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Monday, March 7, 2011

The Revolution (Part 2)

A lot of people have asked me if I saw anything crazy during the riots, but I was not close to any of the action.  The only thing that really changed for me is that they beefed up the security where I was living and the police abandoned all the checkpoints in my city and they were taken over by the bedouins.  The bedouins are the local people that live in the deserts.  There are hundreds that work on my job site and a lot of them stay in tents on the site as well.  So instead of coming to the checkpoints and seeing a couple cops there were about 10-15 bedouins and a few with some large weapons, but fortunately they like expats so there wasn't any issues.  Other things was I saw some tanks mobilized and a few military units assembling. Supposedly there were some buildings that got burnt down close to me but I never saw them.

This entire situation was very new and foreign to me so at the time was never worried or scared for my safety.  Actually the more I thought about it I really couldn't blame them.  Reasons being is that over the past decade or so it seems like a lot of foreign money was put in/invested into Egypt.  The problem was that the money doesn't work its way through the social classes.  In the Egyptian society there seems to be a lot of poor people and a few rich people but the rich are very very rich.  Workers barely make enough to feed their families and I heard something like 90% of people under the age of 30 are unemployed in Egypt.  Probably one of the main reason why the younger generation was so involved in the revolution.  It seemed like Mobarik was almost running a dictatorship.  All past elections over the last 30 years were rigged to keep him in office.  Now I know he has been portrayed as an awful guy but he was a big part of keeping peace in the middle east over the past few decades.  He has done a few good things but obviously they haven't weighed out the bad.  

All in all my feelings on the revolution are mixed.  I do believe it is time for a change, but the way it was carried out I don't agree with.  Although I know it wasn't portrayed in the media this way but it was for the most part a non-violent protest.  There was some rock throwing and fire starting, but before each large protest the protestors would have someone checking people for weapons before they entered the large crowds in the square (however this didn't keep them from digging up rocks).  Okay I am starting to feel like I am rambling so I will finish my story from the previous post.......

After a few days of house arrest I got a phone call from the Egyptian Embassy telling me its time to skidaddle.  I was relieved to be leaving for a while because the news of the prisoners escaping made me kind of nervous.  Then the next day I went to the airport at 11am..... flew out at 6pm..... landed in Jordan at 8 or 9pm........ flew out to Germany at 1am........ landed around 5 or 6am......... flew to Chicago at 11am....... landed in Chicago around noon.............. with all the time changes, layovers, and flight time it took me about 36 hours to get home.  Oh and lets not forget I got called into customs and had to sit in a waiting room for 30 minutes until I got interviewed before I could enter back into the states.

Then over the next few weeks I stayed with friends and family.  I had a good time just relaxing and getting ready for my journey back.  I know these last couple posts are short little explanations of what I experienced during the revolution and it is kind of neat to look at this situation and know that I was apart of history.  Let the adventure continue...............   

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