Ouch. That was painful. Ghana went out in the way you really don’t want to see anyone go out. After 90 minutes of regulation and another 30 minutes of additional time Ghana and Uruguay were drawn at 1-1, meaning the dreded penalty shootout was going to settle the game. But it was worse than that. […]
Our long international nightmare is over. The World Cup resumes today with two quarterfinals matches that are certain to pique the interest of viewers, and especially of Africans. Tonight is the Ghana-Uruguay match. Uruguay is, as I’ve been saying since early in the group stages, for real. But so is Ghana. Ghana just lost to a […]
I’m fighting off a cold, which is a bit of a bummer, as colds while travelling, even on long trips where you settle into a real life model at least a little, seem worse than colds at home. It is not bad enough to keep me from living my life (or to excuse me from […]
I crossed the border with Mark into Zeerust Wednesday. Zeerust is a medium sized town, by the standards of rural North West province a small city, that serves as the shopping and banking and service center for the larger region, including many Gabaroneans like my friend who find Zeerust to be cheaper and more abundant […]
I have made mention a few times now of the increasingly authoritarian hints coming from the Office of the President (DO NOT PHOTOGRAPH!!!) here in Botswana. Seretse Khama Ian Khama (commonly referred to simply as Ian Khama) has a long and distinguished lineage extending from when his father helped usher the country from the colonial […]
A few observations about Botswana after a day of wandering both the city center and the University of Botswana campus: Gabarone is lovely. It is small, to be sure. There are really two main access roads, one leading in from one direction and heading out, one heading in from the other direction. The center of […]
I am writing this from my friend’s office in a rather unlovely part (the locals call it “Siberia” of the otherwise lovely University of Botswana, where I will be based for the next week or so. I am staying with my friend and his family (he and I met after a conference in Pretoria four […]
I am in the Kruger-Nelspruit International Airport, which is built to resemble a game lodge, waiting to fly to Gabarone, Botswana. I will be working on a project as a fellow with University of the North-West (and possibly the university of Botswana) on resource allocation and the World Cup. I will also be able to […]
Well, the Ivorians gave it their best shot. Needing to make up a virtually insurmountable goal differential of 9 on Portugal (which they had tied, remember) Cote d’Ivoire came out and dominated the game from the outset. They won comfortably, and had two goals disallowed that could have made things interesting. The African side was […]
I am writing this in the King Shaka International Airport in Durban where I am about to trade the sea breezes and fine sandy beaches for Nelspruit, the gateway to Kruger Park, where I will attend the Cote d’Ivoire-North Korea game in hopes of seeing Didier Drogba and company bury the North Koreans in goals. […]
Landon Donovan’s extra time goal drove the United States into the next round in the most dramatic way possible. At the Fanzone in Durban the response among the Americans and their other supporters (the locals seemed fairly split between the US and Algeria — not surprising, all things considered) exploded with joy and the sort […]
Timing is everything in the World Cup. Try, if you can, to think back two weeks. If you had an only partially clear crystal ball and you had been told that South Africa would draw Mexico and defeat France you’d have believed that South Africa would rejoice. And that is exactly what happened. Yet as […]
So I have made my way to Durban, on KwaZulu-Natal’s Indian Ocean Coast and South Africa’s favorite summer holiday getaway. Just a few hours in and I already feel rejuvenated. For a host of reasons — weather, the isolation of my B+B, an inability or unwillingness to adjust to a normal sleep schedule, typical mid-trip […]
This was the least eventful day of the trip so far. I bundled up next to a space heater and under a heavy blanket to stave off the bitter highveld chill and watched World Cup games followed by the final day of a US Open that no one seemed to want to win. I did, […]
If last night in Melville represented what seemed to be an American annexation, Saturday night revealed the Africans taking back their rightful territory. Oh, sure, there was still a disproportionate number of tourists, but on a night when Cameroon played (and lost a game it had dominated) the vibe was rather different in those rollicking […]