Ramadan and Football... that is what Egypt does

Ramadan is now over, but before it ended I was able to fast for a day with some Muslim friends. I got several of my American friends to do it with us. Of course the Muslims have to fast from food, water, and tobacco during the sunlit hours every day during the month of Ramadan so they were excited for us to feel the hunger and thirst with them! We woke up at 3:45 in the morning and ate our last meal and drink for the day. Then we went back to sleep and went throughout our day. The hunger didn’t bother me because of the meal during the night, but the thirst was hard from walking around in Cairo all day (it was our service project day and the NGO I work at is a long ways away). We had planned to meet at a Syrian restaurant for iftar (the breaking of the fast). Once the call to prayer was sent out over the loudspeakers from the surrounding mosques, signaling the time to break the fast, we ate dates and drank water. The first drink of cold water made me really appreciate the month of Ramadan and why Muslims see it as a holy month of sacrifice. We ate a wonderful meal and it was a great experience!

On Tuesday, several of us guys were invited to attend a football match here in Cairo. It was the Egyptian league, and the two teams playing were ranked #2 and #3 in Egypt. The #3 team won and it was really fun to watch! The most interesting thing was the 900 riot police every 5 feet around the field. That really gives validity to all the stories you hear about the riots and violence over soccer in Africa and abroad. No such excitement happened at our game but the fans were pretty raucous and it was fun to see!

I will have a post ready in a few days detailing a few events that we have been to involving Muslim/Christian relations. It is a very different story depending on who you talk to regarding the way the two religions interact in Egypt. I have collected notes on my experiences with my Coptic friends and my Muslim friends and how they see the religious issues here. It should be a good post, so stay tuned for that in a few days!