{"id":2354,"date":"2011-02-03T11:35:45","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T18:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/?p=2354"},"modified":"2011-02-03T11:57:38","modified_gmt":"2011-02-03T18:57:38","slug":"leila-farid-getting-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/2011\/02\/03\/leila-farid-getting-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cairoi<\/p>\n

Report From Cairo<\/strong><\/h2>\n

by Leila Farid<\/a>
\nposted February 3, 2010<\/span><\/h3>\n

We had just finished our dance and music cruise in Aswan when news of the protests in Cairo reached us.\u00a0 As everyone was leaving (the majority of the dancers went on a shuttle to Hurghada) we sat on the boat and watched the news as we waited for that evening to go back to Cairo.\u00a0 Thankfully, Madam Raqia<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>had left a few days earlier for a festival in Spain. It took us a while to realize the phones were not working.\u00a0 Everyone tried calling Cairo without success so we sat glued to the television as the demonstrations unfolded.\u00a0 We heard from the boat staff of demonstrations going on in Aswan and spent a few hours trying to round up the girls who had gone downtown as tourists.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

They had met the protestors and either turned back to the boat or had waited them out in a closed shop with cautious business owners.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Our scheduled flight was late that night and the orchestra was to leave on the overnight train at 9pm.\u00a0 We had just eaten lunch when we heard there would be a curfew in Aswan (all foreigners confined to their boat or hotel and all Egyptians to their homes) so we rushed the orchestra to the train, and we got a bus to take us to the airport so we wouldn’t miss our flight.\u00a0 Our 3 year old was in Cairo with the nanny with no way to contact him. Being in Aswan, we could still receive calls, just not from Cairo, so we talked with worried friends and relatives outside of Egypt.\u00a0 From what we were watching on the news and hearing from friends outside the country, we were determined to get back to Cairo that night!\u00a0 The orchestra had to wait in the train station for about 4 hours for the train.\u00a0 The protestors had stopped in front of the train station and the police tear gassed them to break them up.\u00a0 The gas floated into the station (no one was allowed to leave) so the orchestra spent a rough time suffering from the gas.\u00a0 Their train left on time, and they were pelted with rocks and bricks by the protestors as they pulled out of the station.<\/p>\n

We got to the airport in the early evening and were issued tickets, then we waited for hours.\u00a0 By 4:30 am we were back in Cairo.\u00a0 The airport was a mess with people sleeping everywhere!\u00a0 The curfew was in effect until 7am, but we didn’t want to wait.\u00a0 We had left our car in the parking so against the advice of the police in the airport, we left.\u00a0 Safaa<\/a>, Azza Sherif<\/a>, Tanya Eshta <\/strong>(our Russian language coordinator for the festival) and I piled into the car under mounds of luggage. No one stopped us from leaving the airport, but once we got out into the city, we realized that every major route into Cairo had been blocked off by the military.\u00a0 We wound our way though side streets for an hour just to get to the 26th July Bridge.\u00a0 We were the only car on the bridge, just us and a convoy of tanks.\u00a0 We saw burned-out police vans, cars overturned, smoldering government buildings, but all was still.\u00a0 We drove to Mohandaseen to drop off Azza Sherif at her flat.\u00a0 She lives on the corner of S. Gamet el Dowel el Arabeya and S. Shehab.\u00a0 This is the biggest shopping street in central Cairo.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\"MustafaMahmoudThe only way we got through is that someone had overturned the barriers and pulled them away enough for a car\u2019s width to get in.\u00a0 A lone tank sat in front of Mustafa Mahmoud mosque and the bands of men and boys roamed the streets carrying sticks. This was the first time I felt scared.\u00a0 Most of the shops on the main street had been looted. Some were still burning.\u00a0 Bon fires still smoldered in the middle of the street and the gangs of men looked into the car window and then waved us on.\u00a0 We stopped in front of madam Azza’s house and the men in the lobby came out with caution.\u00a0 When they recognized Azza they helped her inside.\u00a0 We said good-bye and drove on to Dokki.\u00a0 All the businesses in the first of S. Mohi Adeen were gone.\u00a0 Radio shack looked like a hurricane had hit it.\u00a0 We were waved through more civilian guard posts and finally arrived at our house.\u00a0 Interestingly, our villa falls inside the security compound of the Egyptian CIA.\u00a0 We are used to the armed guards downstairs and the fact that anyone who wants to come to our house must be questioned first before a gate is opened to them.\u00a0 The security guards looked haggard, and it took them ages to find someone inside who could vouch for us and open the gate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the sun came up, we were finally home.\u00a0 Joe was fine, and he and his nanny had been holed-up inside for two days, eating what was left in the cupboard.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

We woke up late in the day to find soldiers in riot gear downstairs.\u00a0 The mobile phones had been turned on again (but no Internet or texting) and we sat in front of the TV watching Al Jazeera.\u00a0 They were reporting that most of the important business men on the country had fled, including Gamel Mobarak<\/span>.\u00a0 We passed the day in front of the TV.\u00a0 The next day we woke up to find our compound virtually abandoned.\u00a0 Friends called to tell us to get out of there that the CIA complexes were targets; we felt like sitting ducks.\u00a0 The idea of abandoning our home just didn’t feel like an option. As we didn’t have any food in the house, Safaa took the car and went to the local super market.\u00a0 He called from there and said that the place was pretty picked over.\u00a0 Nothing fresh was left and all the staples were almost gone.\u00a0 People had stolen the carts, so he carried one bag out at a time and then went in to buy more.\u00a0 He left the super market and went to the beledi market inside Dokki and found fresh vegetables, but the line for bread was long and unruly, so he decided against it.\u00a0 He came back with strange foreign foods, but it was food.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

We were watching the news again and Al Jazeera had been taken off the air.\u00a0 The local stations were talking with the business men who supposedly fled and were in fact, still in Egypt, many very interested in the protests and protecting their families.\u00a0 We went to bed listening to gun fire in the distance (we live 5 minutes from Midan Tahrir). The next morning we woke up to commotions downstairs.\u00a0 Out on our street, the CIA had returned in force.\u00a0 At least 150 plain-clothes men with radios and police clubs were standing in front of our villa.\u00a0 They had blocked off the complex in a one block radius in all directions and brought in an armored car.\u00a0 It was tense with all this security and the war planes doing fly-bys!\u00a0 The noise was deafening, neighborhood kids were crying.\u00a0 The day passed uneasily.<\/p>\n

Since then, we have been staying in our house.\u00a0 Things go on about as normal before the curfew.\u00a0 We watch the news and visit neighbors within our three block radius.\u00a0 I have been in contact with all my friends and relatives throughout the city, and all are fine.\u00a0 Some are protesting against Mobarak, and some are demonstrating in Mohandaseen, defending him.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

As a new Egyptian national, I am proud that people are demanding their basic human rights, and at the same time, sorry for the economic hard times that have already begun here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 People, without access to their money from the bank closures, cannot by food.\u00a0 I heard this morning that the Egyptian pound fell from 5.7 to 10 pounds to the dollar.\u00a0 Tourism is all but destroyed for the coming months. Egypt will survive and, hopefully, come out a stronger nation, but it will be a hard transition.\u00a0 So now we wait.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

I am glad that all the participants from our festival are now safely in their own countries.\u00a0 It may be a while before we can have another event, so I\u2019m thankful that the cruise went so well and people were able to get home.\u00a0 Thank you to everyone who called, sent emails and messages on Facebook.\u00a0\u00a0 Pray for Egypt.\u00a0 Ni aish leMasr, Wa Moot leMasr, Masr Masr Tahaya Masr!<\/p>\n

\"use<\/p>\n

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