Sorry for you

So it’s all over, and I find myself standing here now waiting with baited breathe, which is perhaps my first mistake, for some sort of an apology? I think we will all remember that there was no other country that slated our home, our people as much as the British media did just before the Soccer World Cup.  The newspaper articles warning people not to come here.  The comments on those articles calling us savages.  People cancelling their planned holidays because surely their whole family would be slaughtered the minute they set foot off the plane. This stung me a little I must say, actually more than a little, it pissed me off.

It is a lot easier to sit in a grey cubicle typing away, forever putting your opinion of a world you have no idea about on paper.  Telling people what you think, how afraid they should be, than to come here and see for yourself.

And the sad thing? MANY people listened.

But no one lost an eye.  No one was gang raped by rabid goats, had their entire family slaughtered by machete wielding impi’s and no one had the steam stolen off their poo!

If you didn’t come, you made a mistake.

Think of all you missed.

You never got to pick a piece of hot Boerewors straight off the braai, bite into it and have the hot juices sting your chin on the way down.

You never got to cool your burning tongue on an ice cold Castle Lager.

You never got to feel the African sunshine.  The kind that warms you from the inside out.

You never learnt how to swear in Afrikaans (Jou ma se vissie! – Your moms … I’ll leave it at that)

Koeksisters.  Milktart. Woolworths – not the one in your country, that sells pencils.

Learning how to blow a vuvuzela, and then using your skill as a big “fuck you” to the rest of the world that was trying to silence you before it got banned at every other sporting event in the world.

You never got to feel that tingle in your body, standing in one of our beautiful stadiums, feeling the roar of the crowd reverberating in your chest.

Painting your face in your flags colours and screaming for your country till your throat hurt, and them standing meters from you, as opposed to their images being beamed on a flat screen.

You never got the stuffing hugged out of you by a crazed Bafana Bafana fan when we scored.

You missed all of that.

And that’s sad for you.

Africa is not for sissies! (cowards)

But to those of you who had the balls to put your fists up and said “No I WILL go.  I want to see for myself.  I want to be in Africa”

Welcome, goodbye, and thanks for coming, we loved having you here.

For the rest of you.  Don’t worry about it.  It’s hard to get an apology and a “well done, we were wrong” out of a stiff upper lip.