World Cup Review

Pride and energy have gripped the entire continent as we celebrated the World Cup; what a privilege to experience this world event here on African soil. Being half Spanish we had a particular interest in the tournament's outcome, and lucky us, the Furia Roja won the whole thing, not without much some stress, with so many wins coming on goals deep in the second half, or in overtime in the case of the final. The teachers at our school claimed we had an unfair advantage with two national teams representing us on the world stage. Since Mozambique failed to qualify, our colleagues pulled for the various African sides, especially Ghana when they beat USA. Just one student joined us in cheering on the Red, White, and Blue in that match. He said he was so grateful to Obama for sending him a French teacher that he wanted to wave our American flag during the game, despite the jeers from his fellow Africans. We all made lots of noise as they battled it out, and
everyone congratulated Janet, covered in Obama paraphenalia, on our country's good showing. The teachers would have their turn to be heart broken in even more dramatic fashion in Ghana's loss to Uraguay after failing to convert a last minute penalty. Most games started at 20:30 for us, which is past bed time in our rural community. We weren't the only ones caught snoozing through half time or some of the slower moments of game play soccer is prone to; our vice-principal would just roll his beanie down over his eyes and ask us to wake him for any goals. It was special how sport brought up together every night. The morning after the final match children's voices woke us as they relived the excitement; we recognized the names of the Spanish stars peppering their animated Chichewa and imagined the scene playing out in different languages and dialects on every continent around the world. So after nonstop soccer for a month, we're in a bit of withdrawal from
waka waka and all the vuvuzelas, but as Clifford, our most avid teacher says, Premier League starts August 15!