JOHANNESBURG LETTER:Cultural learnings on the forecourt of a 24-hour garage

THE HOTEL is new and unfrayed. Built for the World Cup on the edge of a suburb that is transforming slowly from poor to black middle class. The staff are lovely. We have our fun.

There are power cuts and for a day the water has been off. Last night the alarm went off by accident a couple of times and a stern, tape-recorded voice told us in those clipped Sith Ifrican tones to evacuate the hotel. On arriving in the lobby each time we were greeted with smiling faces asking innocently if it was the alarm which had got us up.

We went back to bed sure that they just wanted a bit of company or mischief.

Each new staff member you encounter asks where you come from.

Ireland, you say.

U2, they reply.

Yesterday at lunchtime, alarmingly and distressingly, Jedward were being piped through the radio as we talked at reception.

Ireland, I said, pointing at the speakers and forgetting to be embarrassed.

Grave nods. Things are hard in Johannesburg, but the people are capable of compassion.

World Cup fever is hard to find in such a large and fractured city. Where it exists, in the middle class white areas, notably Sandton, it has the ersatz feel of a summer festival arranged by the council. The whiteys are passingly interested, but Sandton is where what tourist money is spent in Johannesburg will be spent. So the effort is made.

Elsewhere the South African flag and knots of people gathered in front of televisions are the sole evidence of the competition. It’s not Italia ’90, not that great abandonment of the world and its responsibilities which we Irish experienced. Life is still a little too hardscrabble for that, and the sight of Bafana Bafana getting bounced so early and so briskly from the competition killed the romance.

The Irish Timesis the only journalist in residence at the hotel and, as such, with his dangling accreditation and his access to matches, he is a thing of wonder.

The nearest media hotel is three-quarters of a mile away. Less even. That's where the media shuttle goes from. When The Irish Timessets off for the media shuttle he is even more of a thing of wonder.

Three-quarters of a mile. Less probably. It's tantalising. Too short a journey to be summoning a taxi for, let alone a dedicated driver. So The Irish Timesyomps off by foot to catch the shuttle to work and they watch him disappear, shaking their heads.

Getting to the media shuttle is like completing a level of Grand Theft Auto. Up the hill and past the 24-hour garage and then across three lanes of the off-ramp from the motorway. Make it there alive and it's a final glance back and a heroic wave as the intrepid journalist disappears into the dark, fetid underpass of the motorway itself, nodding and waving at the surprised inhabitants.

Fortunately surprise paralyses whoever is dawdling there at any given moment. The Irish Timeshas a big bag on his back. The bag contains a laptop, a little camera, an iPod, a tape recorder, one of the posh pens The Irish Timeslikes to use when imagining himself to be a scribe and not a mere hack. And a mobile phone. Ho ho, says The Irish Timesto himself. Who in this the murder capital of the world would want to harm me!

And so on back out into the light and across the three lanes of the on-ramp traffic, down a hill and across some waste ground and around the security fencing of the media hotel wherein a variety of foreign hacks are lounging in wait for the shuttle.

They look up at the great sweating dishevelled beast of burden who comes among them from his residence which seems to be the motorway underpass. They keep their distance. So there is no chance to tell them that there is actually another hotel over the other side of the motorway.

At night The Irish Times, manful and courageous and down with the street – though he doesn't like walking the waste ground and the underpass (it's the company laptop he fears for) – waits for the same Buddha-like shuttle driver. On the first night of shuttling The Irish Times set off with a theatrically defeated gait toward the middle of nowhere instead of into the media hotel.

Buddha asked The Irish Times what he thought he was doing.

"Just walking to my hotel," said The Irish Timesin tones of immense sadness

“Jizzes Chreest git bick in the biss min,” Buddha commanded.

Now we shotgun the bus through the underpass and Buddha pops The Irish Timesout at the 24-hour garage.

The Irish Timesloves the garage. It has a battalion of staff who spend these World Cup days playing keepy-uppy on the forecourt. Like a lot of places, there is no TV available and the lads are discouraged from ambling across to the hotel to have a look at what is going on.

In the afternoons and evenings the World Cup comes to them in fragmented bulletins wafting from car radios. Cars pull in and each man has his own pump to tend. The drivers seldom leave the cars and the attendants fill the tanks with their ears cocked to what is happening on the radio.

They have a wonderful way of moving which involves a lot of energy and arm movement but basically a very slow but stylish walk to each car. It makes the sad, defeated trudge of The Irish Timeslook like something from a much earlier stage of evolution.

They fill the tanks, move with the money, bring back the change if necessary, and then they go back to the endless keepy-uppy, heading and juggling an old ball about with an alacrity which is as casual as it is astonishing.

They chat away about the scores and the teams, with only the names of famous footballers and sometimes clubs discernible from their quiet tones and frequent laughter.

Passing them a couple of times a day we share little shards of conversation and nods of greeting and farewell. It doesn’t look well paid at all, but it looks like a relaxed, chilled life playing keepy-uppy in the winter sun and laughing and joking with your friends.

During the power cuts the ATM on the forecourt ceased to work and a few times The Irish Timeshas trudged across in search of cash only to find the machine still deceased. On seeing The Irish Timesapproach one or other of the guys would shake his head.

“Still dead man.”

So the conversation grew a little longer every time.

Yesterday, for the first time, one asked where The Irish Timeswas from.

Ireland, we said. And waited for mention of Bono and the chaps.

There was a murmur of excitement. Grinning.

“Roy Kinn!” they said. “Roy Kinn!”

And there on the forecourt we stood and talked about Roy Kinn and Saipan, and even though this World Cup was unfolding all around in Soccer City and Ellis Park and on the big screens of Sandton, the competition seemed as it did in childhood, like a fable with passages that everybody will always remember.

The ATM was working today.

The Irish Timesgave the lads a big thumbs-up.

“Very good Roy Kinn,” they grinned. “Roy happy!”