Copa Mundial de la FIFA (World Cup 2010)

Today marks the official beginning of the 2010 Copa Mundial de la FIFA (FIFA World Cup)! Despite the fact that I am not really a soccer fan...and by that I mean don't play it, watch it, follow it, or really appreciate it fully...I am still super excited!  My students have been collecting stickers for the 2010 World Cup sticker album for weeeeeeeeeeks now so I am psyched that the day is finally here!

I love the fact that it is being played in Africa for the first time, and I love the pride that so many South Africans have expressed based on that fact. Kelsi and I watched the opening night concert last night (yay for Direct TV hookups!) and it was absolutely stunning. If you missed it look here for links to some of the performances from Black Eyed Peas, Shakira, Alicia Keys, K'naan and Juanes.

I love stuff like this - lots of people coming together, celebrating life, happiness, sports, etc. People coming together to celebrate our infinite commonalities as human beings rather than discuss the things which divide us. We were totally getting teary eyed last night when K'naan came on to sing the world cup anthem song, Wavin' Flag. I have been listening to it on repeat since I heard it in February, and I love the lyrics just as much today as I did 4 months ago, even if the song is totally overplayed by Colombian radio stations. :)

Check out the official video here and see how they used the song with images of Africa. Some great marketing went into this video!

I also totally loved Shakira's performance of Waka Waka "This is Africa" because the whole song seemed like such a great celebration of the first World Cup on African soil. And she is Colombian so yay for countries coming together :) Also, as we observed last night, the woman can dance like nobody else - please check out her hips and shoulders and just everything in the video. Out of control.



With a mountain of finals in front of me to grade over the weekend, I am sure I will have plenty of time to check out some of the games happening this weekend.  The US plays their first game tomorrow versus England at 1:30 pm central time, so check it out! Happy Friday!

p.s. Unfortunately, today is definitely not all fun and soccer games. My thoughts are in South Africa as the World Cup opens and Nelson Mandela, former president and liberation hero, is unable to attend the opening ceremonies due to the death of his 13-year-old great-granddaughter Zenani in a car accident last night, on her way home after attending the opening concert in Soweto. FIFA acknowledged her death with this open letter to Mandela as posted on their website. What a terrible tragedy on what should have been a day filled only with glorious happiness for this country.