get thee to a bookstore/library and find yourself invictus (originally published as playing the enemy), by john carlin. then read it. it's one of the best nonfiction books i've ever read - more about mandela than rugby, but uses rugby to tell the story of reconciliation and forgiveness and triumph at the end of apartheid. i learned SO MUCH. i finished it on saturday afternoon and then lay in bed for another hour finding this gorgeous version of "shosholoza," a work/protest song that became the official song of the 1995 rugby world cup in south africa (i want to take the little bitty soprano boy in the video home with me). and, of course, trying to find actual video of the end of the final game so i could see what john carlin writes about so beautifully in the last chapters of the book. if you haven't read the book or seen the movie, this might not mean much to you, but i loved being able to see it. THE INTERNET IS AMAZING.
and then i promptly emailed my friends and got a group together to see the movie. and it was amazing - very well done, i thought...touching and funny...and how did morgan freeman not win best actor at the golden globes last night?
i can't put the book away yet. it's sitting on my desk and i look at it and think about how incredible the story is - and how much i am in awe of mandela and his country. and it gives me a little hope for other parts of the world that face equally daunting circumstances.
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