It has been an exciting week on the shores of the Mediterranean. Last Sunday the Egyptian National Soccer team squared off against Cameroon in the finals of the African Cup. The African Cup is like the Super Bowl of soccer in Africa. Even though the Egyptian team had won the previous 5 cups, they were considered underdogs after losing to Cameroon earlier in the year. The match started at 7:00 PM and throughout Alexandria, people were glued to their TV sets. Most local businesses which had TV’s had them on and turned to the game – crowds of people were huddled around watching the game. In the 75th minute of the game, the Egyptian team scored on a remarkable play (one that is now featured on YouTube) and held on to defeat Cameroon 1-0. As the horn went off signaling the end of the game – chaos broke out throughout the city of Alexandria (and probably all of Egypt). People went out into the streets – drums were pounding, horns honking and people were everywhere. It was almost impossible to drive as cars were everywhere and the streets were blocked. People would get out of their cars, waving the national flag and dance in celebration. A group of our students were coming back from Cairo from the EMAC arts festival and it took them 3 hours to go from Carrefour to Schutz (a trip that normally takes 20 to 30 minutes). People had aerosol cans and they would spray them and then light the fumes as well as set off firecrackers. The celebration went on for hours.
The members of the winning Egyptian team all received hefty financial bonuses. We’ve heard that some received up to a million dollars with much of the money coming from other oil-rich Arab nations. Soccer is such a big sport here and there are many corporate sponsors throughout the Middle East. Everywhere you go in the city, there are kids playing soccer anywhere here is an open area (even on the streets). The big payment comes at a time when Egypt itself is in the midst of an economic crisis of some degree. Prices of many staple food items has risen 2 to 3 times (such items as wheat, flour, rice, cooking oil). Throughout the city there are public assistance bakeries that sell bread (similar to pita bread) to the people for less than 1 cent each. We have noticed the lines at these public assistance bakeries much longer than in the past. Many people cannot afford to pay the prices at regular bakeries and grocery stores. Alexandria really seems like two different cities when you move from the neighborhood to San Steffano or Carrefour where the wealthy hang out.
We went to a dentist on Saturday to have a checkup and cleaning. This is a different one than we went to last year. He was trained in Canada and practiced there for many years before coming back to Alex. When he left, the city was less than 500,000 and now it is over 6,000,000.
