2010 Africa Cup soccer

The Africa Cup soccer tournament was played last week. Which I doubt most of you reading this knew anything about, but it was a very big deal here. Mostly because Egypt ended up playing their hated arch rival, Algeria, in the semi-final game. Egypt lost to Algeria in the final qualifying match for the World Cup (which will be held in South Africa this summer) so the Egyptians were looking for a chance at redemption. Or, as one Egyptian said to me, Revenge!

The match was on Thursday night and I had already made plans to join the Internations group for a social dinner in Maadi. This is the first time I have attended an event with this group, but the dinner was at one of my favorite places in Maadi, Abu Sid, so I decided to try it out. I had a nice time and met some nice people, mostly teachers at the Modern English School in Cairo. Here is a picture of the group at my table:

After the dinner, I went outside and walked over the subway tracks to Road 9, where I knew I could catch a cab home. As I came out on Road 9, I had what I consider my first spontaneous conversation in Arabic. It isn’t much, but here’s how it went:

I saw a group of young men gathered around a TV, watching the soccer game, of course. When I left the restaurant, Egypt was ahead 2-0. I walked over to the group and here was the conversation:

Me: Itneen zif? (2 to zero?)

Young Egyptian: La! Talaata zif! (No! 3 to zero!)

Me: Mumtaz! (Excellent!)

OK, so it isn’t much, but still…

Anyway, feeling like an Egyptian, I hopped in a cab and said, “Medan Victoria” which is where I live. About halfway there, however, I decided maybe I would just go to a Cafe nearby and watch the end of the game. In a recent lesson with Heba, my Arabic tutor, we went over again the Arabic word for ball (koora). And café is just “café", so I was able to communicate what I wanted to the taxi driver. He told me, (in Arabic, but I’m really understanding more, so I got it right away) “I know a café on Nasr street where you could watch the game.” So I said “Iywa, yalla” (yes, let’s go).

He turned around and we headed toward Nasr street. Now I have never, never, never had any fear for my safety, as far as physical violence goes, in Egypt. So I didn’t think about it as we headed down these narrow, dark, back streets. He kept turning down one after another though, and that went on more than I expected, and it occurred to me that in most cities I would be quite nervous about this. Just when I was beginning to wonder if I should get nervous, we turned onto busy Nasr Street, the driver let me out at the café, and I went in and watched the end of the soccer game.

It was a smallish café with seating for maybe 50 or 60 and several TVs around. There were few seats available, and I shared a table with an Egyptian family (It seemed to be mother, daughter, son-in-law and a young child). Here is a brief video I took sitting there:

The game was a rout that Egypt won 4-0. The whole city went crazy, and I had to get home through the bedlam. It was the kind of spontaneous eruption you just wouldn’t expect in the US. Most of it seems like good clean fun, but it is right on the edge (or so it seemed to me) of getting out of control. So my goal was to just walk up the street, find a landmark to get me home, and get back to my apartment as quickly as I could. Here is a video of the chaos on the streets:

You hear me say that I’m lost. I knew the street I was on, but I got turned around and with everything going on it all looked different and I wasn’t sure whether my neighborhood was 2 miles up the road or down the road, if you know what I mean. Normally, I would just jump in a cab, but there was no taking a cab in that craziness. So, I kept looking around until I found a landmark:

Aha! So that let me know what side of the road I was on, and I had to turn around to get back home. I was a long way from home, and it took about 30 minutes or so to walk home, but I made it fine.

A few nights later, I joined some friends over at Alessia’s house to watch the final against Ghana. Alessia is a wonderful host, and a beautiful Italian woman, and also happens to have a really nice big screen TV in her flat, so she has hosted several soccer games. (If only she liked college football). Anyway, I had Alessia’s picture in my last blog, this time at Alessia’s house Agnes was there:

Agnes was born in Poland and moved to North America (the US, I think, but maybe Canada) when she was about 10. She has been in Cairo for about a year now, I think, and teaches at the Canadian International School along with with Alessia and Hedi (Hedi lives in my apartment building). As far as I know, her immediate plans are to stay in Cairo and teach at CIS for the foreseeable future.

Egypt won the match, 1-0, which was really boring to me. I don’t know enough about soccer to appreciate it, especially a low scoring game, so I didn’t even watch most of it. After the game, Alessia suggested we go out to Medan Victoria and join the celebration. We walked out to the medan and it seemed to me that all hell was breaking loose. I mean, I appreciate a little revelry when your team wins, but this was just more than I wanted. It is all spontaneous, no direction, and no police around to keep order. I’m sure the police were somewhere nearby (they always are in Egypt) but they were obviously just letting the locals celebrate. The worst part is the makeshift blowtorches from aerosol cans. They take an aerosol can (usually bug spray) and a lighter and use it as a blowtorch. Now, call me the uptight American, but I just don’t care to be too close to those things.

Anyway, I was just ready to go home, but Alessia wanted to jump right in and join the party! I hung around for awhile and took some pictures and video, but eventually just decided to head home. Agnes and another friend who watched the game with us, Nadia, also decided to go home, but as we were leaving I saw Alessia had joined one of her Egyptian friends and was in the middle of a crowd enjoying the party. Good for her, but that’s not for me!

Here are some pictures and video I took in the medan that night:

Oh, I guess your thinking, "No, that doesn't look unsafe! What a wimp that Glenn is!"