This mural celebrating the 2010 FIFA World Cup is not in South Africa, but on a house in a favela in Sao Paulo. Though the event was a financial debacle for Cape Town, as described in a previous post, it was an enormous public relations and image success both in Cape Town and abroad. People in Cape Town recounted partying in the streets, late into the night, with people of all colors and ages - no small statement in a country where people are afraid of their shadows and can't be seen at night due to a terrifyingly real violent crime problem - and claimed to feel a new sense of pride in their country and countrymen. And while a boom in tourist dollars is still an unrealized hope, the global awareness and goodwill are real, and have a benefit that will be hard to measure, but I've certainly heard expressed in many countries in the past months.
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