Four
nights ago the world witnessed the colorful opening ceremonies of the 2012
Summer Olympics. Kenneth Branagh,
Paul McCartney, and several other British celebrities were among the thousands
of performers who, garbed in traditional British raiment from various
historical periods, paraded onto the expensive, perfectly trimmed grass field
in London’s new Olympic Stadium.
Despite receiving heaps of praise from both the domestic and
foreign press, the opening ceremonies were budgeted at an astounding £37
million pounds. True, they cost
£18 million less than those of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. However, such
extravagant spending deserves a high level of scrutiny in light of the regime
of austerity imposed on British society, including university students, whose
recent protests against rising tuition rates have made international headlines.
What better way to demonstrate fiscal responsibility during a time of economic crisis
than by spending millions on a lavish two-hour ceremony in a stadium that cost
nearly £500 million?
I pondered this while driving through one of the United
States’ most economically depressed areas-southwestern Indiana. I stopped in a
small city called Terre Haute, birthplace of the nineteenth-century socialist
Eugene Debs and home to Indiana State University. Sports fans might recall that
Indiana State is the alma mater of basketball legend Larry Bird. These days the
city, with its multitude of empty lots, abandoned buildings, crumbling
businesses, dilapidated houses, potholed streets, and rampant heroin use, is
the epitome of how bad things in Middle America have become.
A Street in Terre Haute, Indiana
Attempting to find a decent restaurant with the help of my
smart phone only heightened my impression of Terre Haute’s desperate state as I
discovered that two well-reviewed restaurants had closed. Yet despite the
rampant blight, some areas of town appeared immune to the economic
downtown. Resigned to checking out
one more restaurant, I passed through several leafy blocks containing airy,
Victorian-style houses, which lent an aura of pride, or at least exclusivity to
the neighborhood. “Magdy’s” a
seafood, pasta, and meat restaurant that described itself as “Italian” sat on
the edge of Indiana State’s frat row in a cavernous sky-blue Victorian. Its
peeling dark wood interior, masterfully constructed curving staircase, fully
stocked bar, and lack of diners were all testaments to a livelier past.
Magdy's in Terre Haute, Indiana
A tall, unanimated waiter/bartender led me to a table next
to the bar and mixed a praiseworthy old fashioned before taking my food order.
The vegetable risotto and penne alla vodka that arrived half an hour later were tasty, fresh,
and clearly homemade. Anticipating
a barely passable and enormously portioned meal, I was surprised by the quality
of the fare-I had to know who this chef was.
After finishing my meal, a portly and sweaty olive-skinned
cook emerged from the kitchen and filled himself a glass of sparkling water
from the bar. He asked me where I
was from in a thick middle-eastern accent, and before I could answer speculated
that I was passing through from Chicago “or something.” I gave him a shortened version of my
story, mentioning that I had lived in Argentina for a period, which prompted
him to ask me if I knew about Maradona.
I explained that I was a budding sports journalist, that soccer was my
beat, and that I considered “El Pibe de Oro” the greatest footballer of all
time. Although he admired
Maradona, and even possessed an old school 1986 World Cup Argentina jersey, he
seemed taken aback by my proclamation of Maradona as the greatest, preferring,
as many do, the Brazilian Pelé.
Pelé Doing What He Did Best
Before continuing our discussion of world football, I
inquired about the chef’s origins.
He explained, with some reluctance, that he was from Alexandria, Egypt,
and had come to the US several decades ago. He had met a woman in New York City whom he married. She was
from Indiana and they moved to her hometown of Terre Haute. The marriage didn’t
last. Some years later, he married again, this time to an Egyptian woman.
And here he was in Terre Haute, an old Egyptian football
lover from Alexandria. With a
little more prodding I got him talking about his youth. He told me about Egypt’s love of
Brazilian football, their obsession with Pele, a cerebral goal-scoring maestro,
who, “none would ever equal.” He reminisced about gathering around a television
with hundreds of onlookers waiting for the famed number 10 to make good on his
two goal pre-match prediction during a club exhibition game in Egypt. We
discussed other Brazilian legends of the past: Garrincha, Sócrates, Zico,
Ronaldo, whom he revered almost as much as the great Pelé himself. Most fascinating of all, he recounted
his football playing days as a child, describing Alexandria as a former hotbed
of street soccer where children would improvise their own balls out of cloth
and plaster and play from dusk to dawn, interrupted only by the protests of
angry neighbors whose windows might have been smashed by rogue soccer balls, or
by their mothers calling them in for lunch.
Street Soccer ear Alexandria, Egypt
The conversation seemed to bring back a youthful exuberance
and temporarily melt two decades of toil from his face. Yet this chef, like the
town of Terre Haute itself, seemed stuck in the past, unwilling to praise
today’s professional footballers (or in the town’s case, overcome the harsh
reality caused by mass de-industrialization). Even so, here in this Midwestern town that had seen better
times, was the living embodiment of the “internationalist” spirit preached by
the Olympics. Here was an Egyptian who professed his love of football, played
the Brazilian way, with all of its classic skill, flair, and inspiring samba
style. That he could cook Italian food as well as an Italian was beside the point, but I nevertheless praised his
excellent cooking and thanked him for his reminiscences that inspired this
piece of writing.
Before leaving
Magdy’s we briefly discussed Egypt’s current political situation, a delicate
topic, yet one that he somehow viewed with cautious optimism, shrugging off the
military’s tight control of the country and the new president’s affiliation
with the Muslim Brotherhood. “I
must stay loyal to my family, continue to work hard, and look to the future
with a positive mind,” an attitude learned from the hardships of a migrant’s
existence in a city that, at this point, can only improve.
