At the expectation of your responses, it is with trepidation that I announce that the 4 S-Rs are returning to Egypt in 3 days time. This was the plan all along, yet I know how much you hoped and prayed we would change our minds…if not for our sake, for that of our young children, you say. Why go back? Why when all you have there is a low-paying job and a serious longing for expensive American-imported macaroni and cheese? I pretend I don’t notice your tone of voice, but I know. I know, and I know that I am impotent to explain it. I wish I could. I wish I could answer the question for myself.
I finally snapped at a long-time American friend today when she asked the “E” question “so…uh…Ash….what’s the plan?”. “What do you MEAN, what’s the plan? The plan is that we go back and help REBUILD the country. What else would we do?” What can I say? At the prospect of me leaving her forever, I cling to Egypt even tighter. I literally want to kiss her soil (if I could find it save the trash!). Is Egypt my favorite place to hate? Or do I hate that it is my favorite place? I am reminded of a sister in law of mine who, at some point during her chemotherapy for breast cancer, remarked “how did I wind up here”? If you had to suddenly withdraw from your life as you know it, what would be important to you?
So as a feeling of irrational shame at leaving in the first place mingles with real, true fear that I’ll never get out again, I simply put one foot in front of the other. I can’t wrap my head around the philosophical. This comes from the gut. I’m coming home Masr! And I’ve never run from a challenge…we're getting back to where we once belonged...
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Update on Operation Sanity
Greetings from Madrid or as they say here "Madrith"! Our wonderful friends Doug and Diana took in us refugees. We are spending a few nights here and then heading to Barcelona for a week of family-time and relaxation. This looks like it will be a long jouney...and one we are dedicated to struggle through with Egypt. So...a vacation before the hard work of rebuilding a country.
We still have a few American neighbors and friends in Egypt and of course almost all of our Egyptian friends are still there. When you see them on TV, please please think good thoughts for them. Think of Marty who bakes and shares a large sheetcake every day to keep spirits up. Think of Stephanie who organizes games in the garden for the children. Think of Peter and Betsy and Casey and Kathleen. Think of Hala and Farida and Hend and Ahmed and Reham and countless, countless others who are keeping up their spirits and good cheer and reaching out to others. They are carrying on through difficult circumstances and need all of the goodwill that can be sent their way.
More from Barcelona, in sha'Allah (God willing)
-A
We still have a few American neighbors and friends in Egypt and of course almost all of our Egyptian friends are still there. When you see them on TV, please please think good thoughts for them. Think of Marty who bakes and shares a large sheetcake every day to keep spirits up. Think of Stephanie who organizes games in the garden for the children. Think of Peter and Betsy and Casey and Kathleen. Think of Hala and Farida and Hend and Ahmed and Reham and countless, countless others who are keeping up their spirits and good cheer and reaching out to others. They are carrying on through difficult circumstances and need all of the goodwill that can be sent their way.
More from Barcelona, in sha'Allah (God willing)
-A
Revolution!
I didn’t think Revolution would feel like this. John Lennon, Tracy Chapman, and the many other artists make it sound so upbeat, so sure of its legitimacy, and so containable in a 3-minute music track. The reality is unsure, insecure, and very much “watch and wait”. Would today become immortalized like so many other dates in history? When my American friends ask me what it feels like to be in a country of turmoil, I think about what it must have felt like to wake up with a really really tingly feeling on July 4th 1776. You can’t put your finger on it, but it’s there.
Yes, there were the usual runs to the banks, the stocking up on 4 liters of milk and all of the rice that can be possibly eaten for a year. There was the filling of the bathtub with fresh water and the preparations…the endless preparations for that which we hoped would never come.
Except we did want it to come. Everyone did. Egyptians are starving and dying from preventable and treatable disease. The trash here is literally smothering its citizens and the government is so corrupt, it is by definition, brutal. The “democratically elected” Mubarak, ruler for 28 years must go …and take his power-hungry son with him. Nearly everyone in Egypt wants Mubarak out of power and tried for his many crimes against humanity. I think often of our graduate student P.R. who was grabbed in the middle of the night, held and tortured in prison for 2 weeks, and left naked, bound, and gagged on a street corner for having the audacity to blog and organize demonstrations suggesting that the Egyptian people deserved better than Mubarak. I just can’t figure how anyone supports the status quo. I know absolutely no Mubarak supporters and I am not surprised the government must pay approximately 1 month’s salary to the pro-Mubarak demonstrators.
So who are the demonstrators? An Egyptian friend of mine told me “I shame myself and my family if I do not go to the protests”. He is manager of a bank. He is comfortable. He has a wife and a puppy and a baby on the way. I begged him not to go and then I instantly felt ashamed as well. Should I be marching alongside him? What is my freedom worth to me? Protesters here come from all walks of life. I know all of this is reported on CNN but the magnitude can only be assessed by considering the almost caste-like system employed in Egypt, where the middle and upper class feel entitled to their lot by Allah himself and where the masses live and die in truly deplorable conditions. That Egyptians, who are well-known to argue about the smallest thing for hours, at a time can agree and stand for anything is amazing. My heart is bursting with pride. This is the people I know and love.
But Revolution isn’t easy. Last Friday was perhaps the scariest night of my sheltered life. Looters and n’erdo-wellers were spotted three doors down and rumbling our way. I had hidden my “valuables” in our drop ceiling. Funny what you consider “valuable” when you only have 45 seconds to determine it. I grabbed my engagement ring, my wedding present from Joe, our USB backup of our family pictures, Virginia’s security blanket, Aedan’s stuffed dog, and Joe’s ipad. The kids were throwing stuffed animals and little Chuck E Cheese trinkets under the bed fast as lightning. Then, I barricaded us in to wait. Our normally passive Golden Retriever Snowcone was on high alert with orders to bite strangers. Would she have really bitten if it came down to it? I’d like to think so. I wish I could say that the anxiety passed when the looters were rounded up and arrested. Surely we couldn’t sleep barricaded in the former nursery/newly appointed “panic room” indefinitely. Still, when are you safe? With absolutely no police presence on the streets and prisoners being let out of prisons by the thousands, could we be sure that they or their cronies wouldn’t return?
In response to the general panic, Joe and every other able-bodied man age 16 and over formed “Operation Chihuahua”, a rag-tag band of professors cum vigilantes roaming and protecting the people of our neighborhood. Armed with the business end of a beach umbrella, Joe and the other men stayed up all night, drank gin, and wondered what he would actually do if the looters or Mubarak-released prisoners came. In a sense, my pacifist professor husband now has a kinship with so many others throughout history who have watched, waited, endured scary moments, and built bonds that last a lifetime. Meanwhile, the women-folk were constantly boiling water, discussing which market has eggs or milk or bread, and tsk-tsking about how the children are running around like little savages. It occurs to me that this is very sexist in a way, but this wasn’t the time to redress this. Frustration as the moments turned into hours turned into days turned into who-knows-how-long. Bickering with each other, forgetting to eat, not knowing what day it was or when we last showered. In a mere week, I was almost unrecognizable to myself. Little to no contact with the outside world save for a few very special family members and friends who persisted all day to make expensive international calls. Time drug on. If we were actually doing something productive, that would be one thing…but we were waiting…and watching proud of the patience and civility of the protestors and then horrified at the images of Egyptians killing each other in graphic and brutal ways on Al Jezeera International, CNN, & BBC (the local stations only showed peace and calm, no demonstrations and no violence), and trying not to let the children see us cry.
The morning found us tired and cranky…and too distracted to operate the coffee pot. This pattern would continue each morning after the nightwatch. We opened the door that first morning to survey the damage only to be assaulted with the pungent smell of tear gas wafting in from downtown. Aedan’s eyes watered as he sputtered a “help!”. I must have looked terrified because my kind, thoughtful and ever-protecting 7 year old shouted “I’m fine Mom! Really! I’m brave! It’s not that bad! Really!” His wide eyes suggested what his words would never say. I was flooded with guilt so quickly that I had difficulty standing. As if I needed further proof that God never gives you more than you can handle, my 5 year old future lawyer comes in and non-plussed says “Mom, you know what makes me feel better when I have tear gas in my lungs? Oreos! Can we open that bag you have been saving for a special occasion?” The moment passed. I didn’t faint in front on my children. But things were still touch and go…
Then the internet came back on. The bank reopened with limited hours and cash supplies. Our families and friends drove us crazy calling at all hours and demanding that we leave the country immediately. Would we leave? Should we leave? Where would we go? What does it mean if we go? If we stay? Hours on the phone, staring at Facebook, willing the world to completely pause and acknowledge us, rage at the incredible pressure of the media’s eye (thanks Anderson Cooper for your dramatic overreaction—we all knew it was dangerous in Tahrir—yet much of the rest of Cairo was safe and returning, albeit slowly, to normal).
Due to pure exhaustion, hunger, terror at our children’s nightmares, and acquiescence to self-doubt, and family/friend demands, Joe and I made the difficult decision to leave Egypt for a week. We must take a break and things are getting worse. We aren’t safe in the place I felt the most safe a mere two weeks ago. Normally I would have welcomed an unexpected trip to Spain but I’d literally do anything to have avoided the circumstance that made it necessary. I have had to face the facts that there is very little I can do in or for the people of this country that I love. Words don’t exist to describe my frustration. Egypt is my home and I want to defend her. But I can’t. Not until next week….which feels like forever from now.
So this message comes to you as I sit in the airport…wondering whether our evacuation airplane which has already been delayed 2 ½ hours will actually come and if it comes whether it will take us to Madrid and if we get there, if we will ever come home again, and if we do whether “home” will ever feel the same. I have so many mixed feelings about leaving but a firm return date a week later makes this feel like a sort of surreal vacation. My American friend and I just phoned and discussed our “leavers guilt”. We can’t bear to stay but we can’t bear to leave our many friends, our pets, our homes, and the people who care for us. I’d like to think that all of this has a purpose and that those brave Egyptians willing to die to make their country a better place did not die in vain. A recently retired friend of mine described the way she intends to spend her days until all of this is over: “I’m picking up trash in Cairo with my friends. We are starting on Road 9 (central boulevard) and moving outward. The young people can have their Revolution. We’ll leave them the beautiful country that they deserve”. Well done Egypt. May God grant swift peace and justice here.
-Ashley
Yes, there were the usual runs to the banks, the stocking up on 4 liters of milk and all of the rice that can be possibly eaten for a year. There was the filling of the bathtub with fresh water and the preparations…the endless preparations for that which we hoped would never come.
Except we did want it to come. Everyone did. Egyptians are starving and dying from preventable and treatable disease. The trash here is literally smothering its citizens and the government is so corrupt, it is by definition, brutal. The “democratically elected” Mubarak, ruler for 28 years must go …and take his power-hungry son with him. Nearly everyone in Egypt wants Mubarak out of power and tried for his many crimes against humanity. I think often of our graduate student P.R. who was grabbed in the middle of the night, held and tortured in prison for 2 weeks, and left naked, bound, and gagged on a street corner for having the audacity to blog and organize demonstrations suggesting that the Egyptian people deserved better than Mubarak. I just can’t figure how anyone supports the status quo. I know absolutely no Mubarak supporters and I am not surprised the government must pay approximately 1 month’s salary to the pro-Mubarak demonstrators.
So who are the demonstrators? An Egyptian friend of mine told me “I shame myself and my family if I do not go to the protests”. He is manager of a bank. He is comfortable. He has a wife and a puppy and a baby on the way. I begged him not to go and then I instantly felt ashamed as well. Should I be marching alongside him? What is my freedom worth to me? Protesters here come from all walks of life. I know all of this is reported on CNN but the magnitude can only be assessed by considering the almost caste-like system employed in Egypt, where the middle and upper class feel entitled to their lot by Allah himself and where the masses live and die in truly deplorable conditions. That Egyptians, who are well-known to argue about the smallest thing for hours, at a time can agree and stand for anything is amazing. My heart is bursting with pride. This is the people I know and love.
But Revolution isn’t easy. Last Friday was perhaps the scariest night of my sheltered life. Looters and n’erdo-wellers were spotted three doors down and rumbling our way. I had hidden my “valuables” in our drop ceiling. Funny what you consider “valuable” when you only have 45 seconds to determine it. I grabbed my engagement ring, my wedding present from Joe, our USB backup of our family pictures, Virginia’s security blanket, Aedan’s stuffed dog, and Joe’s ipad. The kids were throwing stuffed animals and little Chuck E Cheese trinkets under the bed fast as lightning. Then, I barricaded us in to wait. Our normally passive Golden Retriever Snowcone was on high alert with orders to bite strangers. Would she have really bitten if it came down to it? I’d like to think so. I wish I could say that the anxiety passed when the looters were rounded up and arrested. Surely we couldn’t sleep barricaded in the former nursery/newly appointed “panic room” indefinitely. Still, when are you safe? With absolutely no police presence on the streets and prisoners being let out of prisons by the thousands, could we be sure that they or their cronies wouldn’t return?
In response to the general panic, Joe and every other able-bodied man age 16 and over formed “Operation Chihuahua”, a rag-tag band of professors cum vigilantes roaming and protecting the people of our neighborhood. Armed with the business end of a beach umbrella, Joe and the other men stayed up all night, drank gin, and wondered what he would actually do if the looters or Mubarak-released prisoners came. In a sense, my pacifist professor husband now has a kinship with so many others throughout history who have watched, waited, endured scary moments, and built bonds that last a lifetime. Meanwhile, the women-folk were constantly boiling water, discussing which market has eggs or milk or bread, and tsk-tsking about how the children are running around like little savages. It occurs to me that this is very sexist in a way, but this wasn’t the time to redress this. Frustration as the moments turned into hours turned into days turned into who-knows-how-long. Bickering with each other, forgetting to eat, not knowing what day it was or when we last showered. In a mere week, I was almost unrecognizable to myself. Little to no contact with the outside world save for a few very special family members and friends who persisted all day to make expensive international calls. Time drug on. If we were actually doing something productive, that would be one thing…but we were waiting…and watching proud of the patience and civility of the protestors and then horrified at the images of Egyptians killing each other in graphic and brutal ways on Al Jezeera International, CNN, & BBC (the local stations only showed peace and calm, no demonstrations and no violence), and trying not to let the children see us cry.
The morning found us tired and cranky…and too distracted to operate the coffee pot. This pattern would continue each morning after the nightwatch. We opened the door that first morning to survey the damage only to be assaulted with the pungent smell of tear gas wafting in from downtown. Aedan’s eyes watered as he sputtered a “help!”. I must have looked terrified because my kind, thoughtful and ever-protecting 7 year old shouted “I’m fine Mom! Really! I’m brave! It’s not that bad! Really!” His wide eyes suggested what his words would never say. I was flooded with guilt so quickly that I had difficulty standing. As if I needed further proof that God never gives you more than you can handle, my 5 year old future lawyer comes in and non-plussed says “Mom, you know what makes me feel better when I have tear gas in my lungs? Oreos! Can we open that bag you have been saving for a special occasion?” The moment passed. I didn’t faint in front on my children. But things were still touch and go…
Then the internet came back on. The bank reopened with limited hours and cash supplies. Our families and friends drove us crazy calling at all hours and demanding that we leave the country immediately. Would we leave? Should we leave? Where would we go? What does it mean if we go? If we stay? Hours on the phone, staring at Facebook, willing the world to completely pause and acknowledge us, rage at the incredible pressure of the media’s eye (thanks Anderson Cooper for your dramatic overreaction—we all knew it was dangerous in Tahrir—yet much of the rest of Cairo was safe and returning, albeit slowly, to normal).
Due to pure exhaustion, hunger, terror at our children’s nightmares, and acquiescence to self-doubt, and family/friend demands, Joe and I made the difficult decision to leave Egypt for a week. We must take a break and things are getting worse. We aren’t safe in the place I felt the most safe a mere two weeks ago. Normally I would have welcomed an unexpected trip to Spain but I’d literally do anything to have avoided the circumstance that made it necessary. I have had to face the facts that there is very little I can do in or for the people of this country that I love. Words don’t exist to describe my frustration. Egypt is my home and I want to defend her. But I can’t. Not until next week….which feels like forever from now.
So this message comes to you as I sit in the airport…wondering whether our evacuation airplane which has already been delayed 2 ½ hours will actually come and if it comes whether it will take us to Madrid and if we get there, if we will ever come home again, and if we do whether “home” will ever feel the same. I have so many mixed feelings about leaving but a firm return date a week later makes this feel like a sort of surreal vacation. My American friend and I just phoned and discussed our “leavers guilt”. We can’t bear to stay but we can’t bear to leave our many friends, our pets, our homes, and the people who care for us. I’d like to think that all of this has a purpose and that those brave Egyptians willing to die to make their country a better place did not die in vain. A recently retired friend of mine described the way she intends to spend her days until all of this is over: “I’m picking up trash in Cairo with my friends. We are starting on Road 9 (central boulevard) and moving outward. The young people can have their Revolution. We’ll leave them the beautiful country that they deserve”. Well done Egypt. May God grant swift peace and justice here.
-Ashley
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