Live The Story: Komla Dumor on reporting Africa's passion for football

During my time in South Africa, covering the World Cup, I was based in Soweto, possibly the most famous township in the country.

I was staying in a small bed and breakfast run by a wonderful woman called Katherine and it didn't take long before I started feeling like I was part of the neighbourhood.

Of course, there was an international football tournament going on but people were also getting on with their regular lives.

There were school children running up the street getting ready for school, people getting their wares together to go to the market, people washing their taxi's and vehicles getting ready to go about their business.

Just being there and engaging with people was a remarkable experience. It's not just about their reaction to the fact that they are hosting a big football tournament but what is really going on in their lives.

I met some fascinating individuals. Almost everyone in South Africa has a story that starts in the past and moves into the present. There is so much history there, especially in Soweto, which still is very much the epicentre of South African politics.

It is the only place where you find Nelson Mandela's house up one street, and Desmond Tutu's house around the corner while just over the hill, that's where Winnie Mandela lives.

We were doing a broadcast one day out of a fast food restaurant and we noticed Desmond Tutu taking a walk. It doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. Soweto is a fascinating place with wonderful people, I would go back in a minute.

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