Sorry i've haven't written for a while, its been absolutely mental over here as you'd expect!! world cup 2010 is well and truely here and i'm having a great time being right in the middle of it...

Project wise we are doing something different now as the kids have extended school holidays during the WC. We now spend our days in the township on a small 'pitch' with about 60+ kids trying to organise small 4-5 a side football tournaments. Its really hard work to keep control and organise them into teams etc. especially as we only have about 30 bibs...! Still though its a really good challenge and the kids just have such a great time it makes it all worth while. We seem to have about the same 20 kids come rain, shine or gale force winds (all of which we've had this week as you'll have noticed if you've been watching the games) so you get to know them well. Whenever our bakkie pulls up in the morning now they'll be waiting on the pitch for us and run towards the car cheering and shouting our names - quite a welcome!

Regarding the world cup i'm obviously watching all the games i can on tv, and i've been to fanfest when the weather is good enough. Luckily it stayed dry for the first england game so we went down for that - rubbish game yes but even in a half full fan fest the atmosphere was amazing, full of english and africans supporting the english (with a few token yanks in there for good will). Unfortunately we had a few rainy nights during the week so haven't been down again yet. Yesterday i actually went to the england game in cape town which was awesome! The stadium is easily the best once i've been to so far and even from the middle tier it felt like we were right on top of the pitch. Again the whole atmosphere when the teams came out and the national anthem was something i'll never forget - unlike the football which is oh too easily forgettable! I'm really glad i'm doing this project at the same time though as it means i can contrast the shiny brand new billion rand stadiums with the dirt car park where we play football everyday in the township.

Yesterday was also the day of the football match at camps bay. No rod stewart i hasten to add due to the BBC dropping out at the last minute, but still a few minor people i recognised from tv/sport. My team lost 6-5 :( was a great day though and all the people from abroad who came along bought with them about 100+ pairs of boots for the kids, loads of shinpads/gloves and kid aplenty so it was a really great day. We took some kids along from the township too and they were doing facepainting (yes i had a full st georges flag done for the england game), a gumboot dance and we had the choir there to sing aswell. The kids really did themselves proud and hopefully just one person who was there will think about where they come from or tell someone and donate some money to them. I've had a lot of great days here but i think yesterday might just be up there with the best of them!

This week, or rather tomorrow, i'm off to port elizabeth to see 2 more football games so very excited for that!