Tom in Egypt // توم في مصر

You could hear the party going on in Boursa from streets away. Hundreds upon hundreds of people in eager anticipation of Egypt's return to the international football elite and the chance to see their side in action against the world's best. An hour before the match, there wasn't a spare seat to be found and the noise was simply deafening - typical football songs through mixed with chants with a curiously religious overtone. I admire the Egyptian passion for football, it's a wonderful feeling to be in amongst the dancing, music, flag waving. It wasn't just young men either, there were women, scarved and unscarved, of all ages present, and a real feeling of community that I haven't experienced in a long time.

After all that singing, drumming and dancing, the match itself was something of a let down. Algeria played a hard game and scored a great goal, but their time wasting antics coupled with some inept refereeing meant the match wasn't the spectacle it should have been. Egypt spurned chance after chance whilst Algeria scraped their one shot and one goal. The crowd's cheers of "Ya rab!" (Oh Lord!) for Egypt's set plays turned from expectant, to hopeful, to desperate, and the fans seemed to have given up hope by the time the fourth official signalled an astonishingly short 4 minutes of time to be added on. Alas, it wasn't to be, and now Egypt has to wait another 4 years for a shot at World Cup qualification.

Football aside, it's been a busy week since getting back from Karachi, I feel like I've not had five spare minutes as I try and catch up with Meedan, teaching, and copy editing. In amongst all this I'm trying to prepare applications for universities and funding in the UK, a process which takes more time than you could ever imagine. The most frustrating thing will be the wait after I send the applications, as I may not know where I'm going to be next year until months after the deadlines - all I can do is pray and sit tight. It's quite astonishing to think I've already been back here for over 5 months and have only four short weeks before I go home for Christmas, something I'm looking forward to greatly.

More tomorrow, I hope. I have a rather wonderful book and some nice music I want to tell you about.