Bafana! Bafana!

South Africa (ZA) was not even supposed to be a contender. Mexico, according to certain football experts, had this game. Well, ZA, just showed the world that when you come to South Africa make sure you are ready to play the game. The final score was 1-1 and I was walked away from the bar, I could not help but to think of my time in South Africa.

As the world watches the “rainbow nation”, I wonder how it feels to be in South Africa f now?  When I was in South Africa, Apartheid, was dead, supposedly.

Capetown, known as one the most liberal places in South Africa, proved to be breath taking, eye opening, and showed me that I am a patient person.  I could not help but to visit all the cool shops that were placed in the city, it seemed as though you had to go into every three or four shops on the block. Music, clothes, and crafts all with a South African twist proved to be very tempting, thank goodness, that I was a broke graduate student. One store in particular had old ads pre and post apartheid, cool ANC t-shirts, and just a really funky arrangement.

The store keeper was particularly friendly and wanted to know where I was from.  He started to give tips and recommendations of what to see in South Africa. As he, an Afrikaner told me and my friend (two Black women) that we should “skip the whole Robben Island thing, Nelson Mandela, was pretty overrated..I really think you should visit the Afrikaner museum in Johannesburg.”  My facial expression changed and it was very clear that I was still listening to this man. He then added the final toppings to our short conversation ,“ you do know that Afrikaners are the only indigenous white tribe in Africa and we are dying.”

As I walked home from the bar today, wanting so badly to chant “BAFANA BAFANA”, I remember all the people that were chanting Bafana Bafana, as the boys scored the games first goal. It was what Nelson Mandela had envisioned: Black, White, Coloreds, Asians, and whatever other mixes that the bar had,we all were chanting for South Africa. We all were in the bar, together, not separated by color. We all wanted to be the winners, we all wanted to chant Bafana! Bafana! We all wanted South Africa to reign victorious and right now it feels as though it has.  Bafana! Bafana!

~ by travelling womanists on June 11, 2010.