Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: Football while fasting -- Egypt's Ramadan pastime

Episode Date: March 29, 2025

Millions gather each year on Egypt's streets for football tournaments during Ramadan. Also: money-saving beavers, one of the UK's largest Iron Age discoveries and darts helping children in South Africa learn maths.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Available now on the documentary from the BBC World Service. Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia group, has been battered by its war with Israel. Now even some supporters are questioning its purpose. So is this a turning point? Join me, Hugo Bachega, as I travel to the heartland of the movement to find out. Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

This is the HappyPod from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and in this edition... No food, no water throughout the day. It's just adrenaline and passion. As the holy month of Ramadan draws to a close, street football tournaments take over streets across Egypt. We also hear how a routine sweep with a metal detector led to one of the UK's biggest archaeological discoveries. It will inspire people, it will generate interest, it will generate enthusiasm and hopefully it will make people say,

I've always wanted to go on a dig, I'll go and do it now. A family of beavers in the Czech Republic save the government millions of dollars, building a dam exactly where authorities planned. And I'm Gary O'Donoghue. Normally you hear me reporting from Washington. This week I'm on the HappyPod with my own story of perseverance. Ramadan is a time of prayer and reflection for Muslims worldwide. In Egypt, they also mark it using one of their nationwide passions – football. Since the 1960s, street tournaments have spread to nearly every town, involving everyone from children to old men. Some professional footballers take breaks from the training schedules to take part in the communities

that first taught them to love the sport, often undeterred by heavy fines imposed by their clubs. It's been a lifelong passion for 70-year-old El-Sayed Mohamed, who used to play with a ball made out of old socks. He says the tradition has much evolved since the early tournaments. I started playing when I was 15 years maybe and Even in 60 I played football with the same age of people in Ramadan, which is very interesting. We used to buy a trophy and then we go around other districts and then here the people start to participate. We played in the streets.

You can imagine how wide is the street, very competitive. You cannot feel that you are fasting when you are playing. No water, no food, but it's still very exciting. Every Ramadan, we know that we are going to be fasting. We are going to play the tournament in this Ramadan. I got more from the sports journalist, Mohamed Kudbar. Whether it's in a small alley, whether it's in a five-a-side poplar pitch, you would find it somewhere and you would find some of it even broadcasted on the live television. It's just a cultural phenomenon that showcases how obsessed Egyptians are with football, decades-long tradition now, and it's still going strong, I have to say.

And some professional footballers get involved too, risking the anger of their clubs. Yes, let me tell you that some of the professional players for the elite clubs, we're talking about clubs that won the African Champions League multiple times. Try and get away with the cheeky game of street football in Ramadan, and if they get caught, they get heavily fined. And there are special Ramadan football tournaments

for former professionals, so you would see players who have been all over European football, who won Africa Cup of Nations several times, they would compete against each other and it would be as heated as what they used to have back in the days. It just rekindles their passion towards where they've come through because most Egyptian professional footballers have come through the youth systems and before that it was just street football that introduced them to proper clubs actually. Yeah and as you say this happens during the holy month of Ramadan.

Ramadan is when Muslims fast so they're playing these games of street football. Well you'd have thought when they least wanted to be playing football when they've not had anything to eat. Yeah but it's just passion and the adrenaline they feed on basically and it starts right after midday it goes on all the way until midnight or even after midnight so some of it actually gets played after breaking the fast some of it gets played before breaking the fast but when football is there when the cheering the crowds the attention they get from everyone in the block I think just makes up for the

lack of food and drink for the specific couple of hours they play before breaking that fast. Yeah, I can hear the emotion in your voice as you tell me about it. Give me your happiest memory of street football. My happiest moment in street football is that I shared the five-a-side team with my dad. My dad played for decades at street football, especially in Ramadan, is that I shared the five aside team with my dad. My dad played for decades as street football especially in Ramadan and when I started to come through he was pushing me to play on his five aside team so we shared a couple of these tournaments together. Not that I was as good as him I have to say if he's listening to this show so I have to be honest.

To be honest he was better than me. But it was a happy memory of sharing it with my friends from the blog, friends from uni as well. It was a pleasant memory. And yeah, the sheer amount of competitiveness we've shared over this. And then we stopped to break our fast and go on again was just phenomenal. I wish there was more time on my hand now to do more of that. But yeah, as you get older you get more busy. Kudos to everyone who enjoyed it up until the age of 50s and 60s. Massive respect

to them because it just shows how passionate they are about the game. Sports journalist Mohamed Kudbar. Now a story of how a humble beep unearthed 2 000 years of human history. unearthed 2,000 years of human history. For many metal detectorists, the thrill of walking through a field comes from the sheer excitement of discovering treasure not seen by the human eye for many years. So imagine the excitement when a man in Yorkshire, northern England, stumbled across an ancient burial site. From horse harnesses to ornate cauldrons, the artifacts date back around 2,000

years. Archaeologists who've been excavating and studying the items describe it as one of the most significant Iron Age hoards ever found. Dr. Keith Emerick is the Inspector of Ancient Monuments at Durham University. It will go down in history as one of the most impressive, most spectacular finds And Emma Rick is the Inspector of Ancient Monuments at Durham University. It will go down in history as one of the most impressive, most spectacular finds of Iron Age material that's ever been found in Britain. It will inspire people, it will generate interest, it will generate enthusiasm and hopefully it will make people say, you know, I've always wanted to go on a dig, I'll go and do it

now. Professor Emily Williams took part in the excavation. She's been speaking to the Happy Pod's Ella Bicknell. It's really thrilling. In terms of the scale, it's over 800 items, which is a huge number. But it's the diversity in the finds – there's 28 tyres, there's a cauldron, there's a that's 28 tires, there's a cauldron, there's a vessel for mixing wine, a mirror, a lot of horse equipment, things like bridal bits, the decorations from harnesses, beers and lances and there are probably things that we have yet to identify, little tiny fragments. And it really is a treasure trove, one that was found by a metal detectorist.

Yes, Peter had. And Peter was very involved with the project the whole time. He visited the site almost daily during the excavation. He came to the lab often and had lots of great insights and just a huge amount of enthusiasm for everything that was being done and being learned. And I understand you also had an enthusiastic team of people helping with this long excavation because of the sheer scale of the project. And you yourself, you were digging away in North Yorkshire. Yes, so I'm a conservator. So my role is really to help ensure that objects are kept stable, that they don't deteriorate

once they're excavated. So I was on site particularly when there needed to be some help with lifting. And then I was also receiving a lot of the objects in the lab and immediately looking at what kinds of environments we needed to put them into to stop corrosion. Some of them were so encased in mud that we couldn't tell what they were. So doing x-rays, doing small amounts of cleaning to help give us information to do analysis of the materials. Why is the ancient world so fascinating and what about this discovery and this excavation can really contribute to our knowledge of it? I think probably the ancient world fascinates people for lots of different reasons. Speaking

for myself, it's the sense of connection through the past, seeing the ways in which our forebearers were similar to us and also the ways that they were different from us. I find that just so enchanting and exciting in the same way that modern humans are interested in vehicles and cars, and there's an element of conspicuous consumption around that. We see that in the past. We see how you would express your wealth in the forms of these wagons and vehicles and the trappings of the ponies. And that's just really neat to see those connections that stretch over 2000 years. It's like the modern day Lamborghini or the modern day Tesla. Absolutely. And Emily, as an American living in the UK researching what is proving to be a cornerstone of British history,

why is this interesting to someone of another nationality or another culture? Well, we're always drawn to the richness of archaeology, these big spectacular finds, Tutankhamen's tomb, and in this case it is again that richness. And then for me, being an American and having moved to England relatively recently before this, I find it's been an opportunity to grow, to increase my knowledge base. And there's been such an amazing team and everybody's been so generous and so collaborative. What I'm also really excited about now is we've been able to share the news.

You know, for two years we were somewhat working in secrecy because of the whole process. Now that we can share it with the broader world, the insights others will have and the questions that they will ask that will inform the research and take it in new directions is going to be really wonderful as well. Durham University's Emily Williams. You may have heard the story last month about beavers in the Czech Republic who've saved taxpayers millions of dollars after building a series of dams that flooded a local meadow. These large-toothed semi-aquatic rodents achieving in days what the local authorities had failed to achieve in years because the project had got fouled up in red tape. We sent our Prague correspondent Rob Cameron to find out more.

It's a chilly spring morning in the Brdí protected nature reserve about an hour south of Prague and I'm getting a much needed crash course in zoology from environmental protection officer Bohmil Fischer. This is lodge, beaver lodge. Oh, I see. You call this a beaver lodge. The beavers have made this. Why? What do they use it for? It's their house. So this is where they live?

Yes. This is safe because the entrance is under the water. I see. Okay. And is that also why they make the dams as well, to protect their areas where they live? Yeah, it is. This is the channel and here is the dam. And this is the first beaver dam. I think it's more than one meter. Yeah, that's quite a lot of work. The meadows here are now waterlogged. There are little freshwater pools which will soon be home to hundreds of frogs

and the stream is now pure and free of sediment, creating a haven for the endangered stone crayfish which Bohemil soon expects to see in these wetlands. In fact these were the three main goals of a project first conceived in 2018, but that got bogged down in a dispute between two state enterprises over which one of them would own the land. Then, two years later, came the beavers and solved the problem for them, saving the Czech taxpayer about a million pounds.

I think this is a beautiful example of what happens when man leaves nature to its own devices. Naturally people had a lot of fun with it, the idea of beavers bypassing bureaucrats and so on. And of course that's partly down to the way the story was spiced up by journalists. But ultimately, in the end, anyone who read it could see how beavers were able to create something so perfect, so brilliant, so positive. Bohemil Fischer appears unfazed by the creative embellishments in some of the reporting. One paper claimed the beavers had built these 20 dams overnight. For him, the story of the Burdi beavers has been fantastic PR, both for this wild area

of forest and rolling hills, and for this industrious nocturnal animal, which many wrongly assume is a pest. classroom. A lot of people then understand and they learn with practical engagement and a dartboard is exactly that. A former darts world champion in South Africa is taking aim at improving math skills. Available now on the Documentary from the BBC World Service. Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia group, has been battered by its war with Israel. Now even some supporters are questioning its purpose. So is this a turning point? Join me, Hugo Bashega, as I travel to the heartland of the movement to find out.

Listen now by searching for the Document documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts. The idea of casting off to sea can be quite exciting, tapping into that call for freedom and adventure. In China, the story of a ten-year-old boy swept out into the ocean has captivated social media after he was rescued by local fishermen. His incredible ordeal is sparking comparisons to The Life of Pi, the fictional tale of a young Indian boy who survives 227 days stranded on a lifeboat in the vast Pacific Ocean. Our China media analyst Kerry Allen has the story. The shouts you can hear in this clip are from a 10-year-old boy who's been on quite an adventure. A little boy known as Al Yang had gone fishing last Friday in Chuling,

which is a coastal village in South China's Hainan province. He'd been hoping to catch some squid and not telling his parents had taken out a little green rowing boat in the hope of being able to catch some. Only he'd fallen asleep and had drifted out to sea with no food, water or protective clothing. Fortunately, this is a story with a happy ending.

Last Saturday, nearly 24 hours after Alleyang had gone missing, he was spotted at sea by a fisherman called Little Yang. Yang was 10 nautical miles out from the city of Sanya, which is roughly 30 kilometres from Alleyang's home village, and he spotted the little green rowing boat. At first he thought it was an extreme sports enthusiast until he heard the boy crying. He told me, dear, when we could hear each other clearly he burst into tears. He said that he'd gone out to play and fish but had accidentally been washed away by the waves. He drifted at sea all night and couldn't find his way home.

Fortunately he was okay. He had some sunburn from prolonged sun exposure and was obviously very hungry when he was rescued, but otherwise has managed to survive unscathed. His father, Mr Huang, has said that he is relieved to have his son home. Local rescuers have said that if he had been out at sea much longer, he might have suffered sunstroke and been dehydrated. One rescuer told the Global Times newspaper that the sea had been windy and rough on Friday night, and even an adult would have struggled to survive in such conditions, let alone a child.

People have called the story a real-life version of the life of Pi, referring to the 2001 novel by Jan Martel. Some on Chinese social media have attributed Alliang's survival to his being a member of the Tanka people. They're an ethnic group in South China that are also known as boat people because they traditionally lived on junks in coastal parts of China. They're good at swimming and often involved with fishing and breeding. Media have warned though

that Aliyang's story is a cautionary tale. The People's Daily newspaper says that it's a reminder that parents need to keep a close eye on their children. But other papers have noted that Aliyang was well-known for being being mischievous and it had not been his first time taking a boat out to sea by himself. He's told media that he's just disappointed that he didn't catch any fish. Our China media analyst, Kerry Allen. These days, darts is earning serious recognition as a global sport, thanks in recent years to the teenager Luke Littler

who recently won the World Championships aged just 17. The sport is now expanding worldwide, with official tours in Australia, Scandinavia, North America, Asia and Africa. And in South Africa it's even being used as a tool to teach young people maths. That initiative was started by Devin Peterson, a nine-time world championship player from South Africa. He spoke to Katie Smith about his mission to grow the sport across the continent. It's still in its infancy if you compare it to the UK and obviously Europe as well as

US. But I think that the ability and having a almost a blueprint of what they've achieved globally, we can quickly adopt that into our system. And you realize and understand exactly what is needed. And I don't feel as though from a performance perspective that we that far away. I have the Devin Peterson Darts Academy, we launching the International School Darts League this year as well. We could closer, closer to that and then obviously also with the education side. So the myth has always been Darts is Great for Maths. We bring in that forward now by creating dartboard maths, bringing that to the front and bringing it into the classroom because a lot of people then understand and they learn with practical

engagement and a dartboard is exactly that. We've now created one that fits on your desk with a magnetized movement. So now you're literally creating a fun engagement tool that centers around the sport but teaches you math. So how do you make math fun? Numbers is all about memory, mathematics is all about memory, but what if I told you that we could teach math through a movement and that movement is on a dartboard so when you're showing a pattern for example if I asked you what was your per number you'd almost remember it as a pattern rather than the number sequence which is exactly what dartboard maths is in general because when you're asking a dart player finish one six seven for me they'll tell you it's treble treble 20 20, treble 19, bullseye. We don't even

need to tell you what the answer, the numbers are because we know that by pattern. Now, if I can teach a kid from the age of let's say four to the age of nine and create a champion math through the dark wood math, by the time they get to the age of 10 and 11, we're literally looking at Luke Lutkeler's coming through at the age of 12, 13, which will change the way of the sport, number one. Number two is confidence breeds competence. So they'll go into the classroom not being shy, not being fearful and have number anxiety that cripples most of the world right now. So we need to remove that number anxiety through our sport and what better sport to do it than having it as Dart for maths. I mean, I'm sold. I'm learning so much from you right now. So we've talked about the math

side of it. I think the other thing that a lot of people really engage with when watching darts and enjoying the darts is of course the atmosphere, isn't it? And that's something that I think any venue or any competition wants to bring that. And I'm sure you saw a couple of months ago, there was an African qualifier in Kenya where vuvuzelas were brought out and the crowds are brilliant. So in terms of that being translatable to African audiences, that feels like a no-brainer. Yeah, 100%.

And that specific event that you were talking about, that's one that we hosted. And when we hosted it there, it was well-received. I mean, like you said, it's the first time we ever had a vuvuzela at a Dart event, which is fantastic. But the crowd itself, they've welcomed it in such a big way. And I mean, the finalists, which was Cameron Corrales, and who won, but Peter Washuri, he is from the Kenyan mountains. So he's a villager that got to the finals and the money that he made that weekend certainly set him up for the year as well.

So we kind of make sure that the sport, obviously the theme continues that we always talk about there's no barriers in the sport, developing a platform and getting all of these things ready. But I think that when you actually implement it and you see the people that it affects and the lives that are changes, the sport itself is almost as the you see the people that it affects and the lives that it changes. The sport itself is almost as the sport of the people. I can't see it ever slowing down

and I think that the next five, ten years we're going to see loads more people from different parts. I mean, I think that it's going to open up more doors, it's going to introduce more rock stars to the sport and just bring cultures together and show how united the sport is. South African darts champion Devin Peterson and you can hear more from him on Sports Hour wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Each year the Royal Television Society hosts the Television Journalism Awards celebrating the most prestigious and changemakers in the British journalism space. The BBC's Gary O'Donoghue won in the Breaking News category this year for his reporting on the Trump assassination

attempt for BBC News. In his acceptance speech he said that his disability hasn't held him back. You know when I started out in this business, it was a pretty tough thing for disabled people. I was told by the head of journalism that the blind person couldn't be a reporter, simply couldn't do it, not on. And that has been a difficult journey.

And I want to say just this one last thing. All those parents out there with disabled children, all those disabled students at journalism schools up and down the country, it can be done. Even when the naysayers and they still exist are around, it can be done. Don't let them stand in the way, never take no for an answer. Thank you to the judges, thank you to the RTS, this is fantastic. Thank you very much. I spoke to Gary, who this week has been made the BBC's chief North America correspondent

after reporting on the US for the past decade. He was the first disabled person to be posted as a foreign correspondent and, throughout his career, has overcome many barriers to get to where he is today. Here on the HappyPod we thought his accomplishments were well worth celebrating. We all know there's a bit of luck in these sorts of things and you've got to take that moment and make sure that you maximise it. And my heart was absolutely thudding, I've got to tell you, all night in my chest and we were on air for five or six hours and I think, you know, I mean that interview was shared 300 million times and so you kind of know

you're having an impact when the numbers look like that. I think the other thing I was very glad about, you know, and this was just a consequence of it, is that getting an accurate account out of what had sort of happened, porting those facts quickly, sounds very grand I know, but I do think we helped the way the country processed that at the time. We don't often refer to your blindness on air. Most people would think of being blind, particularly the situations you face on a daily basis, as a disadvantage. I've known you for many years, you have this incredible way of seeing the positive side and you've talked about how actually sometimes you

even regard your your blindness as an advantage as a positive. Yeah I think so I mean look most of the time my blindness I regard as an as an inconvenience frantically trying to keep up reading stuff you know processing information that's all that all takes a little bit of extra time and a little bit of extra effort and a little bit of extra help but there are also times I think when you know as a blind person you you for whatever reasons, you're a bit less threatening. It means sometimes you get more of a hearing when you're talking to quote unquote ordinary people. Now even in most developed countries can I say 70% of blind people of working age are out of

work. They don't have a job. So I'm one of the very, very lucky ones which I remind myself of each morning when I get up. And if you take the global south and less developed countries, the position of blind people is incredibly difficult. They are often hidden away, seen sometimes by their villages, communities, societies as a burden, as not really able to contribute. The one thing I really read is those emails, those text messages, those comments from people all over the world who say, you know, that it matters that they can see someone in my position. And I hear that all the time time and that is what really keeps me going that that I can reflect to some degree these things are possible for the

three four hundred million blind people around this planet. Our new Chief North America correspondent Gary O'Donoghue. And that's all from the HappyPod for now. We'd love to hear from you about any acts of kindness you've received from a stranger. As ever, the address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. And remember, you can now watch some of our interviews on YouTube. Just search for the happy pod. This edition was produced by Harry Bly and Ella Bicknell.

It was mixed by Sharma-Ni Ashton Griffiths. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritzen. Until next time, goodbye. Available now on the documentary from the BBC World Service. Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia group, has been battered by its war with Israel. Now even some supporters are questioning its purpose. So is this a turning point? Join me, Hugo Bashega, as I travel to the heartland of the movement to find out.

Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.