The Basketball is not in English

My department had an iftar (the meal breaking fast in Ramadan) party last week at which I met a few more members of said department (including some rare male ones), ate some more falafel (I may turn into a falafel at this rate) and listened to some lovely Nubian oud music.

There were one oud player and two singers on stage, and the singers kept time by clapping, but other than that they had no amplification, no electricity, and great big smiles.

The music was wonderful, and the performance highly entertaining, especially when the portlier singer danced to the rhythm of his own making by swinging his belly back and forth.

That same signer also clutched a cell phone in his hands the entire time he was on stage. I love the intersection of tradition and technology here. But that intersection went only so far as mobile technology: when Roommate One attempted to get a web page or schedule or email to know where and when we might see the performers again, she learned that they had none of those things. So, resourceful being that she is, she took all their phone numbers.

I also had my first basketball practice this week. It wasn't the first practice over all, just the first I could attend. And it was a very strange experience. First of all, I can't play basketball. I've never learned how, nor have I learned the rules, and I keep trying to bring water polo into it, which means lobbing the ball with full force and fouling constantly. Not the best technique, apparently.

Compound that with the fact that the coach spoke almost exclusively in Arabic. All the other team members (at practice, anyway) were Egyptian. And freshmen (freshladies?). And about five foot four. Every now and one of the nicer Egyptian girls would take pity on me and translate, or the coach would do so (he has a PhD in Sports Psychology or some such from Whittier), but only occasionally.

Still, I made a basket during our scrimmage! And I stole the ball a few times. So it was a successful morning, I think, all in all. And the word on the court is that the team has tournaments in Italy and Dubai. The thought of either of those is enough to make me jiggle my belly back and forth to the sweet sweet sound of the oud.