I have to admit, I’m not a big sports fan, but during the soccer world cup I realized how extremely important sport is. I saw how it can build a nation, change perception and most of all help you to get outside of your “I’m so cool, I don’t do silly things” box and just have fun!!

As soon as the tickets were released for the Cape Town games iaan and I jumped online and bought 10 tickets for the Cameroon vs Netherlands game. I literally killed my bank account, but there was NO way I was going to miss out on this once in a life time experience. Soccer world cup in Cape Town, now that’s not something you see every day! We also knew the tickets will be sold in days. So 8 of our friends bought the other tickets and we were ready to go watch the game.

As the weeks came closer I had a look at my closet and with a little sigh of disappointment saw that I was quite a boring person when it came to colorful clothes. I love colour…On a picture, but not on my body! In some way I’m brave enough to walk to a red coat and try it on, but I always end up buying the black one. It’s just more practical, right? Consequently I ended up with a closet filled with black, grey and brown clothes…how exciting…So for this game I wanted to go all out!! I walked around in the mall and I found the perfect set of pants! Yellow, I’m talking banana! As in Bafana Bafana, here I come! I was so proud of these yellow pants, I felt like a kid going to an awesome dress up party!

I even got Adri to buy a pair…don’t think I was so brave to wear it all by myself! Seriously. In public. No way, I needed an accomplice. And just by the way, we looked so normal when we got to the fan walk, cause what the other people were wearing was just in another league!

But appart from all the fun and games there is one thing from that day that will stick with me forever! The night before the game we found out we had an extra ticket…the ticket could have been sold to anyone, but instead iaan and I decided to try something, what if we sold this ticket on my website..not for profit, but to change someones life?

As you probably realized by now, I’m a bit crazy! And I love crazy ideas! I love thinking outside the box and I love thanking risks! So we decided to auction on my site…and we only had 8 hours.

All profits would go towards the KIKI outreach program i’m running in Kayamandi. The KIKI outreach program is a photo school I started this year. It aims to share and teach kids in underprivileged communities about photography. (A little video about this will be up on the next post..)

The ticket was sold to a very generous lady, who bought it for R5000! And she asked us to take someone else to the game, as she was in Johannesburg. So I phoned Ncumisa, one of the girls helping me in Kayamandi. She screamed so hard over it was much worse that any Vuvuzella! :)

And that night Ncumisa walked the fan walk, she entered the stadium and stood in awe. A few tears formed in her eyes as she couldn’t believe she would ever have the opportunity to see a game in real life. They were happy tears. And in her own words from a letter she wrote to me:

“I really never thought it’ll happened to me.. WORLD CUP LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! now that was really AYOBA..while we were sitting on that restaurant seeing people going to the stadium, it felt unreal. The moment i stepped into the stadium and saw all the people, it felt like I’m in a dream, i will wake up and it wouldn’t be true, but it was, i just felt tears coming into my eyes, i couldn’t control them, i was super excited.

It was a great surprise ever, i would never ever forget the 24th of june 2010. You just made my history, when i heard about the world cup, i really wanted to attend at least one match, i wanted to say i was there, but i knew that it was imposible, but today, im saying I WAS THERE!”

(Note: The author of this post does not take any responsibility for that actions of the people in these photos… But gives a Waka Waka award to each on of the following people: Lizelle Lotter, Iaan Van Niekerk, Adri Rupping, Monica Dart, Lydia Meintjes, Lance Van der Spuy, Sjan-Mari van Niekerk, Anske Van Niekerk & Ncumisa Siko :) You guys did well!)

If you’d like to contribute to the kiki project, cameras, cash, anything…please mail me.