Dear Friends,
If on Sunday 11th of July at 09:30 on the US Pacific Coast, 12:30 on the US East Coast,17:30 in the UK, 18:30 in Europe and 30 minutes past midnight in Sydney, you tune into a suitable TV station, you will be able to join some 500 million people in 215 countries watching the closing ceremony of the Soccer World Cup taking place in the Stadium pictured below, in Soweto South Africa.
The Stadium, perhaps the most modern in the world, takes the form of a giant Calabash (Gourd) as something truly representative of Africa, and as old as Africa itself. But the Calabash really belongs to all of us, because it was probably the first container ever used for storage by our human ancestors and, therefore, is part of all our histories. It is fitting that it should be the 'container' of an event that will bring together, as never before, a vast human audience from all over our planet in a single celebration, showing that we humans are capable of living out a common destiny.
It is also fitting that this should all be taking place in a valley between hills where our most ancient ancestors began their human journey; in hills where the earliest traces of the use of fire and the earliest traces of symbolic art can be found, set against the backdrop of one of the world's most modern cities.
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