The Egyptian Revolution of 2011, Part 3 (Evacuation)

Sunday morning I received a frantic call from my program director at 7:00 am. It went something like this:

Dr. Mohammad: Liana, the insurance company has decided to evacuate the students.

Me: Wait, what?

Dr. Mohammad: Yes, they decided to get you out.

Me: Wait, seriously?

Dr. Mohammad: Oh yes.

Me: Ummmmmmmmmm………… ok…

Dr. Mohammad: I don’t have any more information so we ask that you wait to tell your parents so that we can give them more information. But you should pack your things. They are coming today for you.

Me: Today? Wait, like… TODAY?

Dr. Mohammad: Oh yes.

Me: Oh.

Dr. Mohammad: Look Liana, they are making the right decision. They are doing what is best for you. But I don’t know when they will come for you so you should have everything packed as soon as possible.

It went on like this for some time, with Dr. Mohammad assuring me that this was best and me responding in monosyllables. After making a few more calls (I mean, did they really expect me not to call my parents??) I began repacking the things that I had just unpacked not a week earlier. Having been told the Alexandria students were being taken to the airport in an hour, I frantically stuffed the things I thought I would need into my suitcases. When I was finished I went into the living room to watch the news and rest while I waited for further instructions. One hour passed. Then two, then three, four, five… I kept calling my directors and I kept being told that there was no information. Eventually the clock struck 4, curfew descended on the city, and I knew nothing would be happening that day. Later in the evening I received a call from Chris Harrison, another person in charge of my program and she told me that as soon as curfew was lifted in the morning (8:00 am), I would be picked up by a man named Ali and taken to the airport. She was stuck in Alexandria and asked me to bring the luggage she had left in Cairo with me. 

The next morning I awoke, showered and finished my last packing. I had received a call at about 7:30 informing me that I would be picked up in an hour at my apartment, now by a man named Drum Cussak, taken to the airport in a van with other American students, and flown out on a 12:30 pm chartered flight which would stop in Alexandria to pick up the people there and then fly to Athens, Greece. Since it is Egypt and nothing is ever on time, I didn’t really expect to be picked up at 8:30. I guessed more like 9 or 10. What I didn’t expect was to wait for five hours, every hour or so being told someone was on his way, just late because of the other students they were picking up. I didn’t expect to receive a call telling me that someone named Walid was waiting for me downstairs. I didn’t expect Walid to be driving an empty car. And I certainly didn’t expect for Walid to ask me where he was supposed to take me.

Eventually I arrived at the airport at 2:30 in the afternoon. Mind you, my flight was supposed to have left at 12:30. Luckily for me, it hadn’t, because none of the students who were supposed to be on it had arrived in time. We waited outside the airport for another hour before being told our plane was ready. It took us an hour to get through security (with Chris’s bags I had a total of six pieces of luggage), passport control, and other Egyptian bureaucracy. The airport was a mess, flooded with foreigners trying to escape. Finally, at 4:30 we boarded our airplane. They told us we would take off in about fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes later they told us we would take off in twenty minutes. An hour and a half later, at 6:30, they told us our flight was canceled. They explained that the Egyptian Air force had suspended all flights out of Cairo and that we would be unable to leave until tomorrow morning. But somehow Mathew, the program manager of the AMIDEAST study abroad group who was also being evacuated with me, managed to miraculously get us clearance to take off. At 8:30 pm, eight hours later than scheduled, our plane finally took off. However, we bypassed the stop in Alexandria for fear of being detained there too. This meant I had all six suitcases to deal with when we arrived in Athens at midnight; the Alexandria people managed to get out later that night and were flown to Prague. It was one of the longest days of my life.

After discussing it with my parents, who had been in touch with my program, my school, and the State Department, it was decided that I had three options:

1. Go home and figure something out for the rest of the semester.
2. Go back to Mt. Holyoke, which had started a few weeks ago.
3. Try to go on a different program in a different Middle Eastern country.

It was a difficult decision and I quickly narrowed it down to option 1 or option 3. Oh, how tempting it was to go home! Life would have been boring maybe, but easy. So easy. But if I had gone home, what would all you lovely people have to read?! In the end I managed to arrange a new program (actually with the group I had been evacuated with), in Amman, Jordan. And that is where I am now. I spent one glorious day in Athens, seeing the sights and basking in the comforts of a Westernized country, and then flew to Amman on February 2^nd.

Aside from being in an entirely new city in an entirely new country, there are a few other things that are going to be different this semester. This program gave me the option of an apartment with other American students (as I would have had in Egypt) or a home stay with a Jordanian family. It was a tough decision (again I found myself faced with the choice of an easy way out or a challenge), but in the end I decided that as long as I was doing this, I might as well do it all the way! So, last night I moved in with my new family. They are beautiful people and I think I am going to be treated very well here. I have my own room and there is wireless Internet (most of the time), so creature comforts are well taken care of. I live not too far from where I have class. And there is a baby! But more on the family later. I know I have abandoned my main theme in the last few posts, but I thought it was necessary given the stories I had to tell. Plus, I lived on crackers, peanut butter, and popcorn for the last week, so there wasn’t much to elaborate on. However, living with a host family offers me the chance not only to eat authentic, home-cooked Jordanian food, but also (insha’allah) to learn how it is made! So, stay tuned and come hungry, I promise a feast!