Ngidlala ibhola.

I assumed that soccer would be called football in South Africa, but it’s soccer. Because the World Cup was in South Africa last year, I decided to try watching it, and my brother Jared and I got hooked. We were on vacation for the later rounds, and on several occasions we returned to our hotel room after a long day of hiking, hoping that the big game of the day would be being rebroadcast on the Spanish channel. It always was. We learned that the commentators are actually much more exciting in Spanish, even though the only words we understood were cabeza! and gooooooool gol gol gol gol gol.

Anyway, my entire familiarity with soccer had come from gym class, Wikipedia’s explanation of offsides, and a few weeks of watching games, but when a couple other Americans went to soccer practice here, I decided to try it out with them. Somehow this has turned into me being on a sports team for the first time in my life. As though being a humanities student isn’t far enough out of my comfort zone...

Green Field is right across the road from my Res, and unless they are in class or at church, there are always loads of boys playing soccer there. For some reason, there are far fewer girls interested in soccer (one teammate attributes this to the reputation of netball as a more appropriate feminine sport), so there are only about 15 of us on the team. My teammates are very supportive of me and the other American who has never played before, so I’m having lots of fun running around and learning to play soccer.

I still can’t quite believe that this is me wearing soccer boots (cleats in American English), shin guards, and jersey number 12.

Racially integrating sports has been an important aspect of ending apartheid, and I read in a museum that “soccer is now an integrated sport.” In my experience, this is not remotely true. In the two friendly matches and two real games we’ve played, and in the boys’ numerous campus league games, I’ve never once seen a white or Indian person on the field except the Americans on my team.

I’m right in the middle of this picture.

The referees speak in Zulu, and my coach tends to start giving directions in English but quickly fall into an English/Zulu/gesturing hybrid. Because the things shouted on the field tend to be short and repeated many times, I’m pretty good at following the Zulu. I was excited in one of our games when an opposing player kept yelling “kancane” (the nc is a voiced dental click), and I knew she was telling her teammate to make a little pass. I promptly got in front of her, and the teammate never got a chance.

The people on the team make fun of the Americans when we can’t remember their names or mispronounce the clicks, but they don’t pronounce my name correctly either. In moments like this, everyone yells “Riiiiiiiiika!”

Even my American teammates have started having trouble remembering not to call me Reeka.

I’ll save details about games for another post, but here are pictures of my team. The other Americans and I hosted a spaghetti dinner for everyone the night before our first game so we’re eating in the courtyard of my Res.

In the back are Sma, Nqobile, Nozipho, Juliet (also known as Dot Com), Nozipho, and Joelle. In the front are Lihle, Thobeka, Nomfundo, Fiesta, Londeka, Sne, and Courtney.

Here are most of the same people again with Coach and Blue on the end. Two more Lihles and Ayanda weren't there that day.