Berkley Center

I am writing this blog entry on June 30, on what is predicted to be the most violent day of the year in Egypt: the anniversary of Morsi’s election into power. Throughout my final days in Egypt during early June, the mood began to change throughout Cairo as coffee shop conversations and street whispers filled the air with talk of the “Protests of June 30.” My Egyptian friends’ relief upon hearing that I would not be in the country then did not overturn the element of fear that came from the safety warnings that had already been sent out, advising foreigners and students alike not to partake in the demonstrations for fear of injury and even death.

Upon hearing about the violent death of the American Kenyon College student Andrew Pochter this past Friday, I finally understood the gravity of my friends’ concerns. What happened to Andrew could have happened to any bystander at an anti-Morsi vs. Brotherhood protest, but what disturbed me was how this tragedy had concretized rumors and foreshadowed the events of June 30. Pochter’s death symbolizes the gruesome limits of the phenomena that categorize today’s protests.

Even now, I still receive email updates from the American University in Cairo urging students to stay clear of the protests. They forwarded all of the US Embassy’s travel warnings to our emails, filled with biweekly updates on local protests and upcoming rallies in order to keep us informed and aware of the tumultuous political situation. After I received my first travel warning, I realized that my once tidy inbox would be a thing of the past, that not only would I witness a flood of government-issued emails, but I would also be constantly made aware that the country where I chose to study abroad was not a safe place. I needed to be responsible for my every action and decision. I needed to see that there was danger lurking around every corner and when a protest came near to home I had to be aware of the situation I was putting myself in just because of my proximity to the event. Over time, the warnings became less threatening to my friends and myself, and we started seeing them as nothing but than mere traffic alerts that helped in avoiding certain roads when making plans to travel around the city. I even had one friend who would use the emails to map out her agenda for which protests to attend over that weekend.

Cairo helped me grow up. She helped me see that there is more to life than just studying to be someone big in life. She introduced me to Zamalek, the posh neighborhood where many of Egypt’s elite reside and work—away from the majority of the population who are homeless and without work. Then she showed me the subtle nuances of poverty on the borders of the island, which intrigued me enough to discover more about the "lost population," the one that was living off 4 guinea a day (57 cents in today’s market) and to walk over to Downtown. Here is where everything changed, drastically. Dirty children running without shoes on less-than-paved streets, tear-stained women with babies clinging to their mother’s shoulders, and men selling lupini beans in newspaper wrapped cones were the Egyptians who greeted me. Not ambassadors, no one dressed in a suit driving a luxury vehicle, and certainly no garbage disposal man. Here is where I was going to experience what a day into an average Egyptian’s life looked like…and I loved it.

As a foreigner defaming a country comes more naturally than a fair judgment due to the lack of context of the personal lives, encounters, and experiences that come from truly living in that place. Moreover, some say it is easy to become infatuated with the place you move to because of the novelty of the space and the excitement that a new adventure brings. After living in Egypt for five months, I can testify that after the initial months of feeling enthralled about entering a new space and transitioning from living in a first world country to a third, the country began to lose its luster. Unexposed parts became unraveled, and soon I found myself face to face with a new Egypt, unmasked and changed and not so pretty anymore.

My friend’s phone being stolen at a protest, the one-hour long bus rides that had turned into three-hour affairs, and almost being attacked by Bedouins in the Sinai peninsula were among some of the things that helped transcend my naïveté in the second half of my study abroad experience. Despite these difficult situations, I came to realize that my discomfort there never made me miss the comfort of home. I always felt like I could confide in my Egyptian friends. It suddenly made sense to me why people of Egypt take on the phrase Umm El Dunya (The Mother of the World) and embody it in their everyday lives. They completely changed Egypt for me, and made me fall in love with her all over again. My friends showed me sides of the country that I had never seen and took me to where the locals live, eat, and spend their leisure time. They opened opportunities to share themselves and made me feel like an authentic Egyptian.

So when I look at the news today and see the protests and the clashes and read the reports talking about Egypt as a fragile and unsafe country, I chuckle. Not because I condone violence of any kind, but because there is so much more that people are not seeing on the news that makes up what Egypt truly is. It is a country where people are disenfranchised but not disillusioned. They may not have a clear plan set out for them, but they understand that Egypt cannot go on being separate. There is hope for these people, and they understand that. So until they see some positive changes come to their country, they will continue to demand a leader who will invoke them. Today is a benchmark for the Egyptian people; after two and a half years of struggling to fix their country, I hope this day brings them one step closer to finding the answer.