Day 81

Wednesday April 9th,

The day finally came for my boxing match. We got there at around 10 to watch our teammate box. My fight wasn't for another 4 hours. This time I came prepared and after watching his fight studied my Arabic and read my book on the Marines for a few hours. Finally the time came for me to get ready.

After wrapping up and putting on my gloves, I returned to the waiting process. Since we were American, people would always come up to us and try and talk to us. Some of my opponents friends came up to me and asked me how long I had been boxing. I figured I needed to intimate him to make sure the same thing didn't happen with me as it did with Taylor. So I told his friends I had been boxing for 10 years. They were duly impressed.

When the time for the fight came, the strategy worked. The guy who was about my height but clearly bigger woudn't come at me. Granted the lights and the actual atmosphere means I kind of lost track of what was going on and didn't fight so well because I couldn't think as well. But since the guy didn't come after me, I was able to throw punches, connect a few times and last through the first round. My coach asked me if I wanted to continue and I said yes. However, I think that my opponents coach recognized that I sucked and told him to just go at me, because as soon as the second round started he just came at me with a fury. I simple turned and tried to get away, so my coach called it as he didn't want to see me get hurt. I was thankful. But I lasted the first round, so I was pleased.

Plus, I had gotten a first round bye and this guy had already fought and defeated somebody in a knock-out. He would go on to defeat the next guy, so I felt pretty good about myself.

After the match Taylor and I went and walked around Mansura. It was kind of a shitty city. We walked along the river and if I though Spokane let its river-front property go to waste, you should have seen this place. It was just run down lot after unused land after trash heap. It was awful. Buts it not like you could go in the river if you wanted to, it was so polluted that nothing could live in that water.

Later that night the last of our teammates got eliminated so we were going to head home the next morning. I was happy because I didn't want to be in this place until Friday.