EPTLet me just start by explaining a bit about myself. I'm a Jordanian citizen who lives in Egypt, I've been living in Egypt for 7 years and I consider Egypt to be my "home", most of my friends are here in Egypt and pretty much my adult life has been in Egypt. I live in 6th of October City (About 30km from Cairo) which is majorly populated by foreigners like me (as well as lots of high class Egyptians) who got to Egypt to seek higher education in the various universities in this city.
The stay in Egypt has been positive hence I considered this place my home, until January 28th 2011, or as they call "The Friday of Anger". I will will try not to let any details slip but I will also try not to bore you.
Friday dawn, I woke up, washed up and sat on the computer to do my daily checking of mail, TeamLiquid and reddit. But to my surprise the internet was down, I phoned my ISP and they told me that the issue is not their fault and that the internet has been blocked in all of Egypt by the government. For me, that meant I will be bored the whole time as I spend no less than 6-8 hours a day using the computer, so to pass time, I started studying, and in 1-2 hours I was done, but it was still early in the morning and I didn't know what to do. I checked the TV for news and developments in the situation, but it wasn't worse than before (It was bad, but no drastic changes were done then, police was still clashing with the protesters).
At around noon when it was the time for Friday prayer at mosques, I thought it would be a bad idea to go out, but I had little cash on me as it was end of the month, so I needed to go to the bank to withdraw some cash. I waited for an hour after then headed to the bank. The bank is situated near the city center which is also close to the largest mosque in the city, and unsurprisingly, there were 4 police anti-riot vans and 2 fire department trucks and the police prohibiting people from gathering and hitting whoever attempts to get near the city center. They didn't even allow me to go to the bank regardless of me showing them my passport.
I headed home then and decided to just pass time by watching some of the old movies and stuff I had on my computer, that worked for 3 hours until shootings were heard in the neighborhood. I thought it was the police, but the building guard knocked on my door and told me that there are looters threatening the people and that I have to reinforce my door for safety. I did that, however, about 8pm, things started to look horrible, as women screams were heard and people in the streets yelling. I went to check on my neighbors and they suggested that we join the local defense force to protect all of the neighborhood. So I armed myself with a kitchen knife and my surgical blade. Most people had blades and sticks and about 2-3 guns on other building guards is what I've seen.
We started chasing people who get even close to the neighborhood, it wasn't so bad that day as since Police was still on the streets, the looters were still not around. I went to bed at around 10pm.
Saturday dawn around 5am, I woke up and realized phones are working again, called my parents to reassure them as well as most of my friends so I can check on them. Turned on the TV only to hear that police have been withdrawn from the streets and that some prisoners have broke out of jail and are now on the streets. And of course, the internet was still down. At this point I thought that I should make sure I can survive for the next few days till things calm down, so I went for shopping with the last 120 EGP I still have (Around $20) and got food that would be enough for 4-5 days considering I eat 1 meal per day. Went back home and reinforced my door with the fridge, but at that point, gunfire could be heard at any time and the mosque was calling the people for help as looters have hit the neighborhood, so I went with my friends to answer the call for help armed with out kitchen knives and sticks.
We ran back and forth around the neighborhood checking on anyone who even gets close and setting up road blocks to prevent drive-by's. Every person that day had adrenaline levels up to the max, nobody could think of anything but their survival and the survival of their relatives. We kept patrolling the neighborhood until around midnight, I decided then to go home and get some rest, I tried to sleep, but it was impossible for me to sleep, I was so tense and gunfire was pretty much something that would happen every 3-5 mins. But the biggest surprise then was that we started hearing automatic weaponry fire. Upon hearing that I went back on the street to help people fend off any looters, I even accidentally hit a guy that after checking with him turned out to be a resident of our neighborhood.
We kept the defense up, we threw bottles filled with gasoline on any cars or bikes that get close since we've heard that looters have stolen cars (Including an ambulance and police cars) and are now organizing the looting process. We kept roaming until 4am when me and neighbours decided that it's time for us to plan to leave Egypt and go back to our original countries, so we decided to meet again at 7:30 and head to the airport when the curfew duration ends at 8:00. I tried to get some sleep, but I couldn't, it was constant gunfire, people yelling, women screaming and to top that, communications were cut again, so nobody could check on anybody unless it's face to face.
I managed to get an hour of sleep and I got up at 7:00, drank coffee to stay awake and didn't pack anything, I just grabbed my laptop, wore whatever I wore the day before and headed to the meeting point with the rest of the fleeing people. We started looking for passports to the airport, but everyone was asking outrageous prices (about 10x of what usually people pay for a ride to the airport) and it was end of the month so most people didn't have much money, we tried each asking help from their embassies, but of course the Jordanian Embassy turned it's back on us and told us to just stay at home and reinforce our doors.
Some of the people from Kuwait and Bahrain told us that their embassy will take care of their transportation, so they gave us money to pay for the transport to the airport and we were off.
On the road to the airport, we've seen what yesterday has made people do; cars burnt, roadblocks, burning tires and local militias still roaming. Add to that, the army has spread around and you could see tanks and Humvees with automatic 51mm Guns on top of them were all over the key areas, but that wasn't enough, as in between those keypoints, you could easily encounter renegades who would stop your vehicle and rob you or stab you if you chose to resist the robbery. We got lucky and we didn't get stopped by any of those, but the army stopped our car on a few checkpoints and asked to show them our papers.
We arrived at the Cairo International Airport at 10am, who is heavily guarded, which we thought is great considering that we've been living on the edge for a few days, but to our surprise, it was over-crowded by much more than we imagined. It was something like less than a 1m² per person in there, we tried to get to the check in area, and it took us 2 hours to get halfway towards the machine that scans your luggage, only for it to break down. So we spent another 4 hours trying to get to the checkin area from another entry point. During that time, most of us had no tickets to fly back home and no money to buy tickets, the embassy told us to get tickets instead of offering real help, so most of us ended up calling our families and ask for them to buy us tickets and send the information to us. Most of us got tickets but some couldn't as the earliest booking they could get was 3 days after.
Either way, we now have tickets and we are now ready to get in the queue for travelling, the airlines company told us to give them our passport and ticket numbers so we can enter the queue, and so we did on Sunday 4pm. we waited along with the huge crowds for our names to be called, and waited and waited, all that while standing cause there are no place to sit down and the ground being filthy with the people throwing stuff on the ground. We kept waiting and 4 planes to Jordan have left, but the amount of people who are waiting seemed as it's not getting any lower. At around midnight, they asked us to let the women, children and the old to be pushed forward in the queue as it would be cruel to let them endure this any longer, most didn't mind as we have families that we wouldn't them to endure such thing. So they filled that plane of women and the old, and they told us "We will continue flying the rest of you tomorrow" and so no more planes were going to fly after 2am up until 8am the next morning. We tried to find a place to sleep, but there wasn't any, except the B check in area which is not only filthy, but also super cold as it's air conditioned, I tried to sleep, but It was too cold and I couldn't sleep at all despite being very very tired and having sore feet and joints from standing the whole day. We talked and daydreamed about what we will do once we get to Jordan (most of the people wanted to get to sleep for 3 days once they get home).
At 8am they started calling names again, but in addition to those of us who are in the Airport since yesterday, the new comers started competing for spots on the next planes with us, which created a huge outrage and people started fighting one another, but things calmed down when the airlines company said they will let us who are here for more than 24 hours to get on the planes first. At 1pm, my name got called and I got a spot on the 5:30pm flight, I was overjoyed with that and tried to stay awake until the boarding time so I don't miss it. Despite the plane getting delayed, but I finally made it, I got out of Egypt unharmed (physically) and alive.
2 and a half days of being part of a local militia and 1 day and a half of standing on my feet in the airport were what I would call the greatest escape of my life.
It may sounds coward, but in the city of 6th of October, we had none of the pluses of this revolution and all of it's negatives. It was also not my fight, but hey, I wouldn't have to explain myself, I'm pretty sure most of you if put in my place would prefer to be unknown alive coward than unknown dead hero.
I'd like to say at the end that I hope Egyptian people get what they want from this revolution and things get better soon. I will continue contributing to the revolution online since I can. I also hope none of you ever face such horrifying events ever.
Peace!
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