Sami Sabet - Judge Me if You Can

One Thursday, we decided to venture further out than normal and rode our bikes towards the Pyramids of Giza. After riding for three hours, we began to see the largest one, Khofo, in the distance. However, we realised it was getting late and turned back. By the time we got home it was dark and my mother was there, waiting for us. With her arms crossed, she looked very angry and started to shout at us, demanding to know where we had been and why we were so late. We tried to explain that we did not mean to. However, she had the last word. Our bikes were to be locked in a cupboard for three weeks; we would not be allowed to ride them. It was final and there was nothing we could say or do to change this.

As we were members of this brilliant Gezira Club, we went there whenever we were not at school. This was mainly on Fridays, and during some afternoons and school holidays. A couple of our friends were not members and we always had to find a way to smuggle them in. Once there, we would go to the kids’ garden and play marbles. There were many different types of plays, all resulting in winning or losing marbles. Some people would set up their marbles in different designs – in a straight line, forming a triangle, or other shapes, containing from two to six pieces. They would draw a line, about three to five metres away, behind which punters would stand. The idea was to hit the set-up marbles by throwing or rolling your marble at them; a bit like bowling, or the French game, Pétanque. Some marbles were bigger, and others more colourfully decorated, rendering them more valuable. Over the months we became experts and had accumulated a number of these exquisite ones. Over time, I had enough marbles allowing me to control the games and have others trying to win my collection. I was lucky in that I won more marbles than I lost.

I had not been taught to swim but felt that I wanted to be in the deep, Olympic sized pool. Through watching other people swimming and learning from books, I decided to teach myself. In the shallow end of the pool, I went down the steps and stood in the water in the corner with one hand holding the side and the other holding the adjacent side. I raised one arm over my head, bringing it down, reaching for the other side. I continued to increase the distances, and number of strokes needed, until after several practices I was able to perform the front crawl, swimming the width of the pool. Further observations of other swimmers and reading swimming instruction books taught me the correct techniques.

Later, I decided to join the swimming and diving clubs and received professional training. During the spring and summer holidays, I used to visit the club every morning for practice and more advanced training. Not only could I swim fast and over a very long distance, but I could also dive from three-metre springboards as well as five- and ten-metre platforms. I was able to dive backwards and perform somersaults and twists from all levels. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to continue this to national competitions, as my parents kept taking us away to the coastal towns of Port Said and Alexandria for holidays lasting two of the three summer months.

I loved my life in Egypt. Along with many friends, there were many activities to enjoy, within the club, school and around town. My grandfather would come to visit us once every two weeks and give my siblings and I ten piasters each. They would buy sweets with their money, whereas I would buy fruit, like watermelon, mangos, figs and prickly pears, for the whole family. I occasionally bought the odd bar of chocolate for myself, with spare cash. Sometimes, I would treat my friends, or the porter’s children, offering them drinks, or confectionary. It made me happy to see everyone enjoying themselves.

I used to collect Snats from her school and take her around the island on the bar running from underneath the seat to the front handlebars of my bike before heading home. Visiting our relatives in Heliopolis (a suburb of Cairo, about 10 kilometres from where we lived) was a real treat and thoroughly adventurous. Life was indeed good then.

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