bahbak ya masr!!

This weekend was awesome! Mostly because of sports. Egypt played against Algeria (their archrival) here in Cairo on Sunday to qualify for the World Cup, and things got a little crazy. First of all, the Algerian team was attacked on Friday when they arrived in Cairo, and three players were injured. The two teams have a fairly violent history. Apparently, in 1989, an Algerian player struck the Egyptian team's doctor in the eye with a glass bottle (or something like that), causing him to go permanently blind. Interpol just dropped the arrest warrant on the Algerian player this past April. After some threats from FIFA following the attack on Friday, Cairo stepped up its security a bit, and the game went on in a fairly peaceful manner. And what an exciting game it was! Egypt needed to win by two points in order to still be considered for the World Cup, and they did it! Egypt won 2-0 by scoring in the first and last minutes of the game. Now the two teams are tied in the rankings, and will play again in Sudan on Wednesday. I watched the game in Rehab, on the outskirts of Cairo, with a few friends. After the game, the streets were filled with people who were making flamethrowers out of hairspray and lighters, or standing on top of moving cars, all cheering and shouting. It reminded me of what Franklin St. was like when UNC beat Duke at a home basketball game, except Egyptians do this sober. If it was that crazy in Rehab (which doesn't usually have a lot going on), I can only imagine what it must have been like downtown or in Nasr City, where the stadium is. I took a lot of great pictures, but they all got deleted somehow when I tried to upload them onto my computer. Fortunately, Dana got some good ones too:

Ahmed hooking me up with some face paint.


Celebrating the victory!