The dust rising of the parched earth drifts into my throat, a cloying suffocating feeling pushed into the back ground by the sights before me. From between the legs of my father, I watch gladiators hurl themselves at one another, speaking a language that is an eclectic mix of innuendo, high-pitched noises, sly glances and barely audible hints.

Following a script written in a language only they can understand, they weave in and out of my narrow field of vision, these mesmerizing figures speaking a language I could only hope to get but a passing sense of understanding.
In Brazil they speak it with a beguiling tone that is akin to the drums and trumpets that fuel the carnival in Rio. In America it is spoken with the brisk aggressive tone of a stockbroker on Wallstreet. In the United Kingdom they speak it with all the grandeur and self-importance of an empire still living in the dusty corridors of history.

In Germany they speak it with the precision and discipline that is characteristic of their people. In Italy it is spoken in a manner akin to staccato, laced with the roguish impunity of the back streets of Naples and the undeniable grace of the catwalks of Milan. In Spain it is whispered with the grace and majesty of a matador enchanting a bull with the rise and fall of his red cape.
On the African continent we speak it too. On the west coast it is a mixture of the dominance that pervades the physique of the populace married with the mystique captured in Things Fall Apart. In the South it is manifest in a heady mix of the upbeat tones of Kwaito and the uplifting Lords Prayer from Safina.
In the North they speak it with the ingenious design of the pyramids of Gyzaa and the frantic pace of the great bazaars of Tripoli. And on the East coast where I was born and raised, we speak it with intensity of the heat on the Serengeti and the unrivalled beauty of the sun setting over Lake Victoria.

It is a language spoken by the blind, the deaf, and the mute or otherwise disabled. It is a language that needs no translation yet encompasses a scope and depth that few others can compete with. It is language spoken by rich and poor alike. It is a language spoken by men, women and all those in between.
It is a language that I started to learn from the shade of the shadow cast by my fathers towering frame that hot day in Uganda. It is a language that has enabled me to make friends wherever I have gone in this vast world. It is a language that I teach now to my students.
This language is called many things. In America you call it soccer. In England they call it football. In Holland it is called voetbal. In Spain they call it futbol or balompie.
I prefer to call it magic. For like the beauty of a child smile, its meaning is truly universal.

Amathebhu ezimbili ezilandelayo kokuqukethwe ngezansi shintsha.

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