You to the guys for working so hard the O'Tools and us treated them to a braii of boerewors and chicken, baked beans, Ramon noodle salad, cheesy potatoes, and cookies. South Africa and Mexico kick off was at 4pm. The guys and Nanna Tricia gave us a personal rendition of the South African national anthem. If you noticed in the video clip that all you could understand was the last part of the anthem that is because the South African national anthem is in 3 languages. It starts out in Zulu, the middle section is Afrikaans and the end is English. Most of the time it is sung with real gusto for the Zulu and English versus and rather muddled in the middle for the Afrikaans part.

It was a lot of fun having Brilliant, DJ and JT here to watch them watch the soccer game. Soccer is in there blood and they are so crazy for soccer. They were predicting that the final score would be 2-1 South Africa. To give the guys a hard time and also to add to the hype in the house Brian decided to support Mexico and made his own shirt to show his enthusiasm.




At half-time the game was still nil nil. The guys put on their own half-time show by playing a little soccer in our front yard. Just after half time South Africa scored their first goal and the vuvuzelas started all over-even in our house!













Do you remember that I said Brian isn't a big sports fan? He did watch a little bit of the game but by half time he was working on a project that he's been trying to complete. He is making a vibrating table to use with the Stumbel blocs that they will be making. He is getting really close to being done.




Meredith, Drake, Liam and Lindie also had fun-not so much watching the game but playing with each other and the vuvuzelas.




And for the big game, it ended up being a draw South Africa 1- Mexico 1. How unsatisfying to be in the World Cup and to finish the opening game of the World Cup on a draw. Tomorrow the US plays England. Who do you think will win?