Cradock seemed further than two hours from Grahamstown. The R350, a bit of a dribble through pothole at times, winds north, past the quaint town of Bedford and paparazzi-shy monkeys, through canyons and across the Great Fish River.   We have been blessed to have Nyameka Goniwe's support to introduce Soccer Cinema to Lingelihle. Through her, we met primary school teacher Sandile Sepeni and soccer coach Mxolisi Ndatya, both biiiig soccer fans, at the Lingelihle Stadium.

The annual Easter Tournament, in its ninth edition, drew 17 teams competing for the R12 000 prize money. Braving an early cold front, local supporters came out in strong numbers, some staying into the early hours of the morning - the last game on Saturday finished at 3AM!

 

Before heading up to the Lingelihle Community Hall on top of Sikulu Street, we pay tribute to Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkonto and Sicelo Mhauli, the Cradock Four by visiting their gravesite memorial. It will be 25 years ago in June this year that the four activists were killed... We stand, humbled, deeply moved, in front of these black marble headstones, on the day white supremacist Eugene Terre'Blanche was killed, surrounded by a sea of headstones, crosses, metal hearts, make-shift graves. The sight silences us, swallows question marks.

  

  

The Cradock Four - Photo courtesy of Iris Films 

We drive past a fence turned washing line where a dozen or so soccer shirts are hung up to dry. As Luke gets out to take a picture, a group of boys rushes to the fence, grabs and pulls - often oversized shirts over their heads - to pose, like real pros.  


Sandile tells us about the now defunct drive-in Cradock used to have. Up to 1997. Or so. We venture through, eventually out of town, in search of the drive-in. Sandile is nostalgic as he recalls: "We'd sit there, listen to the film through the radio. White people and black people. If you were not careful in the dark you'd loose your girlfriend to another guy..." The site where the drive-in used to be is now fenced up and has become a dog training unit for the police. "A bioscope would be good. People drink too much here. Too many taverns. But when we have the Soccer Tournament on, they don't drink that weekend," Maanie explains.

Organising J'Bay and Humansdorp had a nice touch of small town idiosyncrasies.  We met Timothy Meleni at the community hall in J'bay, our screening will be held at the Pellsrus Community Hall, minutes away from South Africa's surfer mecca and it's popular beaches.

It is Good Friday, the hall is buzzing and brimming thick into a church service. Kids play outside, a few female congregants with flowing dresses and big hats, Southern Belles, wear vertiginous high heels. The priest's voice reaches screeching heights.   After a little sqwizz we walked down the road to interrupt the town mayor's Good Friday lunch to say hello - introductions seem more important than polite holiday shyness.  We found the care taker of the hall at the empty caravan park and confirmed a time for film screenings. 

Twenty minutes from JBay away, at Humansdorp Secondary we met maths teacher Sammy Jantjies in good cheer and all smiles.  He has been teaching here for twenty five years!  Dedicated and passionate.  It's really good to find such people in towns where the status quo is a steady exodus to the big cities.  We hear the students are actually more interested in rugby... the screening will be held after school on the first day back from holiday.  We feel that Drogba Fever and Zuma the Puma should set football off quite nicely. 

There is no history class offered in the final school years at Humansdorp Secondary. Should history be compulsive in a country like South Africa? To make sure that children and teenagers know about their country's troubled past, to know what it took to overthrow apartheid and build the new South Africa.  How can one understand the now and be prepared for the next steps without any knowledge of the past? How to reconcile all the different voices and events and instill critical thinking in kids, a sense of belonging, pride and compassion?

We like The Western Nostril, enjoy more here.

We suspect that here in Zolani, a laid-back township 2 minutes out of Ashton, Soccer Cinema is going to be a mad party. Latsi, the local under-17 coach doesn't want to miss it and insists his players will come wearing their team shirts. Bathwell, the caretaker of Rolihlahla Hall (opened by Madiba in the 1990s) enjoyed a sneak preview of "Drogba Fever".


In each town we finalise the screening time and place, our local patron signs the Soccer Cinema Mascot Ball and we try dig up something locally interesting. We had some good laughs with Charles Beukes in Worcester and got the low down on Robertson from Daneil Baadjies - anyone up for the Wacky Wine Fest in early June where you can take a dip in pool of red vino and maybe find a diamond ring!?

After viewing halls in Zolani, Robertson and Nkqubela, we added some Soccer Cinema colours to Daniel's office and filled out the posters. That is where we learnt that "kungenwa" is the proper xhosa word for "mahala" - we added free & gratis too.

Everywhere we go, people walk. In the middle of nowhere. And cycle. Any time of day and night. Young families pushing a pram. Mothers holding kids in their arms. People wave money to catch a lift.

Each small town and village has it's own township, in the so-called new South Africa. A little seems to have changed but what would really make a huge difference would be means of transport. Bicycles for short trips and decent public transport for other trips. Many people were quite open to the idea of going to the other areas but if it's far and they have only there feet to do so... 

A smile and a bitjie afrikaans (or xhosa) goes a loooooong way.