Last weekend I had a trip scheduled to go back to Cairo because one of my friends was getting engaged to an Egyptian woman. Another development also came up which for me was a wonderful opportunity. Egypt was the host nation of the under-20 year old World Cup Football tournament. It just so happened that the championship game and the third and fourth place game were going to be held at the Cairo stadium the day before the engagement party, and one of my friends could get fairly cheap tickets. So I decided to make the trek up to Cairo a day early to watch the game. Neither of the games were very exciting at all, which was disappointing. But it was a great experience being a part of the crowd. The stadium was packed, obviously, and when we had gone 75 minutes into the game (Brazil was playing Ghana in the finals) and neither team had really even had any good chances at scoring, much less actually scored a goal, the entire stadium decided to start cheering for Egypt. So that was probably the most exciting part of the game was 65,000 people doing their standard Egypt cheers. It made me wish that Egypt was actually in the finals. Ghana ended up winning in penalty kicks by the way … after 120 minutes with nothing remarkable happening in the game.

Read more ...

If the connection between language and culture interests any of you, then you may enjoy reading this. I decided to write it down just so I would have it, but then thought that I should share it with everyone too in case any of you may find it interesting as well.

If anyone is interested in the interconnectedness between language and culture, it is readily apparent in Middle Eastern cultures. In the time that I have been here in Egypt, I have come across the usage of two phrases in particular that are used with, what to me is, astonishing frequency. The two phrases which I speak of are insha’Allah and hamdulaley (I have no idea if that is the right transliteration or not, but that is what they sound like to me.) For those that don’t know, the phrase insha’Allah is probably best translated as “God willing” and the phrase hamdulaley is probably along the lines of “praise God.” Both these phrases are used by everybody in Egypt that I’ve met, whether the person is Egyptian or a foreigner, a Muslim or a Christian, probably even the Buddhists and atheists here use the phrases. It is not the fact that the phrases are used, however, which is so unique, but the circumstances to which the phrases are applied.

Read more ...