Tonight is January 30th. Its 3am and I’m lying on my couch in the dark attempting to distract my mind with a movie. “Pop! Pop!” I flinch a little, but that one was further out so I go back to my movie. It’s Love Actually, and I actually really love this movie. “Pop!” Shit, I think to myself, that one was even closer. I hear a door open, and from where I’m sitting I see my neighbor come out onto the balcony to investigate. I myself walk to the window in the dark to peer out into the usually quiet village to see a couple men running around my building carrying lead pipes. “Pop! Pop!” The gunfire continued that night and the next, and the next. I click the channel to Aljazeera to see what is happening over in Cairo. Thousands have gathered in Tahrir with no intention of leaving until their president of 30 years does.
“Oh the Land of the Free” We have been singing these words every day since we were in Kindergarten, but not really understanding what they mean. Sure I can dissect the sentence and give you an accurate definition of each word, but I never understood what it meant until I lived in a country that was fighting to be a free land. I spent half a year with the Egyptians, teaching their children, being invited into their homes for dinner, learning their customs and language. These people were my extended family. They were the ones who knocked on my front door with a cup of tea when I was sick. And here they were on my TV asking for a very basic human right and in return having tear gas thrown at them and power hoses sprayed in their face. Greed and corruption has dominated the government, and when anyone tried to speak out against it they are immediately thrown into jail. Politicians are the richest people in Egypt, and voting is rigged. After the election in November I read a newspaper article in Cairo that interviewed several people asking why they choose not to vote. One woman responded “there’s no point, the people’s voices aren’t heard anyway”. Politicians stay in office, stay rich, and convince the average man to keep their face on the mat 5 times a day, accept what they have and one day they will be rich in “paradise”.
My decision to leave Egypt might seem like an easy one, but in actuality it was the hardest I’ve ever had to make. I left my colleagues, friends, but most importantly my kids. I left without a single hug or explanation to them why I was going. I had my colleagues and Egyptian family telling me to stay, but my friends and American family asking me to come home. If the expression “stuck between a rock and a hard spot” ever meant something in my life, it was now. So I took the medial decision and went to Turkey to wait it out. I didn’t end up staying long, situations escaladed and by the time I landed it had erupted to a full blown civil war.
So, home I came. I landed on a surprisingly warm San Francisco weekend to a very happy mother and even warmer friends. I fired around the city and Los Angeles to say hello to as many people as possible before I made my way back to the damn airport to depart for Bali. Oh by the way if you didn’t know that part, I’m in Indonesia now.
As far as Egypt goes, as of now I’m not going back for this school term. Hopefully I can make a trip sometime next year to get those much needed hugs from my kids. In the meantime I want to reiterate how proud I am of the Egyptians for finding their voices after such a long time of silence. I was very lucky to briefly witness history in the making, and hopefully making a little of my own.
I started this blog in the midst of the excitement, and am just now finishing it. Since I never wrote much about my work in Luxor, I want to leave some pictures of my school, kids, and those not forgotten precious moments.
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| Working in the garden. |
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| Painting faces for Halloween |
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| Building our "Rock Museum" |
