My highlight of Day 9 which made a noteworthy appearance into my daily diary interestingly came in the very wee hours of the day (Saturday).
While I was trying to finish my reports, which of course ran into midnight Egyptian time, a couple of Egyptian guys who have now become our friends (I guess I’ll feature them in my Diary soon) came around and offered to spice up our boring stay with a visit to the Nite club.
That sounded like a pretty nice idea to us, especially two of my friends and flatmates (Oga Nla and Pooja). Without much ado, Pooja who was almost sleeping by that time jumped up and everyone got set to roll.
I still had some work to do so I passed up the chance, leaving Oga Nla, Pooja and JoeBass to join the Egyptians. With all set to roll, our Egyptian friends told them the entry fee for the Nite Club. Six hundred (600) Egyptian Pounds!
Thing is, while Oga Nla and co. were preparing, the guys mentioned it but we all thought it was a joke until the affirmation came when they were set. The default setting in such scenario was to convert the money to US dollars and then Nigerian nairas.
The 600 EGP was calculated to be 13,000 nairas and that was where my stingy friends started asking rhetorical questions like: Are we going to a brothel? Is the 600 for six of us? Then Pooja remarked: “600 pounds just to look and come back? Nigba ti min ya were (When I’m not mad)!
To cut it short, that’s how my friends started removing their shoes o! “Make una go dia fess nah,” I advised innocently; Pooja retorted: “Iwo nko? Pelu gbogbo ACL money, ki lo n se?” (I won’t translate that ?)
We laughed and laughed over that issue till we all slept and continued when we woke up. The activity for the day was to attend the pre-match press conference for the Algeria vs Nigeria game at the Cairo International Stadium and then the training session.
We all attended the presser but missed out on the training because…. stress already accumulating. Boys slept off. The tournament coverage is already taking its toll, like it always is in the final week of a major competition, countdown to return home will definitely start after Sunday’s games.
May God give the Super Eagles the day on Sunday.
See you tomorrow.
Cheers, ALOHA
