Hoopa e ... Hoppa a - Part II

OK. Now that was the Egypt-Cote D'Ivoir match. We couldn't find any 2nd class seats although we tried to get tickets only one day after the Egypt-Morocco match. So, much to my disappointment, we got third class again. I thought: "Well, i DID survive the 1st time, right? and it simply couldn't get worse than that ... afterall, the vast arabic slang vocabulary can't go any further with curses than the ones i already heard, or does it?" Anyways, i'm glad to say that it turned out MUCH MUCH BETTER than i thought, in the coming lines you'll know why!Well, there we went, no more non-egyptians except for my dutch friend ... just me, her - call her 'I', her husband 'M1', a friend from work 'M2'and her friend 'M3'... Wow, that's too many Ms ... hmm, anyways, We met at 4 pm infront of the gates, we had an egyptian flag, two of those air-blown platic rods that make sound when hit against one another,M2 and M3 were all in red and black, and i took a red ahly scarf from 'M3' and hung it around my neck just to have a 'red' thing on. In short, equiped with all this stuff, we managed to take the decent look of happy, enthusiastic egyptian cheerers.

Hmm, one thing that really annoyed me while entering the stadium: there were guys checking the bags before letting us through, none of us had bags except 'I', when the guy started checking - and he was really enthusiatic with his wrk- i think she said smthg.in english, then another security guy - may be of higher rank - asked one of us "what's her natitionality" and she said "dutch", so he turned to the checking guy and told him to stop and let her through! WUT THE HECK??? hey jerks, just that she has blue eyes and speaks some english doesn't mean she ain't got whatever ur looking for. Ok, to all you guys out there who'd like to blow the heck out of a national stadium with a bunch of millions of egyptians and a bunch of idiots guarding it, here's a good plan: let the whitest among you wear green/blue lenses, teach them a few good english words - security men wouldn't notice even if you were saying super/kali/fragelistic/expialidocious anyways - and fill their bags with all the explosives u can get and send them off into the stadium waving an egyptian flag! I mean, really it's annoying how egyptians are always treated compared to foreigners ... we are treated like 3rd class citizens in our own country!!! And much to my annoyance, i'm aware of wut happens to arabs in western countries ... just wearing a veil or having dark skin is enough to take you aside to be thoroughly searched from top to toe!

Anyways, 3rd class wasn't full yet, in fact it was just half full when we got there, so we could easily find a decent place. By looking at the faces around me ... wow, that was NOTHING compared to last time.Two phenomena i could catch immediately:
First, there was a much much larger percentage of girls around us - last time, we were the only female creatures in the whole 3rd class partitions, even bottles were thrown on the lybians coz they have female arabic name :P
Second, Most of the guys around seemed to be of high or middle class. So, it was comforting to expect no bad words this time. In fact, i only heard the f-word once during the match, and it was even in english, so it had a much much slighter effect - considered my self watching an american movie w khalas. Even when some ppl behind us started cursing, they just used the animal kingdom dictionary ... starting by 'haiawan' and subcategorizing into 'homar' and ending up with even 'kharouf' ... 'I' heard that and she said "WUT? doesn't that mean 'sheep'? They are calling him - hossam hassan btw - sheep? wut kinda curse is that!" ... hehehe.
Another phenomena noticed later was the enormous number of egypian flags covering the stadium all around. It wasn't like that the last match at all. That was like every one there was holding/wearing/painted with the flag!

Anyways, we spent the next 3 hours just moving our eyes between the flag-painted faces and the tri-color wages on the heads and joining some cheers every now and then. I spent some time watching the three girls sitting in the row below us painting each other's faces with the egypian flag. 'I' wanted to get a paint too, but alhamdullelah , the girls wouldn't give us the paint ... i don't even wanna imagine her returning home with a painted face! The least that could happen was getting there with a zaffa!Anyways, we learned some new cheers: "yalla ya masraweya ... sheddo 7elko shwayya" ... and "dee mesh kora ... dee mazzika" ... and at times when the crowds were a bit silent, the goal keeper - 7adari - would wave his hands to wake them up, so we'd go "Or2os .. ya 7adaraiii ... or2os ... ya 7adaraaai" ... last time that was "7adaraaaai 7adaraaaaiii" only ... of course they added one cheer for each player now .. "mido", "heema", "abu traika", "met3eb" ... After each score for egypt, we'd go "w lessa ... w lessa" ... and at the time when there's an egyptian attack ... we'd go "heela hop ... heela hop" ... we also did that when we were making a boat ... wuts that? ok, it's like u just sit there and keep moving forward and backward ... i don't really like it, but i think the whole partition looks good from a distance. hmmm,one funny thing is that ppl kept cheering "7abba 7abba ... tata tata ... cote d'ivoir ... hatsheel talata" ever since we got there (4 pm) and the match INDEED ended with 3 to 1!!!So, after the match, we were saying "7abba 7abba ... tata tata ... cote d'ivoir ... shalet talata"
Oh! and the wAaAaAaAaAaVe ... usually the wave dies after the second round, but this time it was really AMAZING! i could count FOUR COMPLETE ON-GOING ROUNDS around the stadium. 'M2' did a very good job almost tearing up my ear with her very high-pitched whistle! I've always thought wisteling is an advantage given to men with their special throat/air tube stracture, apparently not!

Hmm, My father sms-ed me right after our third score saying "mabrouk l masr" ... i told him "W lessa ... w lessa" ... and right with the final whistle, he called again telling me "a3deen leih mat2omo trawa7o!" ... 'I' says it seems that he recently dicovered that i have interest in football!

Ok, match is over, now we have to figure out how we'd go home among the crowded,celebrating streets. Well, we left 'I' and her husbands to their way, and the three of us went out walking towards wut seemed to be an endless point. On the way, and because of the red clothes, egyptian flag and ahly scarf, we got a few remarks from ppl on the streets, mostly "Mabrouk" and "how was the score" and stuff.By the time we reached Makram Ebaid st. i parted to head home alone while the two 'M's stood at the bus station to get a ride. Just infront of City Center, there was a big crowd of young men cheering and clapping on both sides of the street, and they had fireworkd and fire they'd wave in the air. Not to forget the passing by cars, loaded with ppl, with egyptian flag - and sometimes "humans" - flying out of the windows! It was quite a celebration.

Your reporter from among the happy egyptian crowds, Third Class - becoming nicer- rows, Cairo international stadium. Meet you on Friday Inshaa'Allah with the next match ... Stay Tune ;)