Moral Victory

Moral Victory

Today started pretty badly. I woke up before my alarm feeling like I would throw up. Fortunately I didn't, but my stomach was bloated and I thought it might pop. Diarrhea is something every American becomes acquainted with here, but it’s never fun. I couldn't risk going to class so I stayed in the Medina and tried reading Naguib Mahfouz all morning. By mid-afternoon my patience had run out and I was feeling frustrated -- but my diarrhea seemed to have abated, so I took a run. Something about exercising seems to really draw stares here. A jogger in shorts and a sleeveless shirt running laps around the inside of the Medina has apparently never happened before. I digress. The day did improve.

Soccer is the only sport that matters here. Fortunately for me, I love soccer and have been able to play and watch a lot. In the Medina there are two "fields" which we play on, and one field we do not play on. Of the "fields" we play on, one is cement and rectangular, and the other is dirt and trapezoidal. The actual field made of grass is forbidden -- except for league play. Egyptians like to stay up late, and over the summer we would start playing around midnight and finish at 3:00 a.m. That was because of the heat as well. Now that we are in the regular school year and the Medina has a few thousand more students, the fields are much more crowded and it is harder to get in a game. The games thus far have been pick-up games. The goal is to have 15-minute games with five minutes overtime in case of a tie, and but penalty shots for a tiebreaker. However that is just an idea; in reality there is no system. The fields are small, so we usually play six to a squad.

Tonight was unusual because it was the first time our team has played. You see, there is a tournament coming up in the Medina, and one of my friends asked me to recruit some Americans to form a team. So our team is half Americans and half Egyptians. One of the really great things about living in the Medina is the variety of Egyptians you become friends with. Just on this team we have Khalid, a Bedouin from Martruah; Ahmad from Mansoura; another Ahmad from Bahera; Farahat from Kafr al Sheikh and the Americans: myself, Jacob Travers from Maryland and Chris Marrs from Texas. However, Jacob was sick so Scott Cressy from Western Michigan took his spot.

Tonight was not a tournament match but we wanted to try playing together for practice. At 8:30 we descended to the fields but both were busy and had a several teams waiting to play. To get on the field takes more than waiting your turn. In Egypt, the idea of taking turns or lines has yet to catch on in a big way. Usually in this situation, who gets to play next is decided by a big shouting match between all the teams trying to play. In the shouting match anything goes for an argument, but in the end it comes down to how many people are shouting with you and the larger group takes the field. I guess it could be called democratic, in a way.

We finally got to play after a temporary loss of power for the lights in the Medina, which caused some people to leave. Luckily the power came back quickly and we won our turn to play. When Americans step on the field it draws a lot of attention. Instantly there were a hundred spectators just dying to see these Americans get trampled. Do not confuse their animosity with anti-Americanism. Although I can’t say there is none of that here, the real issue when it comes to soccer is that the U.S. National Team dealt a crushing defeat to the Egyptian National Team in the Continent Cup last July, eliminating Egypt from the tournament. Ever since then, the Egyptians have been bitter and when the U.S. team lost to Brazil in the championship match, Egyptians were ecstatic.

The game started out great. We were dominating the field. We had six shots on goal in the first few minutes, and scored one. It looked like we would crush them. But, alas things did not go our way. They called for a substitution. A normal substitution is one player, but somehow they substituted the entire team! After that it was a whole new game. We were playing against the best Egyptian players out of every player who was present (at least one hundred). We held up for a while, and then they picked us apart. We lost 4-1 to the cheers of a huge crowd. The moral victory was clear, though, we played hard with what we had, but they had to make an all-star team to ensure they wouldn't lose. Later, I got a message that they were talking about the game all over the Medina. Even though we lost, we still took the field and made a stand and that earns respect.