egypt

we originally planned on spending just about a week in egypt, then we arrived and decided there was a little more than a weeks worth of things we wanted to see. we were working on getting some visas in cairo, and then david got really sick and we had to spend some time there while he recuperated. through a series of un-planned events we ended up being in egypt for two and a half weeks and the first six days of the revolution.

in cairo our hostel was right on the street off of tahrir square. we had read about the planned demonstrations and saw a few police trucks sitting around in the few days before the demonstrations started, but didn't think much of it. we were supposed to be in tunisia when the riots started there and thought that there was no way the same thing could have followed us to egypt. on tuesday morning we went outside and the streets were a ghost town before the demonstrations started. in the afternoon things picked up and we had a birds eye view of some of the first rallies. the energy on this first day on demonstrating was very positive and motivational. people were excited, and we never felt like we were in danger. after some demonstrations in the morning businesses opened as usual and the city felt somewhat the same.

we left cairo late that evening to head south and visit a few sights. we were in Luxor on friday when the demonstrations really heated up. it is a much smaller city than cairo and being downtown in it during the day meant that it was hard to stay out of the way of the demonstrations' path. in the video you can see me panning over the square during the call to prayer before any of the big rallies started. it was so peaceful and calm. about an hour later we were walking down the road on the other side of the same mosque and could hear something coming up from behind us. the sound sort of came as a gradual wave towards us and before we knew it we were right in the middle of the crowd of people marching to the police barricades. at first it was not like a stampede and we were able to stay to the sides a bit. the participants and the police had an almost ritual like exchange of pushes and shoves and then there was a rock throwing fight before the tear gas eventually broke it all up. we really had no where to go for a bit besides being in the middle of it, but even still we did not feel threatened. so many people spotted us and came over to us specifically to tell us not to be scared, that they did not want to hurt us. they made sure we stayed to the side and all very firmly told us that they love america, and these demonstrations were against egyptian people and the egyptian government. they all urged us to go home and share what we were seeing first hand with other people.

for most of that friday in Luxor we would get out of a crowd, and turn to walk the other direction before we hit a road block with another demonstration. we walked in dusty, smoky, circles all day. later in the early evening when we were seemingly cornered and situation actually got scary, a saintly taxi driver took us under his wing and rushed out of the area to get to the other end of the city and out of harms way.

we had no idea that the internet was going to go out, but a couple of nights previous we decided that we had seen most everything we wanted to see and decided to book tickets out. clicking "confirm purchase" took longer than normal, i got my confirmation number, then the internet was out. at the time we didn't know that the internet was out in the whole country, or that it was intentional. we are so happy that we got our flights booked when we did. while we were in luxor we had no idea what was going on back in cairo, we were not around any televisions, and we had no internet to check the news. it was weird to be around the riots in luxor and know that it was so much worse in cairo, but we never were really sure what was going on. we were getting news via text messages from our family about what was happening right around us.

we flew out of luxor back to cairo and arrived saturday night in the middle of the night, when the curfew was in effect. there was no possible way to leave the airport. we spent the night in the airport with thousands of other people. there was no food left anywhere, and we spent $40 on candy from the duty free shop that we survived off of for 24 hours. like any night sleeping in the airport it was long, but given the situation it was extra long. old people were curled up on the cold marble floor, babies were in little beds made inside peoples luggage, people made beds out of newspaper, and the news from both the english and the egyptian news stations were on all night. i am so happy that we stayed in the airport that night. we have talked to a few people since who were out in the city that night and they said it was absolutely frightening.

we had a flight scheduled to leave Sunday afternoon. but- we had a bag that we had left at the hostel downtown while we were away for those few days and we wanted to get before we left egypt. so sunday morning we woke up early and went out to battle for a taxi as soon as they showed up when curfew was lifted. we managed to get into town in just a few minutes because there was no traffic going in. if you have been to cairo you know what its traffic is usually like, its insane, but NO ONE was out. the driver let us out on a street we didn't recognize and said we were at our hostel. we got out but were totally confused, i thought we were at the other end of the city. the street we had beed staying on was usually packed all day and all night, but this morning there was not a soul around. no open shops, only boarded up windows, trash in the streets, and very still, dead air. i spotted a guy ahead and then realized he was the front desk worker at the hostel.

we spent two weeks staying on this same street, we walked it a million times a day, we could have walked it blindfolded when we had left tuesday night, but when we went back sunday morning we didn't have a clue where we were. it had turned into a completely different place.

we got our bag, and went back out to try and get to the airport. we had to walk a few blocks to find any cars, and hope that one of them was a taxi that was willing to take us to the airport. the streets were silent. windows were boarded up or shattered out. there weren't even any more stray cats wandering. only a few solemn faced people were walking around. fortunately we found a taxi driver fairly quickly, and he was willing to take us to the airport for the small amount of cash we had left. with no internet no one was accepting cards, and ATMs didn't work, so everyone had to make do with what they had in cash.

the drive to the airport through the streets that have been home to the demonstrations felt like an alternate reality. the changes that the city went through in the short few days that we were gone were unreal. there was no more hustle and bustle of a big city. there were only as many people walking around on the streets as there were sitting in the tanks that were on each corner. torched buildings and car carcasses were on either side of the road and bits of burned paper or glass covered the sidewalks instead of people selling scarves. i didn't have the heart to take pictures of the remains of the previous days riots, it felt disrespectful.

we arrived back at the airport to see a flock of people waiting to get in instead of out like what we expected. despite being right next to or in some of the rallies/riots, david and i both agree that we were actually more afraid of the crowds at the airport than we ever were on the street. it was complete pandemonium. there was no system in place at all, but was just survival of the fittest. we battled through a human traffic jam for a few hours to get a distance of a few hundred feet. there was no in or out line but everyone just shoving into each other to try and get to the other end. i thought my knees were going to break from being pushed backwards while not being able to move my feet. everyone was dripping sweat for hours while pushing each other back and forth. people started just passing their bags over their head in hopes that their bags would make it past the crowd for them to retrieve if they ever made it. eventually people started passing their babies over their heads to strangers in hopes that they would get through the gates too. some people were kind and helpful, but some were terrible to be around. everyone was at the end of their rope and wanted out. we made it through alive, had a delayed flight and missed our connection, but finally arrived safely in Dubai this morning. we got out of the airport just before several countries sent chartered planes to pick up their citizens that were there. we are also really happy that we got out before this because it would have only added to the chaos that was at the airport.

i am also so thankful that we happened to be out of cairo for the few days that we were. those couple of days were the worst days of demonstrations yet and we would have been staying right in the middle of them. the few times that we were in the middle of the crowds were really incredible experiences. we never really felt in danger because the people were taking such care to make sure that we felt safe. at times we were watching things on tv and felt like the way they were portraying the situation was very different that what we were seeing and feeling in the streets, and it was misguiding to say the very least. it was so interesting to have the egyptian channels and the american ones to watch at the same time. picking and choosing what media you choose to watch is such a huge part of how you form your opinions of the world, and this trip has really cemented in our heads which channels we will and will not watch at home when we want information that is unbiased. i am so thankful that we were able to be there to see for ourselves what was going on rather than having to rely on second hand information from the tv at home. i came to egypt with a faint opinion of the egyptian government based on mostly what i have learned about it in the last year through research at school. i am so glad that i was here at this time to be able to talk to egyptian people about their own feelings for their government. i am really glad that i was able to see first hand a small portion of the beginning of change for egyptians. the energy in egypt has changed so much over the last week. we saw it change from excitement, to anger and fear, and then on sunday in cairo the energy was very solemn. each conversation that we had with a local on sunday was very simple and serious, and you could tell that everyone there had heavy hearts. we are so happy to hear now that the protests there are now more positive, and hopefully that turns into productivity on the governments part.