We arrived in Malawi about an hour late, which meant we had only 2.5 hours to get through immigration, meet Dumi's family and make our way to a television. Priorities! We collected a posse of the Banda family and made our way to a hotel in the capital city of Lilongwe. We were feeling like maybe we had found a country that was unexcited about the world cup because both Dumi's family as well as the people working at the airport all seemed a bit unconcerned that the first game of the first African World Cup was about to kick off.
When we arrived at the hotel showing the game on a big screen, our concerns about the lack of worldcupmania weren't soothed by the minimally filled room. A couple of middle aged men were quietly watching the screen, looking more content with sitting than excited to watch the game. There were also a few foreign folks looking like they might be interested in the game, so we were okay with that.
Did I mention we got to the bar about an hour early?? This was a factor.
As game time neared, the place started to fill, seats needed to be brought in, women with vuvuzelas (horns) arrived , servers weren't able to keep up-- it was looking to be the scene we were desiring.
As we were in Africa watching the first African World Cup, we thought we'd need to quietly cheer for Mexico from our perch in the back of the room. Apparently loyalties are hard to hide because when Mexico came out shooting, it was obvious Mexico was our team. I think it helped to have us in the crowd, it moved folks to really cheer for their African team. Aside from not understanding why Mexico was robbed of their first goal, it was a great start to the tournament on our tour de world cup 2010...we were happy that the South Africans were happy with the result.
pictured: the only other person in the room excited about mexico scoring a goal
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