It Is Here!!!!!!

In one of the many chats I’ve have over the years with the many wonderful people I’ve come across, someone once explained with such vivid imagery, their first kiss. How they survived the encounter without swearing off any such acts of love, is beyond me, because even as I write this I can’t help but want to wash the spit off my face as if it was me on the receiving end of that tongue shower. The chat eventually went on to include all the firsts we’d all had. The first bike crash, to the first boy crush; the first win playing marbles (yes, it meant that much to someone) to the very first time eating at a restaurant. And offcourse the firsts, especially among girls, wouldn’t be complete without the first heart break. The gut wrenching, punch to the stomach moment when your heart, in one fell swoop, shatters into a million little pieces.

First times are such important mile stones that no one ever forgets (barring a few that leave you cringing with embarrassment). But overall, first times are great memories which we look back on in fondness and reverence, again, safe from a few exceptions. I myself have incredible memories of my many firsts.

I remember among other things, my first ‘meet’ with Mandela. I say ‘meet’ in inverted commas because I’ve never actually met the man, at least not in person. But, 20 years ago, when Mandela came out of prison, I, along with many other young South Africans my age ‘met’ the man for the first time. At 5 years old although I didn’t completely appreciate the events unfolding, I knew, I somehow understood that life would never be the same for any of us in South Africa after this day.

Four years later, Mr Mandela went on to become the first black president of a democratic South Africa and thirteen years later I voted in my first national elections. Since then I and the rest of South Africa have shared in the first South African to receive an Oscar, the first South African and effectively Africa man in space, we have also hosted both the rugby and cricket world cups, the African cup of nations which we won in 1996, the common wealth games and even produced Olympic gold medal and world record holding swimmers. And today I, once again with the rest of you, will add another first.

In 2004, it was announced that for the first time, in the history of continent of Africa, the prestigious FIFA Soccer World Cup would be hosted by South Africa. Today, six years and many naysayers and prophets of doom later, today the first Soccer World Cup game between Bafana Bafana and Mexico will kick off in Johannesburg to be viewed by millions around the world and bear testimony to the marvel that is Afrika Borwa-South Africa!

Today, for the rest of the world, this is merely another FIFA competition made spectacular perhaps because it happens only every four years or because it will crown the best. But for South Africa and for Africa, the events which culminated in today mean more than any world record report or Discovery Channel special could ever begin to explain.

Today we South African’s remind the world and ourselves we are indeed the embodiment of Hope. That we survived a harrowing and brutal past but that there are reasons to smile every day. That the struggles of our past continue to inspire our everyday struggles in trying to still make sense of it all and live as one nation, one people. That when called upon to unite, the people of our nation have shown that we can rally together behind one course, uninhibited by colour, race or class.

Let this be a memory that will go down in our ‘vaults’ of our many firsts. Let us remember this bliss, this joy, this hope. And let us twenty years from today, retell of our first Soccer World cup with pride imagery so vivid that our grandkids, nieces and nephews will hear the deafening sound of the vuvuzela while they listen intently about the day South Africa soared like the great eagle in the skies of the world!

It is here!