Month: February 2011

I am feeling very loved today. And very tired. Baby is sick, sick, sick (as in projectile vomiting every time I nurse her so we’re down to tiny spoonfuls of Pedialyte and hoping she’ll keep that down), but people have met our every need, even before we knew we needed it.

It started yesterday when we went to visit my dad at his office and were showered with gifts. Some of the kids in the church had gone through their toys and picked out things to give to the boys since we had to leave all their toys behind. And these weren’t castoffs — a remote control car, nerf guns, a basketball, soccer ball, art supplies . . . too many things to list. And then they gave us gift cards to help replace other things that we had to leave behind like shampoo, shoes, jackets and things I haven’t even thought of yet that we will need.

It was all totally unexpected and to say it was appreciated would be an understatement. Other friends brought dinner, people have offered clothing, places to stay, and I can’t believe how many people were praying for us.

Then today we had to go down to Monterey to get our car out of storage and we were able to catch up in person with so many people who feel like family to us. One of the things that we love about the military is that because we don’t always have family living nearby, we have a giant extended family that stretches across the country and now reaches all the way to Egypt.

I know the biggest question that everyone has is “what happens next?” Yeah, we’re wondering that too. Right now it looks like there is a very good chance of us going to either Morocco or Oman.

I posted this video on facebook earlier today. This video shows exactly what things were like in Maadi before we were evacuated. Maybe now you’ll understand why we felt it was safe to stay. Or maybe you’ll think we were crazy. Like the people narrating the video, we really appreciated the “boab armies” who banded together to keep our streets safe at night.

With each day that passes, it becomes more and more clear that evacuating was the right thing for us and the chances of being able to return become slimmer and slimmer. I’m OK with that today. I think the events of tomorrow will be crucial to Egypt’s future. Praying for change and praying for peace.

The last post I wrote from Egypt. From this description, you can see why we were so sad to go, and why it seemed so unnecessary to us. But, I’m up early watching the news this morning and feeling sad that the wonderful peaceful demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of people of the last few days are starting to be replaced with outbreaks of violence between the people and the military and this new fringe group of “pro-Mubarak” supporters. I really need to see it on Al Jazeera to believe it though. I guess we’ll all see over the next few days if the ambassador made the right call. Either way, she has a good outcome. Americans are safe in America. Zero risk.

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Day 2 – cell phone service was restored around lunchtime, but no internet or text message capabilities yet. I’m not missing access to “social networking sites” nearly as much as I’m missing my access to google. It’s like I’m missing half of my brain. I couldn’t remember the name of the knitting character from A Tale of Two Cities when I was writing my previous post so I had to write “knitting lady” as a placeholder until I can look it up. Watching the 10s of thousands of people flood the streets today demanding change was awe inspiring. If we weren’t under strict orders to stay home I might actually consider heading out there to join them. Of course I’d have to run to catch up with Josh because he would have been out there from the first minute the people started gathering if he could. There are women and children, young men and old all wanting the same thing. Many women in hijabs, a few not. Muslims and Christians on the same side. Other women fully covered, veil and all, carrying signs of protest and shouting for Mubarak to resign. My favorite dude is this wrinkled little old man with a green scarf wrapped around his head who has wooden staff/cane who is bobbing up and down, dancing for change. We’ve seen him on several different news channels, doing his freedom dance. The government has issued a curfew today from 3pm until 8am, but none of the demonstrators are paying attention. Today the police have been pulled back and aren’t visible at all on the streets so the people are peaceful and happy and there has been no violence today.

I wrote this while we were watching the protests on Friday — I never imagined that I would have to post it from America . . .

Remember the scene from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities where Madame Defarge sat at the foot of the guillotine and kept knitting away as heads rolled? I felt like her all day today as I knit away on a pair of pants for Camille as we watched this Egyptian revolution unfold on TV.

We woke up to find that we no longer had internet and a few hours later all cell phones were cut off. Josh went to listen to Friday prayers at the mosque to hear whether the Imam was encouraging people to protest. Rather than pushing revolution, he preached a very fervent sermon on loving your neighbor. I thought it was nice that he encouraged his congregation to include Jews and Christians as “neighbors.”

Around 2pm we started watching the news (Friday prayers end around 1pm and that is when the demonstrations were expected to start). I was really thankful that we had our Egyptian satellite access since we were able to watch Al Jazeera and other Arabic channels to get the Arabic perspective of what was happening and not just the American or European interpretation of events. 

Egypt is ruling with an iron fist. They are trying to quash any information being spread by cutting off all forms of communication. The police are arresting and beating journalists, they cut news channels that were broadcasting in Arabic and at 5:30 they announced a curfew that would go into effect at 6pm. The latest news is that the Egyptian president ordered the military to take to the streets to assist the police in fighting against the protesters.

The ugliest things I saw today were the Egyptian police driving through crowds of protesters, trying to run people over and 3 and 4 plainclothes cops at a time picking people out of the crowd and dragging them away, beating them with nightsticks. It reminded me of things I read about happening in Nazi Germany when the SS would come in and drag people off and they’d never been seen again.

I wish I had bought stock in tear gas because the Egyptian police are burning through it like it’s free.  Josh was downstairs talking to the guards and he came up and said that he could smell it in the air.

After determining that it was safe to go out here in Maadi, Josh headed to church with Calvin. Of course, soon after they left is when the government decided to impose a curfew. I wasn’t sure how they would get the news (since no phones), but the cops that protect the area around the church came into the service to let everyone know that they had to disband and head home. I was relieved to see them walk in the door at 6:01.

Watching the American press talk about the situation here has been so aggravating. The press secretary and Hilary saying they were “concerned” and calling for Egypt to resume access to social networking sites – yeah, cause that’s what the Egyptian people want. They’re all upset because the government took away their Twitter.

What about expressing condemnation for a government that in an attempt to control its people cuts off all contact with the outside world, including phone and internet, and is kidnapping and beating journalists and shutting down television feeds to keep the rest of the world from knowing how deeply they are abusing their people? How about that Joe Biden?

Anyway, I don’t do politics, and now I remember why. It’s a whole bunch of people talking in circles about stuff that they don’t have first-hand experience with. Unfortunately, it looks like there are a whole lot of politics in our future here.

I really do hope that this brings about great change in the government to the benefit of the Egyptian people. One of the women interviewed during the protest today said, “Without change there is no tomorrow. We are already dead.” You can see the truth of that statement in how they drive, how they cross the street, how everything is “enshalla” (God willing). They don’t feel that they have any control over the events in their lives. Josh and I would love to see Mubarak forced out and turn over control of the government to the Egyptian people — giving them the opportunity to fairly elect their leaders.

We are here at my parents’ house in Santa Cruz. It was a long day, but we made it. All the flights were good — as good as an 11 hour flight can be with a 7 month old baby sandwiched between 2 men, right? Because we weren’t booked on the flight until 11pm the night before, we were paired up, but separated from each other on the plane, all of us in center seats. But all the kids were great travelers and I couldn’t be prouder of them.

I am about to crawl in bed to sleep off the past few days of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion. I promise there are more stories to come and I keep thinking of so many things that I wanted to blog about Egypt, but never had time to share. For now I’ll just share a picture from this morning.

A little background: I had spent most of the night packing, the entire morning waiting for a shuttle, then a bus to the airport, and sat at the airport in numerous lines for hours. Finally made it onto a plane, but then sat on the tarmac until we took off at 7:00pm. Then we arrived at this beautiful, luxurious hotel in Athens. Gorgeous bathroom with a soaking tub and steam shower, hardwood floors, a feather bed over the mattress. Ah, if this is refugee status, I think I can cope. I imagined waking up at 10am and enjoying the amazing hotel breakfast and maybe a little sightseeing in Athens before catching a late afternoon flight out. Then Josh broke the news that we had to leave for the airport at 4:00am so we could get the early flight to Frankfurt to catch the 10am flight to SFO.

I was able to crawl into bed at midnight, but I couldn’t sleep because I was too stressed about how crappy I was going to feel when I had to get up at 3:45. Those “hurry up and fall asleep because you only have 3 hours and 17 minutes until you have to get up” thoughts really don’t promote peaceful sleep, you know?

So this is me not being a happy camper at 4am. And it was freezing. Ah, Athens, I hardly knew ye.