In our exciting feature My Welcome To The League Moment, KickOff catches up with former Kaizer Chiefs striker Kanga Nzenza.
Nzenza says the two biggest things that shocked him when he arrived in South African football in 1995 were the food and the cold weather.
"I remember when I came here, I was so young and everybody wanted to know who I was," Nzenza tells KickOff.
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"My first game was against Mthatha Bucks, it was an evening game in very cold weather."
"Coming from a very hot country like the DRC, here it was too cold for me that day I couldn't even start, I had to start on the bench.
"Our coaches Augusto Palacios and Trott Moloto thought it would be wise for me to come on in the second half.
"During halftime, the Chiefs physio had to rub me with Vaseline and oil to warm my body. When I came on, I made people dance," he adds.
Nzenza went on to share how the overall was for him at Naturena.
"Things were great at Kaizer Chiefs, the senior players Neil Tovey, Wellington Manyathi and Gardner Seale gave me a very warm welcome.
"It was a culture shock for me to see a football club taking its players to a hotel, I spoke limited English at the time, and they wanted me to eat properly.
"At Kaizer Chiefs, they eat nice, you know. They put spaghetti, like pasta, and there was also rice and chicken.
"I have never seen so much chicken in my life, coming from a country whereby we are not used to eating a full chicken [laughs]. I only ate a chicken leg and a wing, spaghetti, grabbed an apple and I was satisfied.
"Shakes Kungwane noticed that and said to everybody, 'Yoh, yoh, yoh! This boy will die here!' [Laughs]
"It was my first time seeing a person eating the whole chicken on his own, he even told the team doctor that this boy was not eating properly.
"Shakes Kungwane [laughs], that player was eating terribly. It was the first time I saw somebody eating like that.
"He kept on telling me, 'Hey Papa, you must eat, this is Kaizer Chiefs, this is not Congo [laughs]. Here we eat, baba.
"And I was surprised at how my new teammates were eating. Shakes finished whatever was there. He had an appetite.
"I liked that guy, he was making jokes all day. Every time he saw me, he would say, 'Hey Papa, you must eat, otherwise you are going to faint on the pitch'.
"Sometimes I couldn't understand what he was saying and Botende Eshele would translate for me.
"Even during training sessions, Shakes would say to me, 'You must eat, you are running too much because your body is too small' [laughs]. He was a food killer Shakes."
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