"This time for Africa..."

A few thoughts as the first World Cup on African soil draws to a close and we launch into an accursed, barren period of football deprivation until the Premier League returns:

-Bravo, South Africa! You’ve done your continent proud. By all accounts in the media and from my friends in the country, South Africa was as friendly, safe, and united over the past four weeks as it has ever been in its entire history. The host team exceeded expectations in a difficult group, crime rates were down across the entire country, and racial reconciliation took another step forward as white politicians and Afrikaners stepped up to embrace Bafana Bafana, traditionally the emblem of the country’s native Zulu and Xhosa population. This was the face of Africa the world needed to see. So bravo, South Africa! You gave us a performance that will have Bono wriggling in verbal ecstasy the next time he gets asked to try and one-up Morgan Freeman’s “Go World” commercials. If only FIFA could have wrung such an admirable performance from its own representatives…(*cough* Coulibaly! *cough*)

-Speaking of unity, never have I seen more energy devoted to supporting an entirely foreign country than in the way every single Kenyan man, woman, and child threw themselves body and soul into cheering for Ghana. You want to talk about goosebump moments? Ghana-Uruguay, locked at 1-1 after 120 minutes when Ghana is awarded a free kick deep in Uruguay territory…I’m standing in the middle of hundreds of Kenyans, packed into a thatch-roof, tin-wall building that barely qualifies as a shack, squinting at a 20-inch screen 30 feet away, and the crowd begins to dance: stamping clapping singing drumming, K’naan’s “Wavin’ Flag” blasting over and over and over in the background from some home-rigged stereo equipment, and the kick comes in and in the scramble one shot! Two shots! Screams! An open header! Handball! Suarez is off, penalty to Ghana, the crescendo grows and people begin to climb into the rafters, the celebration flares are lit, the drums reach fever pitch, louder and louder and louder for Ghana are surely winners, Africa are surely winners, and we are all Africans if even for just this one moment…and then Gyan misses. And the flares burn on, but deep down we all know that Africa’s last hope has just had its lifeblood drained away in the blink of an eye. Football, one Kenyan told me afterward, is a beautiful but cruel mistress.

-And after all this heart and effort invested in African unity, it’s an awful and despicable tragedy that the end of such a triumphant event was so brutally sabotaged in Kampala on Sunday. The lives lost and the devastation caused are obviously first and foremost on our minds and hearts, but beyond that lies the sad truth that these attacks will only stand to reinforce the all-too-common perception of Africa as one huge state of violence and anarchy. To be perfectly clear: terrorist attacks are not “normal” in Africa. This isn’t a place where extremists go about wreaking havoc and having their way. We don’t live in constant fear of violence. Everyone here in Busia and everyone across the border in Uganda is just as shocked and appalled by the Kampala bombings as Americans would be if such an attack were to happen on our soil. For those of us at Innovations for Poverty Action, the attacks hit especially close to home: IPA has a branch in Kampala whose members frequently visit us in Busia, so we all have friends who were far too close to the danger zone for our comfort. Thank God, all of our IPA colleagues are perfectly safe, but this remains a situation that calls for great wisdom, great compassion, and great faith.