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Friday, February 18, 2005

Turning the corner

Last weekend, a few mates and I went to the old high school to smack the cricket ball around a bit. I ended up with a still-sore-and-bruised big toe after receiving a full pitched ball on the foot.

While my toe is still-sore-and-bruised, there was something else about that saturday morning that got me thinking about South Africa as a whole.

The primary cricket pitch was occupied by the First Team, and its saturday competitor. The away team was fielding first.

We glanced with interest from the nets everytime the sound of willow resounded through the grounds. Our home team was showing who was boos. Pride sweltered like the hot highveld air.

(Life at and after school wasn't always about pride. This was the same high school that was marred with editorials and main-stream news articles about its racial intolerance. I recall going to school on days where you could cut the tension in the air with a knife. Heck, I jumped on the bandwagon too.)

We carried on playing in the nets, feeling like old men trying to bowl a ball like we used to. In the nets alongside us, the first team captain or coach was pitching a few balls to the next batsmen, a black student.

It wasn't long before a wicket fell and the next-in-line batsman waddled up to the pitch. At the crease were two black students now, something I never saw in my 5 years at high school.

That same tension I felt at school, I could feel again, even from the sidelines of the pitch. The away team taunted the batsmen with overly zealous and out-of-line "HOWZZAAAAAAAAATT!"'s ringing out, ball after ball from the fielders. The batsmen were visibly uneasy at their creases.

We went on with our own smacktalk in our nets, laughing at our own batsman who probably hadn't batted in about 5 years.

The sound of willow continued to pour out from the pitch, much to the delight of the home team cheering on their batsmen from the clubhouse. That sense of pride came over me again for my old high school. I smiled.

Anyway, the purpose of this entry was mostly about hope in SA. Every year students and pupils get better integrated. In a few generations or less, we'll see a remarkably different South Africa, guided by its children (who as we all know, know better.) :)

While this is a simple story about a weekend's worth of cricket anecdotes laden with heavy and potentially flame-baiting messages, I'd like to re-inforce that I hope you see it the same way I see it: "Things are improving".

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