Rush Hour

As you all know, the World Cup is being played in Africa for the first time in history, and rightly so, in South Africa, given their recent history. Now, I am not won to dwell too much on the past and I certainly don’t believe that modern-day Holland is connected to apartheid however, one cannot avoid considering the history between the mainly Dutch-Afrikaner rule in South Africa and their role in slavery and apartheid in that country. Yes, of course, this is sports and the Dutch in Holland (and elsewhere) are as nice as anybody else nonetheless, the history of what their ancestors did to the black people of South Africa….I mean, I just can’t seem to be happy about their soccer victories. It’d be like supporting the Germans in the World Cup on Israel soil 20 years after the Holocaust. You know what I mean? And even though one of Holland’s players is on the Italian team I support (Wesley Sneijder), I can’t help but have mixed feelings about all of those ‘orange supporters’ roaring their happiness through the streets of South Africa. Many South Africans have gone beyond the past, however for many, the wounds are still fresh. On a brighter side, this could help create a more positive and stronger bond between the two countries, which would only enhance South Africa’s economy. In any case….

…tonight, it’s Spain against Germany. I am supporting Spain; my husband is Spanish and I worked in Madrid for four wonderful years. ¡Vamos a por ellos! However, should the final be Germany – Holland, the young, multi-racial, and exciting German team gets my total support. It is what it is.

I have been spending my days watching the World Cup (Spain passed to the semi-finals- hurrah! and Argentina and Brazil are on their way home), climbing and mountaineering, and….putzing around. Actually, I’ve been working, too. Every week I’m on the air with my radio show, RMC Unlimited, I’m preparing my new compilation (number 10), and I’m editing a lot of videos that Ezio and I have been filming in the mountains. However, what I should be doing is finding a literary agent for my first two novels and thinking about writing my third novel. I have been very lazy in that sense. Finding an agent is very tedious, no, let me correct that; what is tedious is preparing a synopsis of my work. That is the first step and I just can’t seem to get on it. Writing my new novel will be exciting, as writing always is….so why don’t I begin? Because once you start, you have to write every single day until you finish. There is no other way to write a decent novel, as far as I am concerned. You get on a roll that you can’t get off until the job is completed. I’m just waiting for the green light.

So far, the United States got beat by Ghana (again) and England got creamed by Germany (1-4). Tonight Argentina play against Mexico, which should be a good match although I believe Argentina will win. (I hope so for Maradona, even if he made the grave error of not calling Javier Zanetti to play, an error I hope he doesn’t regret.)
I’m disappointed that the Americans lost, nonetheless, I’m glad at least one African team made it to the semi-finals. I don’t think they’ll go much further but it’s an excellent result especially since this is the first World Cup on African soil. I have noticed something very interesting, exciting, and contradictory about the African people; on the one hand, many of its countries are being destroyed by civil (and tribal) wars, yet on the other, there is no continent as unified as Africa. They are Africans first, and then Nigerian, or South African, or Kenyan, or Ethiopian, etc. later. It’s an amazing and moving thing to hear the African people talk about their Africa. That kind of unity is non-existent on the other continents. (more…)

Today was a bad day for the Italian team; they were eliminated by the Slovakians in the first round. This was the worst ever result for the Italian national team. This has been a very exciting and unusual World Cup but I will talk about that in my next post. Today, I want to show you the video of a great climb I did with world-famous mountain guide, Ezio Marlier. We went to Finale Ligure, one of the most important places to rock climb in Europe and I finally climbed the great wall: Pianarella.
Take a look:

The World Cup is well underway and my husband and I have been watching as many games as possible. The group stage where teams battle it out to get into the knock-out stage is coming to an end and it has been very interesting to see how the ‘weaker’ clubs are no longer so weak. By that I mean, the Europeans have always had this football supremacy attitude, looking down from their trophy-filled pedestals at the African, Asian,  smaller South American teams (this excludes Argentina and Brazil, of course), and the United States. However, this year, more than ever, the levels seem to be evening out and this makes the matches all the more exciting. England is doing terribly at the moment, Italy is disappointing to say the least, France has been eliminated in the first round, and Spain was just plain sad. Whereas, the United States are playing really well, as are the teams from the Ivory Coast, Mexico, and Uruguay. I think this World Cup will have some interesting surprises.

Today, Italy play against New Zealand and Brazil battle the Ivory Coast. On paper, Italy and Brazil should win but….you never know. And that is the beauty of soccer.

Yesterday, the 19th Football (soccer) World Cup began in South Africa and we are all very excited about it. It is amazing the progress South Africa has made in just 20 years since it began the arduous road of becoming a democratic nation free from apartheid (the law to finally lend it came about in 1994.) It seems like yesterday that I was in my home in Milan, watching, with tears in my eyes as Nelson Mandela was freed from prison after almost 30 years.

Sports, like music, unite people and remind us of just how similar we all are. This World Cup is all the more important because of where it is taking place. There are countries participating who years ago had colonized Africa, amongst them, France, Spain, Italy, England, Germany, Portugal, and let us not forget the Netherlands. I pray for a successful World Cup for all of Africa and may the best team win! (Tonight, England versus the U.S.A. Can’t wait!)

My heart goes out to Madiba and the Mandela family for their terrible loss yesterday.