Ipeleng Pearce with the ball shows off his skills. Photograph: Oupa Nkosi
It’s a Wednesday afternoon at Thlabane West in Rustenburg. There’s irritating loud music coming from a local tavern.
We are a block away from the tavern where six boys aged between 11 and 16 are sweating it out in a game of one-pal football on the tarred Pooe Street. Most of the boys are wearing old sneakers with no shoelaces and the ball looks well used.
It is quite rare these days to find young boys playing a football game commonly known in the township as ”one-pal” (two bricks are used as goalposts).
Ipeleng Pearce (16) and Simphiwe Mnguni (15) are orphans from the SOS Children’s Village and they were selected earlier this year to be ball boys for the Bafana Bafana match against Iraq during Fifa’s Confederations Cup.
It’s many a young boy’s dream to be part of the ball crew for a match of this magnitude because it offers them an opportunity to meet their football heroes. But it’s a different case with Pearce and Mnguni because they don’t know anything about the Confederations Cup and the teams involved in the tournament.
”Are Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur coming? When is the event? Are we going to fly there? Are we going to sleep there?” asks Mnguni, as if the Mail & Guardian team had just broken the news to them.
”I think both teams are coming and I want to see all their strikers. I just can’t believe that I have been selected. I’m very excited and can’t wait for the moment to arrive,” says an elated Mnguni.
We wonder if we’re at the right place and if we’re speaking to the right people.
Kerileng Mushi, the director of the SOS Children’s Village in Rustenburg, says: ”People are not going to sleep at house 29 tonight. Simphiwe will be making such a noise about this the whole night. They are very excited.”
An equally elated Pearce shouts: ”I’m going to start eating carrots so that I can zoom in the balls and not fumble during the tournament.
”I can’t believe what I’m hearing today. I used to see these things on television and in two months’ time I’m going to be the one they see on television.”
Pearce was taken to the SOS village in 2006 after his mother died and his father abandoned him and his siblings. With Mnguni it is not clear if his mother passed away or just left them with their father.
”It’s a sad similar story and we have to find their families because they have to be re-united with them at some stage of their lives. When children are here they forget all about what has happened to them in the past,” says Mushi.
Mnguni and Pearce are not the only ones selected from the orphanage for the Ball Crew programme run by Coca-Cola South Africa and Powerade. About 14 children from SOS Children’s Villages across the country, aged between 14 and 17, were chosen from a total of 995 children.
The SOS Children’s Village is a private charitable and social development organisation and is an affiliated member of SOS-Kinderdorf International — the largest private welfare organisation for children. There are eight villages across the country. In Rustenburg there are about 73 orphans living in 10 family houses in Pooe Street.
”We take action for orphaned and abandoned children by building families for them to live in and grow where there is love, security and respect. Eight to 10 children are cared for in small family-type homes, known as SOS families, and are raised as brothers and sisters. The head of the family is the SOS mother, who provides the children with the affection and security they need for their sound development,” says Mushi.
”We are working with community members to try to have that tavern shut down because we don’t want our children to be tempted as they grow up. The village is the children’s home until they are able to take care of themselves,” she says.
S’thombe Mere, Coca-Cola’s public affairs manager, says: ”We have worked with the SOS Children’s Villages in the past and we hope that the chosen children will enjoy themselves immensely. Ball Crew members play an important role during a match.”
The ”village” officials were given the task of selecting the Ball Crew. Explaining the criteria used, Mushi says: ”For us it was not such a difficult task because we know that they both have passion for football and can play it. One of the criteria used was that you must have basic knowledge of the game. Football has modified their behaviour and made them such good boys.”
The selected youngsters will be given official training a day before the opening match of the Confederations Cup.
”I will see you during the Confederations Cup. I wish it was tomorrow, eish — I can’t wait,” are Mnguni’s parting words.