In the school bus and it's dusk now. We speed along the airport road towards the ring road. It's quiet, but there definitely cars still about.
Once we're on the ring road we start to see the tanks. They are just parked up in the inside lane with army guys standing near them. They are all looking and watching; alert, but not in an aggressive way. A tank is parked up outside the JW Marriot and another at the entrance to a compound residence. The petrol stations are all closed and have tape around them to stop anyone pulling in.
We turn onto Street 9, the main entrance to Katameya. As we come off the roundabout we join a small queue of cars, buses and trucks where the army tanks and vehicles have blocked the road. They are checking ID and looking inside each vehicle. They look inside at us and Rageb gives him his ID and tells him in Arabic that we are two English teachers. He asks for our passports and looks in them as another guy goes around the bus with a mirror/stick to check underneath. We sit silently not really making eye contact, but trying not to look shifty. We're let through.
Instead of going to school we're taken to Nicki's apartment just a few streets away. She says that no one is staying at school yet and she's about to open a bottle of wine. We reply that we're a little emotional, but if she can cope with that we'd love to join her. The streets here aren't of the greatest quality as it's all essentially a building site. The bus goes a bit slower over the sand, water and pot holes in the dark absence of street lamps. We see fires burning at the side of the road and people huddled around them. At Nicki's she opens the padlocked gate, double locked front door and locked door to her apartment. Inside and we feel safe.
On the TV we see the scenes that have unfolded since we left the hotel in Luxor. It seems that things have continued to descend, with violence, fires, looting and weapons being in Tahrir Square and all over the cities.
Along with the stories of looting and setting fire to places are stories of men walking around with huge sticks, large knives, guns and anything that could be a weapon. It doesn't sound good. It sounds very worrying. What we see around Nicki's though is the fires are small fires started by the bowabs to keep themselves warm as they sit out all night to protect the building from looters. It seems as well that these bowabs and young men are also the ones with the huge sticks and knives, but these are to protect the property, not to attack it.
News comes on that a Vice-President has been appointed for the first time in 30 years. According to Nicki's Egyptian husband this guy is well respected and it seems a good move. He flicks back and forth between the English news channels and the Arabic ones so that he can get both stories. Interestingly the Arabic news channels are showing mainly peaceful images of the protests from the day, in stark contrast to the violent clashes shown on other channels.
We head into school and Flossie is there. She has just managed to bring 40 students through Cairo airport during curfew and the school trip she was on finishes today. What a day to finish on! Most of the kids apparently were picked up at the airport - and some even collected off the plane! A good sign maybe that so many are ignoring curfew, or maybe not? We help them settle in to the night at school; PE mats, blankets and pillows and put out in the Primary classrooms and dinner is chipsey! All the teachers look knackered and drained. I'm glad that we weren't the ones who had to tell the kids what was going on and what to expect when they landed. What do you say?
On the journey back to Nicki's we try one route, but the road has been totally blocked by the bowab army. They've used bits of concrete and bricks that have been laying around and tree branches. They are helpful though and from their fire-side seats they redirect us down a different side street that is clear. Later we come across a pattern of bricks that has been laid out in the road to block traffic. The driver calls across the verge to a group of people who are sat around a fire. They start to walk towards us. Another group is also silhouetted against the fires and we see they are carrying bats in their hands. Ibrahim is very relaxed with them and asks if we can come through. They peer in the car and then move two of the bricks so there is just enough space for us to pass. I guess this control over the road means that movement is slow and limited and therefore they can respond to any unknown visitors or looters more quickly. It's eerie though.
Back at Nicki's we collapse into bed but have a sleepless night.
We get up early and just splash some water on our faces rather than have a full shower. There doesn't feel much point in getting cleaned up with the day planned ahead of us as it is. Over night we have come up with a list of priorities when we get back to our apartment. If we get back to our apartment. We honestly don't know what to expect. There obviously are looters around and if they are at the Grand Mall then the could have very well gone to our place too. We try and reason with ourselves; why would they climb the stairs to a third floor apartment when they are all the spoils of the Mall out in front of them. On the other hand it's well known that westerners live in our building as we are always out on the street and well known. But because we are well known won't people have tried to protect it? We've seen images of buildings being torched. If the Grand Mall has been torched then our building is the closest and it's very possible that it has also caught alight. we've only seen two fire trucks in the two-and-a-half years we lived here so we doubt they will have come to any rescue. Will they have targeted our building because the ground floor apartment is being done up and so is empty? The location that we boast about ("oh we're right next to the Mall - so convenient to the bank and getting taxis") now looks like its the worst possible place to be - why don't we live in an anonymous street in Degla with no landmarks and just residential housing around it? All of this is running through our heads and the moment we reason that the phone calls must just be rumours and it can't be that bad, we then use the other logical side and conclude that we very possibly be going to a shell and only have the two bags we took to Luxor to our name.
In school and we have a sort of board meeting of all the staff who are around i.e. us and the teachers from the trip that arrived last night. Coffee is put on and we drink this and eat the only food available; liquor chocolates that the staff bought in Duty Free on their way back from Switzerland.
The aim is for the five staff who live in Maadi to be taken there in the school bus now curfew has been lifted. OK then, lets go. But no. We now hear that there are no drivers willing to take us. Doesn't sound good. But who would blame them? They've got their own homes and families to think of. As there's nothing we can do we all sit down and have another coffee and open more liquors.
Drivers have turned up now, but school have decided that a minibus isn't the best way to travel into town. Last night they felt the school branded bus was safe because it was clear who we were - now they've decided the opposite. It's suggested that Mrs D will offer her Mercedes to take us in. Not sure that will help us avoid detection! After 30 minutes three cars pull up outside school and so we're ready to go. It's 9.10am and we decide that as this is the last time we'll be near an international phone line for who knows how long we will give the UK a call. Our call wakes Jane up - maybe this wasn't as reassuring as we'd hoped it would be for them!
Our convoy of cars heads off along the ring road. It is busier than last night but still pretty quiet. There are tanks at all the entrances and exits off the road. The army are a presence, but they aren't being active but are letting traffic flow as normal. We're anxious to get back to our place and see what it is like. We just don't know what to expect and so want to get there and see for ourselves. The drivers have decided their route and unfortunately the one they've chosen means we will be dropped off last - doesn't help!
We enter Maadi through the Road 233 / Road 198 entrance. This is the closest to the prison that has been rumoured to have lost its prisoners. There aren't tanks here, or army, but young men. They are stopping the cars and have total control of this junction. There are about two dozen men ranging from young teenagers to mid-30's maybe. They all have a weapon of some description from knives strapped to their arms to bread knives in their hands, from large metal clubs to pieces of 2-by-4. They speak to the driver and look inside. Scott winds down his window and smiles at the nearest guy. He smiles and comes over. "We are sorry about this. We are just trying to protect our neighbourhood. We are sorry that we have to do this" "Oh no, it is fine. Thank you for doing this" we reply " Thank you for looking after our neighbourhood". We're soon on our way and we just hope that there is something similar to this near our building.
After what feels like an age dropping people off we're now travelling to our place. There are people out on the streets - not loads - but at least we can see people around. We can't see any tanks yet. All of the shops we see are closed apart from the small greengrocer shops. They have fresh fruit and veg - a good sign? We just don't know. We get closer to our street and things are quiet, but OK we think. On Road 206 now and there are bits of concrete in the street to slow traffic down. A pipe has also burst we think as there is water across the street - or maybe this is another ploy to slow traffic down as everyone knows that cars in Egypt only slow down for speed bumps and water on the road.
We're outside our building. It looks like it always did. The apartment on the ground floor still has no windows, but it hasn't for about 12 months. We look up and there are people on two of the balconies. One is Samah from upstairs. She waves. A huge weight is taken off our shoulders as things look OK. We walk upstairs and unlock our door. It all looks like we left it. Relief.
How did the impression of the Grand Mall as a war zone get so strong in our minds when this is what it is like here? We received so many calls and so many messages of what was happening, yet what we can see is an empty roundabout. The street isn't littered to indicate that 5,000 people were here only 18 hours ago. The Mall looks in one piece and there's no sign of fire or breakages. Later we find out that people had been carrying away goods from the mall, but these were the shop keepers taking pre-emptive action by removing their stock so that the looters wouldn't get their livelihood. It seems that this is the likley image that people concluded was looting. I'm sure that the mall was a gathering place for protestors, but 5,000? It seems not. We later hear a story that north of the mall there is a burnt out police truck and a tank. OK so there is some truth, but the messages we received were stories that had been retold and retold leading to exaggeration and conclusions being drawn. We're so glad to be on the ground here and see it for ourselves.
In our apartment and we gather a few things together. We've got our list and go through it. We pick up the cash we have left here and our UK sim cards (these will mean, we hope, that we can phone and recieve calls from the UK). I'm a hoarder and it's amazing when you raelly think about it what the important things are. The essentials that you need. We manage to whittle this down to our original teaching/degree certificates, our work contracts, laptop and back-up hard-drive and some jewellery (the earrings I wore for our wedding and the pocketwatch I gave Scotty for christmas). We put our musical instruments out of sight (not so easy to carry them around the street!) and also hide some other electricals (leaving some electricals out on the desk so that if someone was to break in they would see and take these first and hopefully not go looking further). Emergency bag packed it's 10.30am and we take the short walk to Degla to where we will stay with friends Flossie, Caz and D&P the next few nights.
We spend the rest of the day catching up on what is happening around Maadi (not by leaving the flat, but by making phone calls!) and watching the news channels. 192, 21 and 388 become etched in our minds and movements as we swap between Al Jazeera, BBC World and Sky News. We also have lots of cups of tea.
Curfew hits at 3pm, but we haven't ventured out since we arrived. The news is too captivating and at the moment we'd rather be safe indoors. As it gets dark outside we hear scuffling on the street - it is kids playing football in the street under the combination of street light and light from the small fires that have been lit outside most buildings. Flossie's bowab is an old man but he still has a large stick and a fire going. At the top of their cul-de-sac there is a larger road block on all four sides of the cross-roads. This road block includes a police booth that has been moved to the centre of the street. Gun fire rings out on occaision. It's hard to tell where it is coming from, but none of it is sustained and therefore it sounds more like warning shots than exchange of fire.
Dark now and we settle down to watch some TV interspersed with news. Gun fire i still taking place, but it is surprising how quickly you get used to it. Suddenly there is an increase in volume outside. Shouting and running. We all jump up and head to the balcony to see what is going on. People are running up and down the street and women are shouting at each other. What is going on? Suddenly there is a car at the road block at the top of the street. It screetches as it does a U-ey at full pelt and returns to where it came from at the top of 213 / 233. What is going on? We call D&P who are at their place just three doors away but may have more of an idea.
It turns out that the neighbourhood watch have seen a gang of suspected looters trying to get into the area via the wasteland at the end of the cul-de-sac. The car was coming down to warn people and the shouting was to get the teams mobilised. We hear on the other end of the phone P shouting from their balcony to the bowab army on the wasteland. His view up there means he can see where the gang are trying to hide in the bushes.
A few minutes later we hear a heavy low rumbling sound. It's getting louder and closer and then suddenly into view at the top of the street comes a tank. It's moving in the direction of the wasteland to try and sort things out. We decide now might be the time to head back inside.
Things do eventually quieten down and we head to bed. Our attempts at sleep are interrupted by cracks of gun fire but all things considered we sleep pretty soundly!
Next morning we wake up to hear Caz and Flossie talking on the phone outside our room. There's a knock at the door and they come in. We all sit on the bed as we're told that school has said they will not open again until 20th February.
Once we're on the ring road we start to see the tanks. They are just parked up in the inside lane with army guys standing near them. They are all looking and watching; alert, but not in an aggressive way. A tank is parked up outside the JW Marriot and another at the entrance to a compound residence. The petrol stations are all closed and have tape around them to stop anyone pulling in.
We turn onto Street 9, the main entrance to Katameya. As we come off the roundabout we join a small queue of cars, buses and trucks where the army tanks and vehicles have blocked the road. They are checking ID and looking inside each vehicle. They look inside at us and Rageb gives him his ID and tells him in Arabic that we are two English teachers. He asks for our passports and looks in them as another guy goes around the bus with a mirror/stick to check underneath. We sit silently not really making eye contact, but trying not to look shifty. We're let through.
Instead of going to school we're taken to Nicki's apartment just a few streets away. She says that no one is staying at school yet and she's about to open a bottle of wine. We reply that we're a little emotional, but if she can cope with that we'd love to join her. The streets here aren't of the greatest quality as it's all essentially a building site. The bus goes a bit slower over the sand, water and pot holes in the dark absence of street lamps. We see fires burning at the side of the road and people huddled around them. At Nicki's she opens the padlocked gate, double locked front door and locked door to her apartment. Inside and we feel safe.
On the TV we see the scenes that have unfolded since we left the hotel in Luxor. It seems that things have continued to descend, with violence, fires, looting and weapons being in Tahrir Square and all over the cities.
Along with the stories of looting and setting fire to places are stories of men walking around with huge sticks, large knives, guns and anything that could be a weapon. It doesn't sound good. It sounds very worrying. What we see around Nicki's though is the fires are small fires started by the bowabs to keep themselves warm as they sit out all night to protect the building from looters. It seems as well that these bowabs and young men are also the ones with the huge sticks and knives, but these are to protect the property, not to attack it.
News comes on that a Vice-President has been appointed for the first time in 30 years. According to Nicki's Egyptian husband this guy is well respected and it seems a good move. He flicks back and forth between the English news channels and the Arabic ones so that he can get both stories. Interestingly the Arabic news channels are showing mainly peaceful images of the protests from the day, in stark contrast to the violent clashes shown on other channels.
We head into school and Flossie is there. She has just managed to bring 40 students through Cairo airport during curfew and the school trip she was on finishes today. What a day to finish on! Most of the kids apparently were picked up at the airport - and some even collected off the plane! A good sign maybe that so many are ignoring curfew, or maybe not? We help them settle in to the night at school; PE mats, blankets and pillows and put out in the Primary classrooms and dinner is chipsey! All the teachers look knackered and drained. I'm glad that we weren't the ones who had to tell the kids what was going on and what to expect when they landed. What do you say?
On the journey back to Nicki's we try one route, but the road has been totally blocked by the bowab army. They've used bits of concrete and bricks that have been laying around and tree branches. They are helpful though and from their fire-side seats they redirect us down a different side street that is clear. Later we come across a pattern of bricks that has been laid out in the road to block traffic. The driver calls across the verge to a group of people who are sat around a fire. They start to walk towards us. Another group is also silhouetted against the fires and we see they are carrying bats in their hands. Ibrahim is very relaxed with them and asks if we can come through. They peer in the car and then move two of the bricks so there is just enough space for us to pass. I guess this control over the road means that movement is slow and limited and therefore they can respond to any unknown visitors or looters more quickly. It's eerie though.
Back at Nicki's we collapse into bed but have a sleepless night.
We get up early and just splash some water on our faces rather than have a full shower. There doesn't feel much point in getting cleaned up with the day planned ahead of us as it is. Over night we have come up with a list of priorities when we get back to our apartment. If we get back to our apartment. We honestly don't know what to expect. There obviously are looters around and if they are at the Grand Mall then the could have very well gone to our place too. We try and reason with ourselves; why would they climb the stairs to a third floor apartment when they are all the spoils of the Mall out in front of them. On the other hand it's well known that westerners live in our building as we are always out on the street and well known. But because we are well known won't people have tried to protect it? We've seen images of buildings being torched. If the Grand Mall has been torched then our building is the closest and it's very possible that it has also caught alight. we've only seen two fire trucks in the two-and-a-half years we lived here so we doubt they will have come to any rescue. Will they have targeted our building because the ground floor apartment is being done up and so is empty? The location that we boast about ("oh we're right next to the Mall - so convenient to the bank and getting taxis") now looks like its the worst possible place to be - why don't we live in an anonymous street in Degla with no landmarks and just residential housing around it? All of this is running through our heads and the moment we reason that the phone calls must just be rumours and it can't be that bad, we then use the other logical side and conclude that we very possibly be going to a shell and only have the two bags we took to Luxor to our name.
In school and we have a sort of board meeting of all the staff who are around i.e. us and the teachers from the trip that arrived last night. Coffee is put on and we drink this and eat the only food available; liquor chocolates that the staff bought in Duty Free on their way back from Switzerland.
The aim is for the five staff who live in Maadi to be taken there in the school bus now curfew has been lifted. OK then, lets go. But no. We now hear that there are no drivers willing to take us. Doesn't sound good. But who would blame them? They've got their own homes and families to think of. As there's nothing we can do we all sit down and have another coffee and open more liquors.
Drivers have turned up now, but school have decided that a minibus isn't the best way to travel into town. Last night they felt the school branded bus was safe because it was clear who we were - now they've decided the opposite. It's suggested that Mrs D will offer her Mercedes to take us in. Not sure that will help us avoid detection! After 30 minutes three cars pull up outside school and so we're ready to go. It's 9.10am and we decide that as this is the last time we'll be near an international phone line for who knows how long we will give the UK a call. Our call wakes Jane up - maybe this wasn't as reassuring as we'd hoped it would be for them!
Our convoy of cars heads off along the ring road. It is busier than last night but still pretty quiet. There are tanks at all the entrances and exits off the road. The army are a presence, but they aren't being active but are letting traffic flow as normal. We're anxious to get back to our place and see what it is like. We just don't know what to expect and so want to get there and see for ourselves. The drivers have decided their route and unfortunately the one they've chosen means we will be dropped off last - doesn't help!
We enter Maadi through the Road 233 / Road 198 entrance. This is the closest to the prison that has been rumoured to have lost its prisoners. There aren't tanks here, or army, but young men. They are stopping the cars and have total control of this junction. There are about two dozen men ranging from young teenagers to mid-30's maybe. They all have a weapon of some description from knives strapped to their arms to bread knives in their hands, from large metal clubs to pieces of 2-by-4. They speak to the driver and look inside. Scott winds down his window and smiles at the nearest guy. He smiles and comes over. "We are sorry about this. We are just trying to protect our neighbourhood. We are sorry that we have to do this" "Oh no, it is fine. Thank you for doing this" we reply " Thank you for looking after our neighbourhood". We're soon on our way and we just hope that there is something similar to this near our building.
After what feels like an age dropping people off we're now travelling to our place. There are people out on the streets - not loads - but at least we can see people around. We can't see any tanks yet. All of the shops we see are closed apart from the small greengrocer shops. They have fresh fruit and veg - a good sign? We just don't know. We get closer to our street and things are quiet, but OK we think. On Road 206 now and there are bits of concrete in the street to slow traffic down. A pipe has also burst we think as there is water across the street - or maybe this is another ploy to slow traffic down as everyone knows that cars in Egypt only slow down for speed bumps and water on the road.
We're outside our building. It looks like it always did. The apartment on the ground floor still has no windows, but it hasn't for about 12 months. We look up and there are people on two of the balconies. One is Samah from upstairs. She waves. A huge weight is taken off our shoulders as things look OK. We walk upstairs and unlock our door. It all looks like we left it. Relief.
How did the impression of the Grand Mall as a war zone get so strong in our minds when this is what it is like here? We received so many calls and so many messages of what was happening, yet what we can see is an empty roundabout. The street isn't littered to indicate that 5,000 people were here only 18 hours ago. The Mall looks in one piece and there's no sign of fire or breakages. Later we find out that people had been carrying away goods from the mall, but these were the shop keepers taking pre-emptive action by removing their stock so that the looters wouldn't get their livelihood. It seems that this is the likley image that people concluded was looting. I'm sure that the mall was a gathering place for protestors, but 5,000? It seems not. We later hear a story that north of the mall there is a burnt out police truck and a tank. OK so there is some truth, but the messages we received were stories that had been retold and retold leading to exaggeration and conclusions being drawn. We're so glad to be on the ground here and see it for ourselves.
In our apartment and we gather a few things together. We've got our list and go through it. We pick up the cash we have left here and our UK sim cards (these will mean, we hope, that we can phone and recieve calls from the UK). I'm a hoarder and it's amazing when you raelly think about it what the important things are. The essentials that you need. We manage to whittle this down to our original teaching/degree certificates, our work contracts, laptop and back-up hard-drive and some jewellery (the earrings I wore for our wedding and the pocketwatch I gave Scotty for christmas). We put our musical instruments out of sight (not so easy to carry them around the street!) and also hide some other electricals (leaving some electricals out on the desk so that if someone was to break in they would see and take these first and hopefully not go looking further). Emergency bag packed it's 10.30am and we take the short walk to Degla to where we will stay with friends Flossie, Caz and D&P the next few nights.
We spend the rest of the day catching up on what is happening around Maadi (not by leaving the flat, but by making phone calls!) and watching the news channels. 192, 21 and 388 become etched in our minds and movements as we swap between Al Jazeera, BBC World and Sky News. We also have lots of cups of tea.
Curfew hits at 3pm, but we haven't ventured out since we arrived. The news is too captivating and at the moment we'd rather be safe indoors. As it gets dark outside we hear scuffling on the street - it is kids playing football in the street under the combination of street light and light from the small fires that have been lit outside most buildings. Flossie's bowab is an old man but he still has a large stick and a fire going. At the top of their cul-de-sac there is a larger road block on all four sides of the cross-roads. This road block includes a police booth that has been moved to the centre of the street. Gun fire rings out on occaision. It's hard to tell where it is coming from, but none of it is sustained and therefore it sounds more like warning shots than exchange of fire.
Dark now and we settle down to watch some TV interspersed with news. Gun fire i still taking place, but it is surprising how quickly you get used to it. Suddenly there is an increase in volume outside. Shouting and running. We all jump up and head to the balcony to see what is going on. People are running up and down the street and women are shouting at each other. What is going on? Suddenly there is a car at the road block at the top of the street. It screetches as it does a U-ey at full pelt and returns to where it came from at the top of 213 / 233. What is going on? We call D&P who are at their place just three doors away but may have more of an idea.
It turns out that the neighbourhood watch have seen a gang of suspected looters trying to get into the area via the wasteland at the end of the cul-de-sac. The car was coming down to warn people and the shouting was to get the teams mobilised. We hear on the other end of the phone P shouting from their balcony to the bowab army on the wasteland. His view up there means he can see where the gang are trying to hide in the bushes.
A few minutes later we hear a heavy low rumbling sound. It's getting louder and closer and then suddenly into view at the top of the street comes a tank. It's moving in the direction of the wasteland to try and sort things out. We decide now might be the time to head back inside.
Things do eventually quieten down and we head to bed. Our attempts at sleep are interrupted by cracks of gun fire but all things considered we sleep pretty soundly!
Next morning we wake up to hear Caz and Flossie talking on the phone outside our room. There's a knock at the door and they come in. We all sit on the bed as we're told that school has said they will not open again until 20th February.
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