The best day so far

Today marked a huge leap forward in my personal rural mining life. After going into Piet Retief in the morning and purchasing some running shoes, I got my soccer stuff on this afternoon and headed down to the local pitch. On the hour drive north to Piet Retief, we pass about six or seven soccer fields of various shapes and sizes. Many times, especially in the late afternoons, there will be a game going on and it’s made me even more anxious to get out and kick the ball around. I haven’t had the time yet, or the footwear, until today. I walked from my house up the dirt road to the entrance of the mine and turned right down a dirt track which heads into a small settlement just north of the mine.

I first passed a couple of little local boys, probably both around 5 years old. One was carrying a chicken, and the other chattering away in Zulu. I said hello, and the one holding the chicken said “good morning”. Now it was the afternoon but I have to give him credit, he’s 5 and knows just as much English as I know Zulu. He saw me carrying a new soccer ball and looked very interested, eventually beginning to speak to me in Zulu. I attempted to speak in English and when I realised this was futile I just smiled and kept walking until arriving at the pitch.

Now the soccer field at Klipwal is situated, as I said, just north of the main mining area next to a small settlement along a creek. Some of the houses here are mud huts and sticks while there are also a few rows of cement dwellings that were part of a community project run by the mine several years ago. As I arrived at the small path that takes you down to the field, I spotted two small fires burning on a nearby hillside, a very normal occurrence in South Africa in general. Stuff was on fire all the time by the sides of major roads near big cities when I was here back in June.

The path leads down to the field, which is a combination of dried grass, red dusty soil, and cow shit. The field drops off on three sides steeply and straight into the bush (not ideal for when the ball gets kicked out of bounds), while one side behind a set of goal posts is a steep rocky slope, providing a great backstop for errant shots. When I arrived at about 4 pm, the field was empty, as I have always seen it, so I sat down and put on my new shoes, wishing some locals wood come out of the woodwork to play with me.

And that’s exactly what happened. Within two minutes (I had barely even got my laces tied up), to local guys showed up, I kicked one of them the ball, and that was that. Five minutes later two more boys came and eventually a fifth showed up. They all seemed to be somewhere between 15 and 20 years old, and none of them spoke very much English. We started with lazy shots on goal and eventually played a competitive game. The communication was extremely limited between the Zulus and me but it didn’t matter. When someone made a great save, they cheered. When I duffed a shot, they laughed. And when I whizzed one past the keeper (yeah, I still got it), they let out a big yell. After playing with them a while, I realized they did know some English, a lot of it soccer based like “keeper” and “pass”, but I could more or less communicate with them.

I also realised in this short amount of time that I was incredibly out of shape, which is what happens when you don’t do any exercise around for 3 straight months. I was huffing and puffing out there, and to be fair, they were too, just not as much. And they didn’t have shoes, or water bottles, or Nike dri-fit moisture-wicking technology. I cannot possibly describe how great it was to be back kicking a ball around in an environment and with the company I had.

The best part was, when we were all suitably exhausted about an hour and a half later, I gathered my things and took the ball. That’s when the oldest one of the bunch looked at me and said “Friday.” So I’ll see them again on Friday, and hopefully I'll be a little less winded next time.