My patriotic son

It is amazing to see how Bilaal has develop such patriotism toward South Africa. And it's not just because of the World Cup. This has been developing steadily for a while already and as his memories of his UK life start to fade, his proudly South African resolve has strengthened. Initially it was deliberately fostered by Yaasier particularly through the love of rugby. Yaasier is and always has been an All Black supporter. He grew up supporting the All Blacks during apartheid and because he is pretty obsessed with rugby, it is more than just support that can just be switched off and allegiances changed because we are now in the new South Africa. Instead what he has done is nurture that support in Bilaal, after all he is from the 'born free generation'. Bilaal has full Springboks gear which we always let him wear when they play and we encourage him to support 'against' daddy when they play the All Blacks. It's so cute to see how excited he gets when his team is beating his daddy's.

Now with the World Cup fever and particularly in Johannesburg where people (me included) have been donning the SA flags and mirror socks and all sorts of other SA paraphenalia for months already, his sense of pride in country has been rejuvenated. He insists the flag must be on the window where he is sitting, and he always checks that my mirror socks are fitting properly. He also gets very upset with me if I forget to wash his Bafana jersey for football fridays. And you should hear him sing the national anthem. I think I should record him one day and post the video to my blog. On the night after the opening match against Mexico, we found him crying in his sleep. When we asked him why he was crying he sobbed that it was because Bafana lost! So we had to explain to him that they didn't lose and what a draw meant and that there would still be more games to play. This morning I didn't tell him that Bafana lost.