Monday

I got up early on Monday morning cause I was too cold to stay in bed. I typed for about an hour until Abraham woke up. Our first task was to find me a place to sleep for the next night. I was hoping to spend about r200, r100 is about $14. I landed at a hostel for r300 right by the stadium. I dropped off my backpack, and started towards the city center with Abraham still to meet up with Pastor Washington. Pastor Wahington started a small community college/technical school about 3 years ago. That is where I met him, it is located on part of a floor in an office building. We talked for a bit then went to a nearby restaurant to watch Holland V. Denmark. The match was disappointing, neither team created much. I was pretty lame company at that point, I was tired and needed a bit of space and rest to re-energize. I walked back to the hostel and caught most of the Japan-Cameroon match. This was very disappointing as well, Japan played well, but Cameroon played well below their ability. African teams need to stop hiring European managers. It seemed Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire were uncomfortable in their matches, too rigid. Ghana and Nigeria also have Europeans in charge and seem more comfortable. We’ll keep watching. I don’t think much of Sven Goran Errickson (Cote d’Ivoire’s Manager). It hurts to say this about a Swede, but his teams always seem uninspired. Anyway, back at the hostel, I enjoyed watching the Jap-Cam match with Eric, an employee at the hostel, and the old Rasta man. Our chatter was entertaining, enough so that I chose the watch the evening match between Paraguay and Italy there instead going out. It was a nice evening, I also got to the owners of the hostel a bit, names to come, a Colombian man and a south African woman had met in Mexico last year to while the woman was backpacking and decided to provide a reasonably priced place to stay during the world cup. I they are only doing this during the tournament, then they plan on traveling around Africa once the world cup is over. I may travel with them, we’ll see.