This post was originally written on Sunday, January 30th but do to internet complications couldn’t be posted at the time. I am alive and have safely arrived to Paris where I’m staying for the night until my flight to Philly tomorrow. I will post again soon about more recent updates on my last few days but as for now I am completely exhausted and need some time to really process all of what I experienced in the last week...
What started as a measly facebook group inspired by Tunisia has become a dedicated movement to make a change in Egypt. First, let me start out by saying that I am safe and that I have only failed to post for the last 3 days because the wonderful government here shut down the entire internet. With that said I must now explain the chaos that has been my last few days.
My Plan:
-Train to Beni Suef on Thursday to visit a professor and find more subjects for my research
-Train Friday morning for Alexandria to meet up with a UD group that is spending Winter Session in Egypt and Morocco (one of my good friends is on the trip and we’ve been trying to find a time to meet up)
-Tour around Alexandria with a friend Friday and Saturday
-Train back to Cairo on Saturday
My Reality:
-Made it to Beni Suef successfully! Had a wonderful time meeting his family and friends and got a handful of good interviews in. He even took me to the Maydom Pyramid where we got a private tour inside (it had actually closed five minutes before we got there, but in true Egyptian fashion he argued with them and they finally agreed to let us in). It was amazing, and again I am very happy I am not claustrophobic. After an amazing Thursday, it was looking like a good weekend ahead of me.. but wait.
-Caught a 7:30am train to Alexandria on Friday because according to the last time I had talked to my friend, they UD group was leaving for Sharm el-Sheikh in the afternoon. Since she was unsure of the hotel, the plan was to just call her and my Egyptian friend who planned to show me around to figure out where to meet up. One small glitch in the radar: with all of the protests and mayhem going on, the government decided to SHUT OFF CELL PHONES. Panic. Apparently they shut off service at 7am. Just my luck. I stayed calm and decided to go to plan B and go to an internet café and get in touch with them that way. Through the mob of people I found a taxi, and we escaped the huge protests and people swarming the streets and he started talking about how much the Egyptian people hate their government. I asked him to turn on his meter (always trying to avoid the argument of how much to pay) but through his broken English he explained that it wasn’t working, just like the mobile phones AND THE INTERNET. Welp. There goes plan B. Apparently there had been plans to have huge protests right after the Friday prayer (the Muslim equivalent of Sunday mass) so the government decided to shut down all modes of communication to prevent further mobilization of people. The nice taxi driver convinced me to stay and find a hotel to avoid going back to the train station and Cairo. Long story short, I made it safely to a hotel after being rerouted numerous times because of the giant protests.
-Realizing that the Internet and phones weren’t coming back on anytime soon, I decided to cut my losses and take a train back to Cairo. I was really bummed that I didn’t get to see anything in Alex (at least my hotel room had a view of the Mediterranean) but I just wanted to get back to my apartment safely. Well, plan C (D, E, F? I’ve lost track) failed as well, because the trains were also stopped. So, I took a taxi about 40 minutes past protesters, tanks, and numerous buildings on fire to the bus station. Three hours later I was on a bus to Cairo (which was apparently the last one they let go so I’m counting my blessings for that one) BUT the busses weren’t allowed to go in to the actual city. We got dropped off in New Cairo and I made friends with a really nice guy who insisted I share a taxi with him and his grandmother to stay safe and get back as soon as possible. At this point cell phones started working again and I was constantly getting calls to make sure that I was okay. The things I saw on my 45 min taxi home will never leave my memory. Men running with knives, sticks, and guns. Buildings on fire. Roads closed. Tanks lining the streets. No policemen. People protecting themselves. Chaos. Mayhem. Fear. Excitement and terror juxtaposed. It started to really hit me as we neared the areas which I finally recognized. Driving over the Nile I saw that the massive office building that I had conducted an interview in with the National Council for Women only a few days before was now complete charred, gutted by fire. I could go on describing the sights, but words will never be able to capture the scenes and feelings produced by the taxi ride I will never forget.
-I MADE IT BACK. Once I arrived to my floor, my landlord came out and kissed me and hugged me and was nearly in tears that I made it back safe. They brought me food since it was forbidden to walk outside from 4pm until 8am the next day. Once I made calls to a bunch of people letting them know I had gotten back safely, I attempted to get some sleep through all of the screaming in the streets.
Not how I had pictured my weekend to go, but it was certainly adventurous. I’ll be sure to relay more stories when I get back, but this is about all I can handle to write. It has been an exhausting few days and I’m still in shock of what this government is capable in doing. Shutting down all lines of communication during a crisis like this is not a way to govern a country, but it certainly is a way to scare people into further protests and violence. Mubarak needs to go.
…We all want to change the world.
What started as a measly facebook group inspired by Tunisia has become a dedicated movement to make a change in Egypt. First, let me start out by saying that I am safe and that I have only failed to post for the last 3 days because the wonderful government here shut down the entire internet. With that said I must now explain the chaos that has been my last few days.
My Plan:
-Train to Beni Suef on Thursday to visit a professor and find more subjects for my research
-Train Friday morning for Alexandria to meet up with a UD group that is spending Winter Session in Egypt and Morocco (one of my good friends is on the trip and we’ve been trying to find a time to meet up)
-Tour around Alexandria with a friend Friday and Saturday
-Train back to Cairo on Saturday
My Reality:
-Made it to Beni Suef successfully! Had a wonderful time meeting his family and friends and got a handful of good interviews in. He even took me to the Maydom Pyramid where we got a private tour inside (it had actually closed five minutes before we got there, but in true Egyptian fashion he argued with them and they finally agreed to let us in). It was amazing, and again I am very happy I am not claustrophobic. After an amazing Thursday, it was looking like a good weekend ahead of me.. but wait.
-Caught a 7:30am train to Alexandria on Friday because according to the last time I had talked to my friend, they UD group was leaving for Sharm el-Sheikh in the afternoon. Since she was unsure of the hotel, the plan was to just call her and my Egyptian friend who planned to show me around to figure out where to meet up. One small glitch in the radar: with all of the protests and mayhem going on, the government decided to SHUT OFF CELL PHONES. Panic. Apparently they shut off service at 7am. Just my luck. I stayed calm and decided to go to plan B and go to an internet café and get in touch with them that way. Through the mob of people I found a taxi, and we escaped the huge protests and people swarming the streets and he started talking about how much the Egyptian people hate their government. I asked him to turn on his meter (always trying to avoid the argument of how much to pay) but through his broken English he explained that it wasn’t working, just like the mobile phones AND THE INTERNET. Welp. There goes plan B. Apparently there had been plans to have huge protests right after the Friday prayer (the Muslim equivalent of Sunday mass) so the government decided to shut down all modes of communication to prevent further mobilization of people. The nice taxi driver convinced me to stay and find a hotel to avoid going back to the train station and Cairo. Long story short, I made it safely to a hotel after being rerouted numerous times because of the giant protests.
-Realizing that the Internet and phones weren’t coming back on anytime soon, I decided to cut my losses and take a train back to Cairo. I was really bummed that I didn’t get to see anything in Alex (at least my hotel room had a view of the Mediterranean) but I just wanted to get back to my apartment safely. Well, plan C (D, E, F? I’ve lost track) failed as well, because the trains were also stopped. So, I took a taxi about 40 minutes past protesters, tanks, and numerous buildings on fire to the bus station. Three hours later I was on a bus to Cairo (which was apparently the last one they let go so I’m counting my blessings for that one) BUT the busses weren’t allowed to go in to the actual city. We got dropped off in New Cairo and I made friends with a really nice guy who insisted I share a taxi with him and his grandmother to stay safe and get back as soon as possible. At this point cell phones started working again and I was constantly getting calls to make sure that I was okay. The things I saw on my 45 min taxi home will never leave my memory. Men running with knives, sticks, and guns. Buildings on fire. Roads closed. Tanks lining the streets. No policemen. People protecting themselves. Chaos. Mayhem. Fear. Excitement and terror juxtaposed. It started to really hit me as we neared the areas which I finally recognized. Driving over the Nile I saw that the massive office building that I had conducted an interview in with the National Council for Women only a few days before was now complete charred, gutted by fire. I could go on describing the sights, but words will never be able to capture the scenes and feelings produced by the taxi ride I will never forget.
-I MADE IT BACK. Once I arrived to my floor, my landlord came out and kissed me and hugged me and was nearly in tears that I made it back safe. They brought me food since it was forbidden to walk outside from 4pm until 8am the next day. Once I made calls to a bunch of people letting them know I had gotten back safely, I attempted to get some sleep through all of the screaming in the streets.
Not how I had pictured my weekend to go, but it was certainly adventurous. I’ll be sure to relay more stories when I get back, but this is about all I can handle to write. It has been an exhausting few days and I’m still in shock of what this government is capable in doing. Shutting down all lines of communication during a crisis like this is not a way to govern a country, but it certainly is a way to scare people into further protests and violence. Mubarak needs to go.
…We all want to change the world.
