By the time you read this, I’ll be en route to Cape Town—via Amsterdam—and I can’t wait. I’m going as a fan. Not as a commentator, not as a reluctant explainer of other people’s anxieties, but as someone who wants to be in the thick of it: the games, the noise, the rituals, the stubborn joy of football culture. Lately, the way the World Cup is being framed in the U.S.—from the images and debates to the endless hand-wringing—has become exhausting.

The breaking point was a screening of the documentary film, “Fahrenheit 2010” at BAM a few weeks ago. I was invited to provide “context” after the screening. The film was as didactic as it was uneven, and somehow managed to say almost nothing about the football itself—or the fans who give it life. I reminded the audience that most World Cup fans, even if they are mad at FIFA’s grubbiness or that the World Cup won’t bring economic development, will still enjoy the spectacle and festival of football. As I left the screening, a friend mentioned another, for a film about Diego Maradona, where someone in the audience had to be reminded who Maradona was. That, more than anything, clarified what I need right now: distance. I need to be close to football people.

I’m also happily putting some ocean between myself and the latest dispatch from The New York Times—a piece so predictably uninformed it barely deserves the oxygen. As Siddhartha Mitter neatly summed it up, the article, by one of The New York Times’ reporters Jere Longman, manages to recycle nearly every tired stereotype about Africa, with a bonus cameo from Jürgen Klinsmann. None of this is new, and none of it will stop. We’ll endure weeks of it, only for the same voices to feign astonishment when everything works just fine.

All the more reason to go.

Yes, I’ll probably tire quickly of South Africa’s (white) cricket- and rugby-obsessed mainstream media. But I’m not going for the media. I’m going for the football—for the crowds, the conversations, the atmosphere that never quite translates on television.

I’ll be in Cape Town for about two weeks, traveling with my four-year-old daughter, Rosa. We’ve got tickets—thanks to my brother’s heroic patience—for France vs. Uruguay and Italy vs. Paraguay, and I’m still chasing tickets for England vs. Algeria. The rest we’ll take in the way most of the world does: on crowded screens, in good company.

As for predictions: I’m backing Brazil—not because they’ve supposedly become “European,” but because they’re still Brazil. I suspect Argentina might click at just the right moment. They have the world’s best player in their squad, Lionel Messi, and I have a soft spot for Maradona’s chaos. Wayne Rooney and England may well combust. And everyone will be happier for that. And 45 million vuvuzelas will shake the air and irritate many (myself included), even if they don’t carry South Africa past the second round. (Rosa thinks South Africa will win the World Cup.)

But I’m not staking my dignity on any of it. What matters is being there.

Good places to keep up with the World Cup action are the following: Of course The Guardian’s World Cup coverage, Chimurenga Magazine’s World Cup blog project, Pilgrimages (featuring some of the continent’s best writers), David Lane’s The Other Football, Football is Coming Home (I blog there on World Cup matters with Peter Alegi and David Lane), Dundas Football Club, Africa United and Kickoff. Any dispatches from Time’s Tony Karon are also worth the read.

I plan to do some posts and put up some pictures for Africa is a Country, and will put up more pictures on Flickr. Meanwhile, the rest of Africa is a Country bloggers will keep you busy.