The United States Embassy in Cairo has issued a recommendation for all American citizens to leave Egypt. Being an American university, AUC has issued the same recommendation.
Today curfew let up at 8AM and we all spread out all over Zamalek eager to get out of the dorm and the oppressiveness of group stress. I spent a really good morning with some amazing people; Veronica Vos, Brooke Fisher, Otis Clark, Kelsi Jost Creegan, and Lauren Vine. These are people who have come to mean so much to me in so little time. Also, Rebecca Black, Amy Mashburn, Hunter, Sa’id, Richard (he says I am like his big sister) and so many more that I honestly can’t even name with any reliability.
After a trip to a couple markets in search of bread (the food that requires no refrigeration,) we all had a nice calm sit down lunch at the Café Noir which is a little café down the block from the dorm. When we finished, it was only 1PM and Otis and I weren’t ready to go back to the dorm so we walked all over the island claiming to search for bread, but really just enjoying the ability to move around. We did eventually find bread though.
It got to be around 3 and we decided to go eat a quick meal because the rule had been if the dorm wasn’t under curfew we would provide food for ourselves and if it was the school would provide. Regardless, I took Otis to lunch at Alex Top and introduced him to the amazing world of Milky Rice…if you haven’t had it, you need to.
On the way to the restaurant we started seeing a lot of military. There were small convoys of three or four jeep-ish looking vehicles going in different directions around Zamalek and about three stores prior to Alex Top, a military jeep was backed partially into a driveway and six or seven men were in or near the truck wearing flak vests and were armed with very large weapons. I got a picture from a distance, but nothing from up close. I had heard rumors of them smashing cameras. Regardless, we were out prior to curfew so we went, had our meal, and returned to the dorms.
While we were out on the island, we continually saw citizens out on their daily errands but carrying large sticks so they were able to defend themselves should anything happen. Many stores were closed and still more had painted or covered their windows. When we came up to the dorm, we noted that almost all the men in front of the building had large sticks.
We resigned ourselves to the confines of the dorm and went in through the lobby to the courtyard where we found Brooke and a few other friends. As I let Otis know I was going to go upstairs and split his bread off into a zip-lock bag, Tim, the RA, came up to tell me to hurry it up because there was going to be a quick briefing. I made it quick.
They gathered us all into the cafeteria area and announced that the Embassy had issued an advisory. It wasn’t a requirement and that AUC was backing the Embassy’s call, but that no one was being forced to evacuate.
Immediately everyone disbursed to call their parents. Most don’t want to leave. There are many reasons. Several don’t want to miss out on a semester of school (I actually think we all feel that way,) some don’t want to go back to the nothing they left behind, some want to wait it out to see what happens in the next week (AUC has only canceled classes for this week,) and some of them, me included, want to stay and be here for this part of history. Several are also leaving, they have no desire to stay here and be potentially stuck here.
I had to get away from the crowd for a few. My situation is slightly different from the other students here. I have two kids, I am thirty years old, and I have no mom and dad to call to make my decisions for me. In a way the events in the few months prior to me leaving make me wonder what I have to go back to. It all seems like returning to more uncertainty. I have that here. I want to kiss my kids.
Back to my title. Have you ever watched the television show My Name is Earl? It’s about this lowlife guy who buys a scratch off ticket, wins $1,000,000 and promptly loses the ticket because it was in his hand when he got hit by a car. He comes to the conclusion that he has to right all the wrongs he has committed in his life because Karma is biting him in the butt for all his years of being an entirely unwholesome person, so he makes a list of all the wrongs he committed in his life and began trying to fix them or make amends for them. When he started, the scratch off ticket he had lost blew on the wind and landed next to his foot, proving to him that making amends was what karma wanted him to do.
I am in no way near dying or even winning a million dollars in some strange lottery, but I feel like there are so many things I have left undone or unsaid.
I want to tell people that I love them or admire them. I want to let go of things that hurt me and forgive the people who did them. I need to let go of all the things I have done also.
My Name is Dar…
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