The Seven Month Itch

Well it took me until my seventh month here but i finally jumped into a soccer game.

backstory!

in one week i run my first marathon. as mentioned in the previous entry, this race in durban is the only realistic qualifier for the comrades marathon (south africa's double marathon). so if i want to run the comrades in 10 months, i need to finish this marathon in under five hours... or thereabouts. so i've been training in earnest for almost one week now. i've bumped up my run to work once a week regimen to run to work four days a week and i'm now running from joelene's place... a distance thrice or quadrice the distance as the run from my place in scottsville.

but still that's not enough to get me ready for the 42.2km run so extreme times call for extreme measures. again, anyone that knows me knows that i hate running and biking unless i'm going somewhere (e.g. work, grocery store, soccer game, etc.) or chasing a ball. running laps around some fields somewhere. so deciding to run laps was a painful and boring decision. so joelene took me to a nice group of fields she thought would work nicely and, lo and behold, there're a group of kids (white) kicking a soccer ball around on some field hockey fields. i started running laps and, when the opportunity was there, would watch the loosely organized games.

about 40 minutes into my run, a second game started up with about eight colored kids. after an hour into my run a second group, indian, showed up and challenged the first group to a pickup match. at this point i was taking a water break and stretching my calves. i ran a few more laps and decided i would ask if i could jump in.

now bear in mind that when we play pickup in the states, hopefully everyone brings a light and dark shirt to differentiate teams. here, where it was blacks and coloreds versus the equally dark skinned indians, there was confusion over what to do with the white player. i was wearing my "the nothing" jersey with 'dangerman' on the back so it took me a second to figure out why the goalie was shouting to his teammates with hands raised in confusion, "white! white?"

i played defense because, to be quite honest, it didn't seem like anyone really had a grasp of the concept. i was flattered 20 minutes later when the goalie explained to me that aside from being called 'dangerman' i was being described as "a rock". shucks...

the scene got even weirder when a legitimate maritzburg team, "the finishers" showed up in their matching equipment, shin guards, soccer shoes, and goalie gloves and challenged us to a game. ten minutes into the game, only the rag-tag bunch of us had managed a handful of shots on goal. when i left, we were up 1 to 0.

so i now know where to play soccer. i think that leaves refried beans and ice cream sandwiches. i guess now that i can take soccer off the list i can replace it with something else i wish i could find over here: sardines in pesto.

next subject: it took me this long to remember whilst writing the blog that there's a pizza joint here called "st. elmo's pizza" and, yes, it is wood fired.

next subject again: i thought it would be nice for joelene to come watch the croquet scene. maybe slowly ease her into joining me and i'd have some company. not that i mind kicking it for three hours with the coffin-dodgers of the pmb croquet club but let's be honest, last week when one guy, mike, got a little rusk in his windpipe and started coughing i realized that half the club was having some sort of fit or another. i didn't know what to do. shame. they're super nice people and they can kick my ass at croquet so i shouldn't take my frustrations out on them.

and to show how nice they are at the club, they convinced joelene to play a round. ed and me versus joelene and tim. tim and joelene won, with joelene potting the last shot. the girl, a natural competitor, was ecstatic. imagine my surprise when she would consistently send the ball all the way across the pitch to knock the opposing ball away from a gimme shot on the wicket. i'd ask, "how did you manage that shot?" and she'd say, "wasn't that what i was supposed to do?". funny girl. we won our third game too also in a golden wicket game (7-6). i'm sure we'll become regulars at the club. the term "regular" being used ultra-loose.

after croquet was church for joelene. her church has a scroll of the old testament and they often read translated passages from the old testament (with a christian angle naturally) so i figured this is a close as i'm gonna get to a synagogue in pmb during the high holy days. so i got some time alone with my prayers and meditations.

after the service i wanted to show joelene the scroll at the front of the church. as i approached it i wondered, "will it be in hebrew or will it be translated?" from a few meters out i noticed something peculiar: the text was left aligned. hebrew reads right to left so a left alignment led me to believe that, for some peculiar reason, this church had an english torah... or maybe latin. when i got even closer i noticed the second peculiar thing: the letters weren't of the greek or english alphabet. they were in fact the hebrew alef-bet. the reason for the left-alignment, if you haven't cracked the mystery yet:

THE SCROLLS ARE ON DISPLAY UPSIDE DOWN!

how rich is that? one of the top guys of the church approached joelene after noticing my interest in the scrolls. i politely told him what i'd noticed and we had a little chat. the church is truly a stunning place and having the scroll there just makes it even more beautiful. south africa has no shortage of beautiful churches. joelene has a keen interest in finding one of the synagogues in durban and experiencing a service sometime. i'm game... should be interesting.

will joelene be the only non-white? i explained that there's an ancient sect of judaism in ethiopia. "you lie!" she exclaimed.

well, next week will find me in durban for the marathon. wish me luck eh?

so anyway,l'shana tova or, if you're standing on your head, "avot anahs'l"