I wanted to write about the Fifa Soccer World Cup 2010 today, grudgingly feeling that it’s my duty to do so seeing as how I’m living in one of the host cities, I’m a South African and I blog. I’m also fairly open minded, have a habit of seeing things from ALL sides and I’ve had the unique position to have spoken to practically everybody that’s involved, from the fans, the diplomats to the gentleman that’s one of the individuals responsible for the security of the whole event. I wanted to talk to you about my thoughts on the matter, explain to you the finer details of what our country have been going through recently. I would even have mentioned our president, who is not only planning to marry his FOURTH wife, but who’s perhaps expecting his 21st child (or 20th, or I sort of lost count after 15) and who’s punishing his second wife for a supposed affair with another man (after said president was trialled a couple of years ago for the rape of a fourteen year old girl… Acquitted of course. What else?).
I wanted to mention all these things and then… Then, I saw a comic on my iGoogle.
The star of the show was Calvin, a six year old boy who was being hurried into his parents’ car to go to an out of town wedding. Normally, Calvin is accompanied by Hobbes, his stuffed tiger. Hobbes is of course his imaginary friend, the one who philosophises with him, endures his ‘experiments’ and generally provide hours of fun interaction. In this strip though, he accidentally forgets Hobbes in his bed. It made me smile in a: Oh dear… Kind of way and I eagerly await tomorrow when I’ll see the conclusion of this strip (I hope…). I know how attached Calvin is to his tiger and in a sense can totally relate to it. 
I’ve known Calvin for about 8 years now, having been introduced to his comic strip by a very dear friend of mine. In a sense, I related to Calvin, understood his need to carry his security (Hobbes) around with him. Life is pretty daunting as a six year old, where monsters and fears could not be rationalized by logic, scientific proof and common sense. He had a super imagination, could entertain himself for hours with thoughts that other six year olds didn’t necessarily think and he had very tolerant (if sometimes a bit exasperated) parents who generally indulged him rather than try to conform him to the norm. I found myself wondering what would’ve happened to Calvin when he grew older, if he’d have one day quietly put Hobbes into a box and never opened it again, or whether he kept him safe, secret and secure in his world. I wonder if he learned to appreciate his parents as he grew older (because you never do when you’re a kid) and whether he turned out to be the brilliant explorer/scientist he always pretended to be. I wonder if he dated Suzie Derkins, his female antagonist who inspired him to create a club that labelled girls as gross.
The thing is that, I didn’t know how he turned out, just as I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next bit of the comic strip. Will his parents go back for the Tiger or will they leave, forcing him to leave his security behind?
It’s almost like the Soccer World Cup here. The fact was that I can speculate about what’s going to happen, I can predict disaster or foresee triumph, but the truth was that I wouldn’t know what was going to happen until I sat through it all and lived it. Until I saw how the proverbial comic strip of life played out. The thing was that, as with the comic strip, I hope that it turns out. I hope that people’s hopes will be realized, that it would do the good that we all hope it would and that my country will behave itself for 30 days. That’s all the world asks of us. Things can turn into a disaster quite easily, but hopefully – we will learn from that as well and perhaps then the world will see.
For now, I can only sit back and wait. And hope.
And read my Calvin and Hobbes because there are far more secrets of the world locked up in these pages than people realize.
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