The mannequins in the windows sport short, sensible haircuts and modest sleepwear.
Cinder-block walls and bare windows sported ancient kid art and a few drowsy mobiles, covered in dust.
Paintings of patron saints by local artists like Serge Toussaint have been replaced with large windows sporting the stickers of development companies.
The World Cup's role as the biggest shop window in sports has never been greater, and with the G-14 group of Europe's most powerful clubs this week exploring arguments for making the tournament a biennial event, it could be set to become even more so.
The calendar has turned to that brief window where sports universes collide.
Even front windows of sports shops have not associated themselves with the championships.
Maluuba, the Waterloo, Canada-based Siri competitor and TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 Battlefield finalist, today announced that it has added two new features to its voice-powered personal assistant app for Android and Windows Phone: sports and TV schedules.
At launch Labs' most exciting (and surprising) new feature was Hulu Desktop — a downloadable native client available for both Mac and Windows that sports a new interface that allows users to sit back from their screens and navigate the site using either their Mac or Windows Media remotes.
Ghana has a World Cup qualifier eight days earlier against Uganda, and while teams are allowed to play both a qualifier and a friendly inside the same nine-day FIFA window, the sport's governing body prevents the friendly from taking place more than a five-hour flight and two time zones away because of the burden on players and their clubs.
Homes of 6,000 square feet with cathedral ceilings and large windows and sport utility vehicles with 44-gallon fuel tanks and 5.4-liter engines can make for alarming energy bills when oil is expensive.
