Egyptian entertainment

April 21, 2005
Subject: Egyptian entertainment

I've been lax in my journaling, haven't I? I'm sorry, but I suddenly found myself with a social life. I leave the house in the mornings, and normally don't return until 11:00 or 12:00 at night. Several times now I have come home at midnight, showered, dressed and headed back out to a local disco. Discos and night clubs are open all night. They don't even get busy until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. It is not uncommon for me to be walking home at the crack of dawn.

Yes. I made a joke.

I met a woman in my Arabic class, and we began hanging out regularly. Her name is Anna, she's from New Zealand. Everyday we leave class and her driver, Hegazy, takes us to a local coffee shop to drink tea, smoke shisha and play taula (backgammon). I pass on the shisa - the big water pipes with flavored tobacco. Smoking will never be my thing, but I love my shayy wi nanaa (tea and mint) and my taula. Everyday we do this. Sometimes we stop two or three times during our day, breaking up our exploration of Cairo's back streets. "Oh, look," Anna or I will say to the other, "a coffee shop! I wonder if they have taula?" And of course, we have to check. I often come home and struggle to get my key in the door because the caffeine overload is making my hands shake. We are truly addicted.

On a side note, all of this tea-drinking creates it's own problem. Have any of you ever used a public toilet in a third-world country? Well, let me tell you - even the Western men here have a hard time with it - and all they have to do is unzip and/or unbutton and then stand there. From the aftermath that I have seen, aim is completely unnecessary. This is how much Anna and I love taula - imagine cup of tea after cup of tea, the bladder filling ... fuller and fuller ... the need for a toilet becomes imminent, and of course it has to be a public toilet ... in a men's coffee shop ... in a third-world country ... do I need to keep going? And yet we keep drinking tea and playing taula. We are developing bladders of steel!

Anyway, back to my story. Taula is backgammon - there are two main versions here that everyone plays - mamousa and waahead wi talateen (31). There is also aada, or "international" taula as they call it, but it's not as popular. Anna and I didn't even know it existed here until a couple of days ago - we politely played one game each - but now, taula snobs that we are, we turn our noses up at aada! The coffee shops are populated with men who sit and drink tea and play taula for hours on end, and they've been doing it for years. They are masters of their game. They don't have to count the spaces - Anna and I struggle with this - we try hard not to use our fingers to count - like babies! as we were called one day. That was enough to shame us into counting with our eyes and heads, fingers pulled prudently back from the board. But we're still a little slow at it - experienced players know immediately which space is the forth, or the sixth or the third and second for khrenna (khrenna - rolling consecutive numbers with the dice, then taking two pieces that are next to one another and slapping them down together in one space). They can cheat and throw doubles pretty much whenever they want, and when they make their moves, they are true to their passionate Egyptian natures - they slam the pieces down with a loud "slap!" They snap up pieces, two, three, four at a time and shuffle them around the board faster than our feeble Western brains can comprehend. A game of taula, played by a couple of masters, is a blur of brown fingers, black and white discs and rapidly rolling dice, interspersed by long drags of shisha and short sips of shayy. When you toss your dice you have to watch them closely, and note quickly what you rolled because your opponent will snap them up the second they stop bouncing across the board, eager to take his turn. And you better move your pieces fast. Want a high roll? throw the dice hard - you get fives and sixes. Want a low roll? toss them softly - you get ones and twos. They are so into their games that every roll of the dice has it's own name - 5 & 6 come up? Sheesh-beesh. Double ones? Abyad. Double fours? Durgie. I'm not going to tell you how to cheat and throw doubles - but I do know how to do it!

So Hegazy taught Anna and I how to play. He sits and monitors all of our games. In the beginning he would tell us which pieces to move, and why. When we would begin to make a move that he perceived as completely bone headed, he would roll his eyes and moan, "why? WHY!??" And the offending hand, with game piece, would freeze in mid-air before humbly returning said piece to it's original spot, and trying again. But that was in the beginning. Now, like fledgling birds, ready to fly from the nest, we tell Hegazy, and other volunteer teachers - there are many - "ma fiche mousada!" - no help! And our opponent chimes in - ma fiche mousada! and the observers all join the cry - ma fiche mousada! And we forge ahead, our fingers wobbly, resisting the urge to count the spaces as we move our pieces, our rolls a little wild, not always getting the result we aim for, but holding our own, impressing the locals and sipping our tea, chattering in our sporadic Arabic and gauging how much more tea we can drink before we have to head to the public toilet.

Now we're known, Anna and I. Two Western women, hanging out in local coffee shops, playing taula. Everyone wants to play with us. We are challenged regularly. The stakes? The loser buys everyone's shayy and shisha - so now you know why everyone wants to oppose us. The grand total for 7 or 8 teas and a couple of shishas? Around 20 LE - about $3.50. It's a bargain. Good thing, too, because neither Anna nor I are able to beat these guys very often!

The younger men here don't seem to play taula like the old guys. Cards seems to be the game of the younger generation - my generation (I suppose that's more like one of the middle generations, isn't it? Funny how time flies.) Maged is the manager of the Laredo, a Tex-Mex restaurant in one of the five-star hotels up the street from me. Yes, Tex-Mex in Giza. The chef, Haytham, spent several years working in Miami, so he turns out some pretty decent Tex-Mex-like cuisine. Hytham never fails to send out chips and salsa and guacamole for Karen and I when we go in for the occasional drink. The last time we were there Maged (the manager) asked me what I've been doing since I've been here. A little shamefacedly I admitted that I spend most of my time in il aawha - the coffee shops - playing taula. He laughed. Then he told me that taula is good, but he likes cards.

He began detailing his favorite game - he called it "shitting," I was trying not to laugh - after all, I'm not so thrilled when people laugh at my accented Arabic! And after a few minutes I realized he was trying to say "cheating." I let it slide because I realized, as he explained the rules to me, that either name is quite appropriate. From what I understand it's a game of bravado, similar to liar's dice, and Maged has offered to teach me to play.

His timing is good. Anna is leaving tomorrow. Karen's business is booming, and she has no time for me. Sniff. Sniff. Hegazy will have to go back to driving his cab, no more long taula-playing days with Anna and I. I do have other options, if I choose to keep improving my taula skills - but cards could be fun, too.

What a life, eh? Play all day, dance all night, sleep from 6:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. when I get up and do it all over again - I'm going to need a long rest when I get home!