Masr! Masr! Masr!

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Grey colors my world. Inhaling it, my blood thickens and heavy hangs my heart, so heavy that I sink to the ground and pray to the east that I can still love my Egypt although she does not love me.

I smile. I would cry but I don’t know how. The all the water in the Nile could not douse my smoldering frustration, because the river is Grey, too.

Grey. A hovering intangible that looks out over Cairo through the Mogama windows and pacifies the fellahin. It strikes down dissent in a haze of anonymity and a threat of lead. And no hope will grow in the Delta.

The Grey ran blue as we gathered around the television. Red and green played stop and go throughout the night, and I sucked in Grey from my shisha pipe greedily to remember the taste and feeling. To ensure my heart remained heavy enough to continue defeat.

Oh but at last, I could exhale, and the Great Grey Burden writhed in a death spasm toward the ceiling. Tonight, I was red and black and white. Today I prayed toward the west and saw victory. The Nile captured star light and glowed shades never seen by man. The sidewalks reverberated with anticipation and flickered in a wash of fire-orange and silky red-black-white.

Egypt remembered her colors, and wrapped us in a blanket of blood red to show us life, black lest we forget our truth, and white to promise eternal hope.

For now, Grey is gone.

Allison Hartnett, 2/11/08

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Last night, Egypt won the African Cup of Nations for the 6th time. Second time consecutively, which is unheard of in the tournament’s history.  In the 77th minute Mohammad Aboutrika reminded us how to breath after neatly placing Zidane’s leading pass behind Cameroon’s keeper, and for the next 17 minutes, we forgot again. And then it was over.

For a country that is so deeply impoverished and repressed, constant frustration gave way to almost inexpressible joy. The girls on my floor sobbed uncontrollably, and so did some of the men on the street. Cars stopped willingly for young men bearing flags, tablas, and flaming aerosol cans. Voices, hands and horns combined flawlessly in the same universal 1, 2, 3 and 4 rhythm and vocabularies were reduced to “Mabruk” “Masr!” and “Oh lay, Oh lay” no matter how comfortable you were with Arabic.

My friends and I walked around Zamalek, which was bound to be one of the most subdued sections of the city. I watched the game in a crowded cafe that moaned and cheered collectively with every move in the game, and dissipated almost anti-climatically with some flag waving, dancing, and check-paying. My roommate and friends Mitch, Hanan, and Tamer wanted to find the essence of Egypt’s happiness, and found a room along the Nile that was showing the game for free to a crowd of at least 500 people. We stood on a small balcony, above the room, and such raw emotion jumped from air to spine that I shuddered with a happiness I’ll long remember. We said Mabruk to street police, and I once getting made fun of for being foreigner (”That foreigner girl said Mabruk!?”) and to the boys hanging over highway railings and rushing with a pace infused with adrenaline. It was basically as if everyone in Egypt had just scored the winning goal.

Downtown and in Mohandiseen, I heard that no one could move for the sheer volume of people that flooded the streets. Communitas and crowd-mentality make for a slightly volatile situation. Not that I could have gone anyway (girls are not let into the crowds by the male participants), but I still felt alienated by virtue of not being Egyptian.

I wish that excitement here in American could be as unifying. I’ve seen Red Sox riots in Boston. The people are drunk or looking to make a scene. Cars get flipped, lamp posts come down, and people get arrested for provoking the police while the odor of alcohol is invariably present.

Here, the happiness is genuine (and completely sober). They are united in thought, word, and in an understanding that their celebration will be short lived and life will go back to normal. The first comparison that came to mind was the patriotism effect elicited by 9/11, only in this instance instigated by a positive occurance. If you were American back in September 2001, you felt it. A tug that connected you to the person ahead of you in line at Stop and Shop. Something that compelled you to talk to anybody you could about this huge event.

That’s a feeling more palpable in Egypt on a daily basis than in America. The weeks and months after 9/11 happened, we went back to our lives and confined our remembrance to anniversaries, news reports, and nervousness about flying. Here, Egypt is constantly in a state of crisis. It’s a dictatorship. People are poor, limited, and a scant few means of improving their circumstances. So when you’re here, you know, and more importantly, they know what it is to talk to strangers just because they truly share Egypt.

It made me wistful for a minute, because it was something I wanted to give myself over to, to join completely. But I remembered that their one night of pride and celebration came at a cost I could not on any terms pay.

So, Mabruk aliikum, ya Masr. You deserve it.

For a summary of the game play, direct your attention to the BBC.

(Note: Mabruk means congratulations, from the same root as the word “to bless” (baraka). The proper response is is Allah yabarak aliik, or God bless you.)

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