Flags and Vuvuzelas

Two days to go before the Fifa 2010 Football/ Soccer world cup begins here in South Africa. The preparations for it have been going on for the last five years and many South Africans have looked forward to it with excitement and many with dread.
As we don't have an interest in sport or worldly events, I wouldn't have mentioned the World Cup but for the fact that it's had an impact, especially this last year, on the lives of just about everyone living in South Africa. I can't even begin to describe the build-up over the last month, but here's just a tiny insight...

It is impossible to go anywhere around town and not be reminded about the event. There are massive "soccer balls" on display everywhere - even on top of the towers and buildings! Then there are hundreds of other soccer balls in all sizes and colours on display wherever you look. And of course, all the paraphernalia that goes with the game is strung out all over! Flags of the countries taking part in the Cup are very popular items.

They are flying all over shopping malls and municipalities have put them along the main streets. (By the way, it's been a good geography "lesson" for many of us - we can identify a lot more flags than we used to! :D )

South Africa has lots of street hawkers - at all major intersections you will find them trying to sell all kinds of things, from coldrinks to car chargers, DVDs, hammocks, etc, etc the list is endless. My mom says that one just has to look at what the hawkers are selling to know what's the latest fad. For the last few months there are hoards of "soccer" hawkers on the streets - Flags of the different countries are top-sellers. I wanted to take a picture of some of the hawkers to post here but it's not something you can easily do. Already one has a hard time trying to ignore all the hawkers whenever you stop at an intersection or traffic light, if you show the least bit of interest, never mind taking a photo of them, you are surrounded in seconds by at least ten, all shouting at once and insisting you buy something from them.

Flags come in all sizes, there are ones specially made for attaching to your car - almost every second car has a flag flying or has mirror covers. These flag mirror covers tie onto the cars side mirrors.

South African flag

Actually there are all kinds of soccer goods for sale but most popular of all, even beating the flags, are the vuvuzelas. Up until a year ago Mom, Rachel and I didn't know about something called a 'vuvuzela' - now it is part of our daily lives - not because we choose for it to be but simply because we have no choice! And after this World Cup probably the whole world will know what a vuvuzela is as well! :P Here follows a description we came across on the net:
"What's plastic, up to a metre long, brightly coloured and sounds like an elephant?
It's the vuvuzela, the noise-making trumpet of South African football fans, and it's come to symbolise the sport in the country.
It's an instrument, but not always a musical one. Describing the atmosphere in a stadium packed with thousands of fans blowing their vuvuzelas is difficult. Up close it's an elephant, sure, but en masse the sound is more like a massive swarm of very angry bees. And when there's action near the goal mouth, those bees go really crazy."

Passing cars, school children on their way to and from school - so many are blowing the vuvuzela - and at all hours - you just can't get away from it.
Last week Dad had stopped at a shop to buy us each a coldrink and when we opened the shopping packet we found 5 bright red vuvuzelas and 5 South African flags in there as well - the shop was giving them away to customers. As much as we dislike the noise, I must admit that Rachel and I were curious enough to see if we could get any sort of sound out of the vuvuzelas - the best we could manage was the normal "blowing sound" you hear when blowing through an empty tube! :P

Anyway, our dog, Lama found them to be great new toys! :D