For Honor and for Alcohol

VEREENIGING- All I know is this neighborhood is an Afrikaans word.

Pronounced Ver-reen-a-hing it’s an area in the south end of Johannesburg that was occupied by the Portuguese during Apartheid. These days, it’s being transferred from farm land to middle and lower-middle class housing for all races.

The Klipriviersberg Nature Conservation Area is here. Klipriviersberg is home to a tent city that brought an interesting collection of men and women, who were mostly young professionals in their respective countries. It’s where I spent my Friday evening.

A pair of Guatemalan brothers invited me to watch the France-Uruguay game. It was a fairly dull affair as the South Americans didn’t have too much fire power beyond Athletic Madrid forward Diego Forlan, and retreated into a shell after a substitute picked up his second yellow card with 10 minutes remaining.

There was not much conversation. Soccer has a tendency to do that to folks, the game is all the communication fans need. Though, we all got a laugh when Thierry Henry—of all people in the world—tried to claim a Uruguayan defender handled the ball inside the penalty area late in the match.

The contest in Cape Town didn’t produce a goal, but the one in Vereeniging produced enough to make up for that.

A bunch of us who slept at the tent city found a ball and started to play indoor football. There were South Africans, Israelis, Mexicans, English and a couple Americans kicking around the ball.

My team featured a Juan Carlos, a Mexican who was a very good goalkeeper; George, a 16-year old from England, who was quite skilled and the ball; Lebo, a South African who shared many stories about his countries culture and one other person whose name escapes me.

We lost without scoring a goal. Unlike the Uruguayans, we had some real chances on goal.

We may have each lost R10 paying for drinks, but the experience of playing football in South Africa—well, that’s priceless.