Finding the club [part 1]

Last night I managed to build up the courage to attend the judo club which had been located for me by a Syrian friend. I left an hour early to give me sufficient time to try and find the it, get lost and then find a taxi. I found it 30 mins later, pretty much as I had remembered having scouted the area the previous week - tucked behind an industrial hub, void of any light, behind the breeze block walls of a run down sports club.

I passed through the gate and crossed the wasteland-cum-car-park between the street and the equally menacing concrete shack on which was written the name and function of the club in arabic (it crossed my mind at that point that I might still be able to use the language barrier as a get out clause). The lights were on inside and I could see, as I approached, a crowd of arab men lined up against one of the walls, dressed in white. This was definitely it, so I couldn't use 'no-one there' as an excuse either. I got to the steel door, looked down at the floor and took a deep breath while I tried to compose myself and put on my confident face.

The door opened.

They had evidently seen me coming and before I had even had time to take off my look of sheer terror I was ushered into the single room along whose rear wall were a thousand and one faces, staring back at me. I approached the coach - the only one not dressed in a white judo-gi, but royal blue - and said my well rehearsed lines of colloquial arabic: "Biddi afa'al judo" - I want to do judo. This was followed, predictably, by a completely unintelligible reply the duration of which I endured with blank expression, hoping to be struck down or swallowed up - i wasn't too fussed which.

The coach, who it turned out didn't speak a word of English, tried again and with the help of an interlocutor, who turned the coach's rapid dialect into something slightly more user-friendly, I found myself in a cubbyhole getting changed into my kit to the white noise of about thirty people of varying ages whispering among themselves while the session paused to wait for me. Standing in the small space under some stairs I went into autopilot: unpack gi, take off clothes, fold clothes, put in bag, unfold gi, trousers on, jacket on, belt tight.

With everything as it should be, I went back round the corner. The frenzied whispers were suddenly muted.

To be continued...