Feel it ...But don't think too hard

Sepp Blatter’s golden handshake reaches through the cloud above South Africa and miraculously all the modern pre-requisites of a functioning country begin to materialise. Suddenly Durban sits under miles of construction tape and red-flag-wavers. We spend a number of months in traffic watching a giant vagina-shaped stadium rise out of the earth to dominate the skyline. Slowly for years, and manically for weeks, dirt is swept under an indifferent carpet of money and newness. Nobody in South Africa has ever seen construction workers move that fast.

MTN Africanises “Abra-Kadabra” while bus route maps and timetables come out of extinction and are again sighted around the city. Tiny Chinese fingers bleed from all the extra South Africa flags they’ve had to sew and Town surfers cut their feet on rubble and twisted metal as they journey over no-mans-land between car and ocean. The broken old prostitute of inner-city Durban is getting her extreme makeover. Everyone is terribly excited.

Soccer usurps headlines from striking workers, burning tires and the battle of the poor for access basic amenities like toilets. Now that everything is Ayoba, we forget that it hasn’t been two months since we were again reminded that a far too substantial portion of this country’s population still hate each other.

Foreigners go from being colonialist and makwerekwere to an indiscriminate herd of cash cows. A pastiche of South Africana – all curio, Big-Five and waka-waka – is put on a sleeve for the world to pick at. I see my first foreigners. A young, back-packed couple: hats, kort broek and their heads on a swivel, wondering through the sleaze of Umgeni road. I land a job in the hospitality division at Moses Mabhida stadium being obsequious to rich people and try on the first ever pair of black leather shoes. Fight Club imagery flashes through my mind. We all eat the words: “they’ll never finish on time”.Can you feel it? It is here!

The Durban beach fan park is electric. After nearly a year of sharing the only operational shower on the entire shambled esplanade with throngs of armpit soapers and sand dwellers, the place looks immaculate, functional. A posse of police stand around looking useless and imposing. There must be quite a few empty police stations in the less central areas of South Africa. A yellow tide washes over the defunct swimming area at Wedge beach.

We don Bafana Bafana jerseys and vuvuzela beaks, bare feet in the sand, evening sunlight on the skin. We sing the Coca-Cola song in solidarity and tolerance. We drink familiar beer out of unfamiliar cans.A beautiful through ball is played in: a country air-drops into the pit.Tshabalala’s touch is good: we find our rail and drive off the bottom into the rumbling fever of the green-room. A magnificent strike spits us into elation!

A giant roar, humans pogo and embrace. A chance for all of us to shake off the realities of this country and celebrate together. A Castel Larger advert in living colour. The brittle dream of our rainbow nation incarnate.But there’s a front on it’s way. Things are about to get pretty cold.