Thursday, May 12, 2005
Cairo-Rage-Oct., 23 2002
I should have walked away. A mature person would have walked away. Before I begin this story, let me start off by telling you a dream I had a couple of weeks ago. It goes like this: I was hiking alone in some woods. It looked like California. Suddenly, a bull is blocking my path. I try every way to get past him, but his eyes are following my every move. After a while I think, “F it, I’m making a run for it.” I sprint past him, turn around, jump on his back and grab hold of his horns. I break his horns right off and use the sharp end to slowly, methodically gouge his eyes out until he’s totally blinded. Then I go on my merry way.
So I guess you could say I have a little pent-up anger here. OK, back to the story. This week I had my first real match with my soccer team. We were playing against a local Egyptian team that is known to play pretty rough. Needless to say, I was nervous as hell. It’s one thing to kick around scrimmage-style with a bunch of ex-pats. It’s a completely other thing to play an actual game against a local men's team. I arrived at the field late in my work clothes. So, the process of finding a place to change clothes drew its own crowd of gawkers. Soon, some Egyptian coach cleared out a locker room of about 15 men to let me in. Once word got around that a woman was to be playing in the game, quite a crowd gathered to watch the match. No big deal. The first incident came from a group of young boys who thought it was cool to throw rocks at the girl. After a teammate stopped them, all was fine.
The game was great. I didn’t touch the ball much, but I managed to stop my mark from scoring a couple of times. Game over. Score: 1-1. Upon leaving the club, a group of teenagers circled me and shot me birds and other various rude gestures. At first I wasn’t even sure they were meant for me, so I kept walking. Soon enough, it was clear they did not appreciate the fact that a woman has soiled their field. I stopped, turned around and asked the ringleader to say what he meant to my face. I waited as his friends egged him toward me. He giggled and stammered and tried to hide behind a friend. Wrong. I waited and continued to point at him and ask him to come here and say it to my face. He didn’t move, so I did. I got in his face, told him to apologize, which he did not, and then I hawked up some spit and spit in his face. Then I told him to “Fuck off.” How mature am I? I should have walked away, right? He’s just an idiot kid. It’s possible that he doesn’t even know what his gestures meant. Who knows. All I know is that it felt good. It felt right. Cultural sensitivity be damned.
This place changes people. It’s so backward sometimes, I feel like I’m choking. Yesterday I heard a story about an English woman who was brought in to be the one of the bosses of a British Gas and and Egyptian company joint venture. On her first week she was reprimanded for giving a presentation (in a business suit) while standing in front of an air-conditioner. Apparently, the Egyptians complained that she was trying to distract them with her nipples, which had gone hard from the cold. So instead of the Egyptian getting reprimanded for making sexist comments, she got a dress code. One step forward, two steps back.
So I guess you could say I have a little pent-up anger here. OK, back to the story. This week I had my first real match with my soccer team. We were playing against a local Egyptian team that is known to play pretty rough. Needless to say, I was nervous as hell. It’s one thing to kick around scrimmage-style with a bunch of ex-pats. It’s a completely other thing to play an actual game against a local men's team. I arrived at the field late in my work clothes. So, the process of finding a place to change clothes drew its own crowd of gawkers. Soon, some Egyptian coach cleared out a locker room of about 15 men to let me in. Once word got around that a woman was to be playing in the game, quite a crowd gathered to watch the match. No big deal. The first incident came from a group of young boys who thought it was cool to throw rocks at the girl. After a teammate stopped them, all was fine.
The game was great. I didn’t touch the ball much, but I managed to stop my mark from scoring a couple of times. Game over. Score: 1-1. Upon leaving the club, a group of teenagers circled me and shot me birds and other various rude gestures. At first I wasn’t even sure they were meant for me, so I kept walking. Soon enough, it was clear they did not appreciate the fact that a woman has soiled their field. I stopped, turned around and asked the ringleader to say what he meant to my face. I waited as his friends egged him toward me. He giggled and stammered and tried to hide behind a friend. Wrong. I waited and continued to point at him and ask him to come here and say it to my face. He didn’t move, so I did. I got in his face, told him to apologize, which he did not, and then I hawked up some spit and spit in his face. Then I told him to “Fuck off.” How mature am I? I should have walked away, right? He’s just an idiot kid. It’s possible that he doesn’t even know what his gestures meant. Who knows. All I know is that it felt good. It felt right. Cultural sensitivity be damned.
This place changes people. It’s so backward sometimes, I feel like I’m choking. Yesterday I heard a story about an English woman who was brought in to be the one of the bosses of a British Gas and and Egyptian company joint venture. On her first week she was reprimanded for giving a presentation (in a business suit) while standing in front of an air-conditioner. Apparently, the Egyptians complained that she was trying to distract them with her nipples, which had gone hard from the cold. So instead of the Egyptian getting reprimanded for making sexist comments, she got a dress code. One step forward, two steps back.
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