Egypt v Cameroon
Egypt is the defending champ and five-time winner of the trophy, hoping to take it home for a record sixth time. The streets of Cairo are BUZZING right now, huge traffic jams as people try to get somewhere to watch the game, lots of horn-honking. Also many flag-waving young men running around, and a large group of people walking thru all the side streets of my neighborhood banging on drums and chanting MASR! MASR! (which is the Egyptian pronunciation of the Arabic name for Egypt).
Will note that Egypt tends to identify itself as an African country only when it's useful to do so, which is usually during sporting events such as this one. At least one American friend who lived with me south of the Sahara for many years has already chided me for supporting the "pseudo-African" team. And the other night an Egyptian friend was expressing his annoyance that all the publicity stuff from the tournament shows only dark-skinned Africans, not lighter-skinned North Africans, and then we got into a big argument about how racist it is here... So anyway, maybe I'm supporting Egypt, but maybe I secretly want Cameroon to win.
I'm outta here, off to watch the match. I expect no sleep tonight from the ruckus if they win. Maybe that's another reason to want Cameroon to win. ;-)
Although I'm not sure what the reaction will be here if Egypt loses....
Egypt completely dominated the match, totally outplayed Cameroon. It's a well-deserved win.
It's already completely insane outside, with fireworks and drums and car horns and whistles and cheering. I won't be getting any sleep tonight.
Also, I would like Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary to marry me.
but by about three in the morning you'll want the entire team and every single supporter killed if there's another single firework let off. ;-) Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Tomorrow may tell whether these are just a few incidents or a widespread phenomenon.
