Monday
Monday was an extremely normal day in Cairo. While we were aware that the next day, Police Day, was going to be a public holiday and a day of protests, no one knew just how serious and important the protests would be and for how long they would continue. I had a few appointments with my refugee clients set up at the RLAP (Refugee Legal Aid Project) office, so I headed down there. RLAP’s grounds are about a ten minute walk from Tahrir Square and the Egyptian Museum. I delivered a few winter jackets to one of my clients and reviewed testimony with another woman. There was very little discussion about the upcoming protests, save that everyone was reminded that the office would be closed the next day. I said ‘see you Thursday’ to everyone before I left, since that was the next day I planned to meet with my clients. The Iraqi staff all replied ‘Insha’allah,’ which was nothing out of the ordinary, since they often tack it on when you say something about the future, even something quite routine. Little did we know how true that phrase would ring later in the week.
Tuesday—The 25 January Protest
Connor headed off to work in the morning, since his team was doing a rig review and there were some colleagues who had flown in from The Hague who were eager to work to complete it. I had plans to meet up with a friend around mid-afternoon for a coffee and to catch up, followed by an alumni interview I had scheduled with a student from Cairo who had applied to Columbia. By 2.30 pm, when I headed out to meet my friend, Annie, there was no news of disturbances. Annie and I nervously joked about the expected protests, making the observation that when Syria and Libya seem like some of the most stable countries in the region, that can’t be good. We talked about the current Middle East and Egyptian political landscape for a while, eventually moving on to other subjects. Around 5 pm, I made a brisk walk over to another café, where my interview would take place. As I chatted about essays, books, and soccer with a prospective Columbia undergrad, the rector of our church, Paul-Gordon, walked by our table and stopped to let me know that, as the news was reporting at the time, 50,000 people had gathered in Tahrir Square, they were trying to storm the Parliament building, the police were spraying tear gas into the air, and the government had shut down Twitter. To my surprise, the teenager across from me just gave a little shrug, surprised that the Egyptian people were finally acting on their words. She has an interesting perspective, since she was born and grew up in New York City until the age of eleven, when her parents, Egyptian nationals, decided to move back to Cairo. I was impressed with how easily she took Paul’s alarming news in stride; I admit I was more shaken than she was and had a somewhat hard time focusing on our chat after that point. When we were finished talking, I headed quickly back home and Connor and I tuned into the Al Jazeera English channel. While the protestors had turned out in fairly large numbers downtown, I wasn’t convinced yet that the protests would escalate in the coming days.
Wednesday
Wednesday morning started out typically enough. I had a waxing appointment at a nearby salon, in preparation for our big birthday trip to Bali. As I walked home, I picked up a loaf of bread at a local bakery. People in Maadi were going about daily life as normal. I got in touch with my good friend Sarah, who also was based in Cairo with Shell, and we decided to meet up for a chat, since she had had a stream of visitors since Christmas and we hadn’t had a chance to catch up too much yet. Before I left to go see her, I heard from Connor that he would be working late on the project up in Heliopolis and not to expect him for dinner. The outdoor café, the same place where I conducted my Columbia interview the day before, was busy, but not tense at all. Sarah and I hashed over Tuesday’s events and various other topics when I got a text from Connor saying that due to ‘gatherings,’ he was coming home early. I called him to clarify and he said he had heard from an Egyptian colleague that there were sporadic protests in Nasr City, a town just south of Heliopolis (and in between Maadi and the office). The Maadi-based engineers decided to head home early. Connor drove Dougal, Sarah’s husband, and another driller, Mustafa, home around 3.30 pm. The Shell guys visiting from The Netherlands went back to their hotel in Heliopolis to finish up the project summary. Sarah became worried, since her parents-in-law were visiting Cairo and had taken the subway about four stops north to Coptic Cairo, a walled section of the city that is the historical center of the Christian community in Egypt. While Sarah insisted that they not go any further north than Coptic Cairo, she was afraid that they might decide to go for a wander and end up uncomfortably close to Tahrir Square. She asked Dougal to call them and encourage them to head back to Maadi at that point. We returned to our respective homes, feeling a little uncertain about how long the disruptions would last. I think Connor and I turned on the news again that night, but no significant action was happening downtown that day.
Thursday
On Thursday morning, things seemed mellow enough. Connor went to work and I prepared to head to the RLAP office, where I had two midday appointments scheduled. I had seen the news footage of the destructive protests the day before and it looked like a fair amount of the tire-burning and people running around in unruly packs had taken place very near to the metro stop where I get off. So before heading downtown, I checked in with a good friend, Annie Marie, who also interns there. She told me that RLAP had become too close to the danger the day before and those at work had to retreat further inside the compound (RLAP’s tiny office is located on the grounds of a Lutheran church that provides many services to the local refugee population; being a church, it is secured by a wall and barbed wire). The RLAP team members had to hole up inside St. Andrew’s church until some protestors came to their aid and helped them get out of the area safely. Needless to say, Anne Marie informed me, RLAP was closed on Thursday. This was the first time that the events unfolding were starting to impact my daily life and it was unsettling. I decided to e-mail one of my clients who speaks English and said to him that we would reschedule soon. I honestly thought I’d be back in the office on Sunday (which is the first day of the working week in Egypt). Nadia, our housekeeper, came over in the afternoon as normal. I felt at this point that there might be about four days of disturbances and that would be it. Nadia’s husband was having surgery for kidney stones that very evening, so she was talking to me about the plan for his recovery. Connor came home at the regular time, we had Indian food delivered, and just hunkered down in front of Al Jazeera. I was coming down with what would prove to be a doosy of a cold, so we took it easy. We knew that the next day was potentially a make-or-break one for the movement, since it was the first day off since the initial Tuesday riots and protestors were planning a huge demonstration after Friday prayers (about 2 pm) in central Cairo. Adding to the momentousness of the occasion, the on-again, off-again opposition figure, Mohamed El-Baradei, was returning to Cairo from Europe straightaway so he could participate in the Friday protests. While I took some comfort, whether well-founded I’m not sure, that he was back on the scene, it seemed to signal that a potentially historic day was ahead.
Friday—28 January 2011
I woke up at 5.30 am, restless and unable to sleep. When I went to check my e-mail, the internet wouldn’t connect. I rebooted both my computer and the router, to no avail. Then I tried to access the internet via my Vodafone mobile phone. Again, no dice. The combination of both sources of internet being down troubled me. I already had the sinking feeling that the Egyptian government knew how high the stakes were for the day’s rally and were trying to quell the rebellion any way they could. I was pretty creeped out that the State had the internet and phone companies so utterly under its thumb. The thought that Verizon would just shut their lines down to bend to Congress’ demands, for instance, was preposterous to me. I read for a while until Connor woke, when I told him of our telecommunications outage. I texted two friends just to check that their internet was down as well. I was surprised not to hear back from them, as I knew they would be up and planning to go to church at 10 am. It took a few more hours to piece together the fact that texting had also come to a halt.
Connor went off to church, but I stayed behind due to my cold. I frosted a cake that I had baked the night before to take over to a friend’s house that evening. I got a call on our landline from a Shell employee who is the designated ‘Safety Warden’ for those expatriate staff who live in Maadi. He just wanted to make sure he had the right number and told me that cell phone service was now down. It was good to hear that there was a company phone tree in place if we needed to receive important information. When Connor returned, he reported back that our minister, Paul-Gordon Chandler, told everyone that he had greeted the guards outside the gates of the church that morning, as usual. This particular morning the guard told Paul triumphantly, ‘Today is Mubarak’s last day.’ Gulp. If this was the sentiment felt by the government’s own police force, then this was no longer looking like a small movement spurred on by ambitious, educated young people via Twitter and Facebook. This protest movement was looking like it had legs. Regardless, plans were still going ahead to have respective ‘Ladies’ Night’ and ‘Poker Night’ with some friends at two different houses in Maadi. We were to host the men’s event. At this point I was camped out most of the time in front of the television. TV was now our only available forum for news.
A Shell colleague and friend, Suman, gave us a call on our landline around lunchtime. He was just checking in on us and mentioned that there were two women from the Shell office in Houston who were visiting and he had advised them to be inside their hotel by the early afternoon. He mentioned that they were staying at the Ramses Hilton, situated along the Nile next to the 6th October Bridge. Neither of us knew Sarah and Dougal’s landline number, so we couldn’t get in touch with them. Until last week, I kept up our landline mainly to ensure that we would have continued DSL internet. Nadia used it a couple of times a week to order things to the house. I rarely answered it if it rang, since 90% of the time it turned out to be a wrong number and I would have to explain that fact awkwardly in Arabic to the mistaken caller. Suddenly these land lines were taking on a new importance. I figured I would give my parents a call on it later, at a respectable hour on the East Coast. During our conversation, Suman touched on the idea of packing a ‘go bag’ in case we had to evacuate quickly. Suman was an expatriate in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, so he has experience with emergency departures. Since this was really only the second day of major conflict, though, I had a hard time thinking that that was a pressing need. Shell’s deputy safety warden for Maadi, however, also called us and mentioned packing some things as a good idea. Connor and I put together a bag each, but didn’t really think we would be using them, at least not anytime soon. I asked Connor hesitantly if cat food went in ‘go bags;’ it was my way of asking if we could bring our beloved cat, Saqqara, along with us if we had to flee. Connor gently explained that, no, cat food didn’t go in evacuation luggage. I immediately burst into tears at the then unthinkable thought that we would have to leave our cat behind.
By 2 pm, Al Jazeera was showing the first footage of protestors gathering along the 6th October Bridge. Amazingly, the Al Jazeera offices were directly opposite the bridge, next to the Ramses Hilton, so they had a birds-eye view of all the action, safely on an upper floor but close enough to smell the tear gas. They had a camera pointing outside the window all the time. Reports were coming in that El-Baradei had been picked up by State security even before he left the mosque after prayers and was being detained somewhere, unable to participate in the day’s events. I watched the news, riveted, as swarms of people charged police vehicles, seemingly devoid of fear. As the police fired tear gas canisters at the protestors, the other side threw them right back. Footage from street level was showing people overcome by fumes, some with bloody noses, but committed to the dissent no less. At one point, police entered the Al Jazeera English bureau office and it looked like they were being shut down, but they were able to stay on the air. As I watched the folks in the hotel gather on their balconies in disbelief, I thought about how terrified the tourists must be, including the two women whom Suman knew in town, staying at that very hotel. At 3.30, I decided to call my parents. After various attempts, I heard a message through the phone saying that we did not have international dialing services activated. I got a little panicky then, as I knew my parents would be waking up to news that the situation in Cairo was on a knife edge, yet there was literally no way on earth that I could communicate with them and tell them we were safe.
As darkness fell, there was no sign of relent. Protestors had set several police vehicles ablaze, including one on the bridge that they were trying to overturn into the Nile. Around 5 pm, the government imposed a curfew that would start at 6pm in Cairo, Suez, and Alexandria. This was when I became really alarmed, since I associate mandatory curfews only with places that have lost control of law and order completely. Technically the city of Maadi is under the jurisdiction of Helwan, a ‘county,’ for want of a better term, directly south of the Cairo city limits, so we weren’t sure if the curfew definitely applied to our neighborhood or not. I started to think that even if we did still get together with friends that maybe we shouldn’t split up in two locations. Around this time, our door rang, and Guy, our good friend and one of the major social coordinators for our group of friends from church, was outside, recommending that we all gather at his flat. He was very calm but just trying to be extra careful. His girlfriend, Katherine, was over at his house preparing dinner and some other folks were already congregating as well. Luckily Guy’s place is just around the corner from our house, so I grabbed the cake and we walked briskly. Technically the Cairo curfew had started about 20 minutes earlier, but none of the security guards who are normally posted around our street (which has a hotel on it) or on Guy’s road (which has a residence for US government families) seemed concerned with us being out and about. Even Guy’s doorman said that it didn’t matter since Maadi isn’t under the auspices of Cairo.
Walking into Guy’s house, the mood was mellow, but festive. Several friends who live either in or around downtown were conspicuously absent, however, as they figured it was not the best idea to try to travel around town that evening. I chatted with Emily, whose husband Ben is the assistant rector at our church and coach of the American school’s cross country team. They had actually been in Garden City that afternoon. Garden City is a neighborhood next to downtown where the US, Canadian, and British Embassies are located. Emily, a US Embassy nurse, was operating a makeshift triage center out of someone’s apartment to treat injured protestors. Ben, an avid and gifted photographer, was out on the streets at the same time, taking pictures. He related that he had to beat a hasty retreat into an apartment building at one point to avoid the police. Miraculously, a security officer demanded to know why he had a camera but he was able to explain that he wasn’t a journalist and the man moved on. I’m afraid that wouldn’t happen about a week later, when the regime started cracking down on foreign journalists in earnest.
When we arrived and said how frustrated we were that we couldn’t contact our parents, people told us that two doors down another family from church, a couple with two teenagers, had a phone with international access. We popped over there and they were so generous in letting us put a call in, insisting that we speak as long as we wanted. I quickly communicated to my dad that we were safe and in a large group. Back at Guy’s house, we tucked into a delicious meal and, of course, all sat glued to Al Jazeera. 
As I mentioned earlier, the atmosphere was cautious but euphoric among our friends; there was a palpable ‘viva la revolucion!’-type vibe. We were all thrilled that the Egyptian people, long oppressed, were finally having their say. Emily and our friend Mel, also a nurse by training, were pointing out how not to treat people who have fainted; we hungrily slurped Katherine’s ‘Revolution Soup’ and indulged in ‘Revolution Cake.’ Mel discussed casually and theoretically what would happen if she and her husband had to decide whether to evacuate, since they hold different citizenships (Australian and American, respectively) and neither one could necessarily piggy back on the other’s government evacuation plan. That conversation felt extremely speculative and not at all a reality we would soon face. It was more just an interesting scenario to ponder. The mood took a sudden turn, however, when Bill, the man at whose house we made the phone calls, said he had just had a call from someone with news from the US Embassy community that a mob was heading into Maadi and the policeman on the streets were authorized to use live ammunition to try to disperse them; the advice was to stay somewhere off ground floor level. Both Guy’s and our apartments are on the ground floor, so Marc and Mel, friends from church and members of the revolution party, quickly suggested we move over to their place, which was just about a 90 second walk from Guy’s home. They live on the fourth floor. As we went out the front door, we could smell the (fortunately, faint) aroma of tear gas and Mel pointed out to me that even the policemen, typically stationed at a particular corner near her building, were in hiding. That was a deeply troubling sign. Connor and I were wishing that we’d left the lights on in our house, if groups were truly heading into town to damage property and who knows what else.
Inside Marc and Mel’s apartment, we began to realize the sober reality that Egypt might never be the same. Katherine immediately called a colleague who receives official US government security information. That woman, who actually lives two floors above Connor and me in the same apartment building, told Katherine that all Embassy and US military families had been directed to stay inside, as the curfew now extended throughout the country and the police were under orders to ‘shoot to kill’ people out on the streets. Later we would learn of and additional report that bands of convicts, having just escaped from the prisons in Maadi, were roaming freely as well. Bill and his family, of international telephone fame, also had a home on the ground floor, so they came over to higher ground and camped out with us for several hours. Again, on went Al Jazeera. We watched as demonstrators torched the nearby headquarters of the NDP, Mubarak’s political party (and conveniently the only one legally allowed to exist in Egypt). We witnessed in horror the initial looting of the Egyptian Museum, full of Egypt’s most prized treasures from the Pharaonic Era. I was blown away that any countrymen would want to destroy these priceless works of art, as the Egyptians are incredibly proud of their history. While a group of protestors saw what was happening and formed a human chain around the entrance in an effort to protect the building, many of the items inside the museum, including some of the artifacts found in King Tut’s tomb, were smashed.
By 1 am, we were all nearing exhaustion, but were trying to stay awake for Mubarak’s ‘big announcement’ he was set to make soon. I thought for sure he would be resigning, as he wouldn’t want to create the same turmoil in Egypt that Tunisia experienced before its president stood down. Mel and Marc, spectacular hosts given that they now had six spur-of-the-moment overnight guests, issued toothbrushes, contact lens solution, towels, and face wash to everyone and within 45 minutes I was tucked in bed. I went off before hearing Mubarak address the nation. As I tossed and turned throughout the night, I wondered if we would wake up to a country under martial law or even no law at all. Between 2 and 3 am, I heard various loud voices and sporadic sprays of gunfire in the distance. I hoped that our house hadn’t been broken into overnight.
Saturday
Connor and I got up and left around 7.15 am; the curfew had lifted at 7. We spoke with Ben and planned to keep in touch throughout the day. We returned home to see that our house was fine. Still without cell phones or internet, we flipped on trusty Al Jazeera. I was laid low by my cold at this point, so Connor cycled to the pharmacy to get me some decongestants and check on the family of a nearby colleague, as he wasn’t sure if the man was away on a business trip or not. When he got back, he showed me a picture of a burnt-out police truck that he took near the local mall.
Meanwhile Sarah had called, as limited cell phone service was back on. She told me that the day before, they had actually driven out to the farthest of the Giza pyramids, since Dougal’s parents were visiting from the UK. As they drove back to Maadi, they encountered several blocked roads earlier than they expected, so they had to take a circuitous route home. As dusk began to set in, the people in the streets turned from helpful towards them to aggressive. Sarah and Dougal have a much-loved Land Rover which they had equipped for long overland trips and then imported to Egypt. It has rubber tread on the hood, a tent on the roof, and a pick axe locked to the side. In short, it looks a bit like a police or army vehicle. Sarah sounded very shaken as she described how people began hurling rocks at them as they drove home. She said it was extremely fortunate that none hit the windows, but the doors still have dents in them that she would show me next time I was over.
Connor and I made lunch and watched the news. At 1 pm, we got a call from the Shell wardens saying that there were reports that Maadi was a target for the looters that evening. Apparently a nearby Wal-Mart-type store, Carrefour, had already been attacked. While Maadi has a broad spectrum of social classes and is home to both Egyptians and foreigners, it is well-known to be an upscale neighborhood and major center for expatriates (who tend to have nice stuff) in Cairo. We had 90 minutes to pack before needing to meet at a pre-determined home in Maadi, at which point all of Shell’s Maadi-based families would drive in convoy out to the gated community of Kattameya. About 80% of Shell’s expatriate staff in Egypt lives in Kattameya, which is an elite neighborhood of mansions about 15 miles outside of Cairo, in what used to be desert. Kattameya is heavily fortified and we would stay with colleagues that night. We quickly swung into action. It is a horrific feeling both to know that you have to leave your home with only what you can carry in one suitcase and with full awareness that your home or its possessions may be destroyed or missing upon your return. What made me grab one necklace and not another, I can’t say; why I packed my ear plugs but not my vitamins, who knows. Do I bring a skirt? Did I gather up enough socks? At this point, I felt inside that we would not simply be driving back to Maadi the next morning. Still, I didn’t gather up everything in sight since the idea of an uncertain return was simply too much to process fully in such a short amount of time. We packed for northern European weather, as we were told that if Shell evacuated us out of the country, it would be to Holland. Saqqara saw us rushing around and got jumpy and playful. It broke my heart that she had no idea that we would soon be leaving her. 
We left an extra month’s salary on the kitchen counter for Nadia, I filled up additional water and food bowls for Saqqara, and we were out the door. Connor explained to Sayid, our doorman, what was happening (at least to the extent that his Arabic and Sayid’s English allowed for). I wept as I told Sayid ‘khod belak,’ which means ‘take care/be careful.’ He replied with the timeworn Egyptian phrase, ‘mafeesh mushkila,’ which means ‘no problem’ or ‘everything will be alright.’ I desperately want to believe in his words. We drove quickly over to Marc and Mel’s place, where our church friends were planning to spend another night. I couldn’t really hold it together as we handed Emily a key. Everyone has been so brave throughout this whole ordeal and I was wrapped up in hugs and assurances that Saqqara would be fine and we would all be reunited back in Cairo soon.
As the new, 4pm curfew loomed, we finally gathered all Shell folks and sped out of town. Again, the smell of tear gas began wafting through the air and we heard increasing instances of gunshots. We had another family with two young children in the backseat. The kids were blissfully unaware of the potential for danger and happily chattered away, which I found quite comforting. Many cars were trying to head out of Maadi for the night, so we took a back route out to Kattameya. Along the way we passed a series of apartment blocks with all the neighborhood men out front, holding sticks, shovels, or jagged pieces of metal, ready to defend their homes as the police were nowhere to be seen. At first the sight was shocking and frightening, but when I realized what it was about, it was awe-inspiring. It was raw and powerful. It felt like humanity distilled to its very essence.
45 minutes later, we were inside the gates of Kattameya. Shell gathered everyone at a single house to debrief us and assign us homes for the night. Connor called up his boss, who had earlier volunteered to take us in, and we planned to go there. Some people quietly joked that it was the largest gathering of Shell staff ever, trumping the various social events put on throughout the year, and it was a shame that it took an emergency to collect everybody in one place. Just before we dispersed, however, one of the chief organizers informed us that she had just received word that Kattameya itself may become a target of looting or mob action overnight. There were reports that people were trying to burst through the gates. The homes of several prominent members of the Mubarak regime, including that of his son Gamal, were located in Kattameya. The decision was to pack every house to capacity and stay as far away from Gamal’s section of the compound as possible. If people came to the house, we were to ‘make ourselves obvious’ so they would move on to find an empty house. At this point, I was wondering if we hadn’t made a serious mistake in hiking out to Kattameya; indeed, what part of Cairo would be safe that night?
We arrived at Connor’s boss’ home along with another Maadi family. The boss had put his wife and children on a plane to London that morning, but he was not going to leave without the family’s maid. She had lived with them in Malaysia and was part of the family, making the move to Egypt with them. The boss, whom I knew to be an incredibly thoughtful and kind man even before the uprising, had bought her a ticket back to Thailand for that evening but couldn’t take her to the airport because of the curfew. His current hope was that if Shell decided to evacuate from Egypt, he could take her with him on the charter flight, although he would have to arrange an emergency visa for her in advance to be able to exit the airport in Amsterdam. The maid, whose name is Peek, was remarkably serene given the circumstances and even prepared all of us a delicious Thai meal that night. We heard a few bits of news from local Egyptian colleagues who were defending their apartments. It is extremely unsettling to think that some of your coworkers may be airlifted to safety and some will just have to stay and be left to their own fate, just because they happen to be local hires. I think hearing these colleagues’ tales of woe was one of the first times during this situation that I was deeply humbled by the privileges to which I am entitled simply by having been born me. There’s no reason why my life should be easier, or more valuable, or have more advantages than any other human being on earth. As I had these thoughts, my mind quickly turned to my refugee clients, who already are some of the most marginalized people even in the best of times. I knew they would be both terrified and left completely devoid of resources if the troubles in Egypt carried on for any length of time at all. I have received word in the last two days that the UNHCR, the United Nation’s office for refugee services in Cairo, was looted and thousands of asylum seekers throughout Cairo are now left with no access to funds with which to pay their rent, buy food, or refill their medical prescriptions. This group is not being mentioned much in the media coverage, but in many ways their situation is the most crushing and dire of anyone who is left in Egypt.
By evening, Connor’s boss announced that Shell had found a plane to charter and the entire Shell expatriate community would be heading to the airport the next morning. I felt immense relief on the one hand, but also heavy guilt that we were abandoning those who were still in Cairo on the other. I connected with a couple of friends on the phone back in Maadi to alert them to Shell’s evacuation plan. I wept a couple of times, briefly, over the life we were leaving behind, the uncertainty of a return, and the deep heartache for me in separating from my cat who has been a loyal companion and a source of immeasurable joy to me since we adopted her from a shelter in Giza a year and a half ago. For someone who adores animals as much as I do, the thought of leaving a pet behind to what may, if things in Egypt continue to deteriorate for a while, be an uncertain destiny is the worst nightmare imaginable. Currently we have a friend checking on her as well as Nadia, but if at some point that friend decides to leave Egypt and Nadia can no longer make the journey to our house to take care of her, or if Saqqara runs out of food and there is no money to buy more for her…well, I just cannot let myself go there at this point. I know that countless other families had to leave behind their four-legged friends as well and I draw some comfort in the knowledge that we all are experiencing the same anguish.
I heard one burst of gunshots as I climbed into bed and had one ear attuned to the door throughout the night. I heard several planes touch down at the airport nearby and a few helicopters patrolling the skies above.
Sunday
We packed our bags and had a tasty ‘Dutch breakfast’—Connor’s boss is from Holland, as are many of the Shell expats-- of brown bread, yogurt, and muesli. Then we headed out into the brilliant sunshine of an Egyptian morning to await an airport departure of 9.30 am. As we stood in the front yard, Connor’s colleague, Bart, who also was Connor’s carpool buddy to work each day, told me that one day I would write a book about all these events and call it ‘Under the Orange Tree’ (which just happened to be where I was standing). 
I like his sensibility! A beautiful, tubby, well cared for house cat sidled up to us and walked around each member of our group, rubbing against us and purring. It was wearing a collar. I was trying not to think that maybe its owners had left already and just put it outside to fend for itself, as their only available option. I honestly don’t know the situation. Of course I cried 
some more as I stroked it, for all the animals left behind who do not realize what is happening.
After about an hour of waiting around outside, we got into an SUV with one of Connor’s drilling teammates, his driver, his wife and young son. As we drove from the secure compound, there were tanks everywhere, guarding Kattameya and its surroundings. The little boy twice referred to the army as protecting Kattameya from the protestors, which his mother swiftly corrected: ‘Protecting it from the looters, Sam, the looters.’ 
I’m sure she never imagined she would have that conversation with her son. 
The ring road to the airport was pretty clear, but after we entered the airport, we encountered a serious traffic jam. 
After about an hour and a half of inching our way towards Terminal 1, a Shell guy came up and said we should just get out and walk the rest of the way, since our charter flight was scheduled to depart at 1.30 pm and it was already 11.30 am. First we lined up just outside the door, waiting to go through the initial baggage screening that is part of Cairo’s airport protocol. I did notice tempers flared in some of the Shell wives when an Egyptian man, being Egyptian, tried along with his handlers to cut into our screening line. I was surprised that the women were so hostile so early on in the process towards him, but the situation diffused quickly. 
A twentysomething guy approached me while I was in line, telling me he was a reporter, and asking me some questions about what my plans were at the airport and where our group was headed. He never gave me a specific name of his publication, though, and he wasn’t taking notes, so I didn’t reveal too much to him.
Once inside Terminal 1, it was so incredibly crowded and hectic. For Connor, trying to squeeze through the masses of people turned out the be the most harrowing and the time that he felt in greatest danger in the whole seven days (due to fear of a stampede). All 175 Shell folks lined up at a charter check-in counter 
and were issued tickets that didn’t have our names written on them and that said we were heading to Madrid, not Amsterdam. Honestly that was just par for the crazy course that day. 
At the airport we were reunited with Sarah, Dougal, and his parents and got to see our Heliopolis friend, Suman, and the Shell families that live in Zamalek, a neighborhood on the island in the Nile that is opposite Tahrir Square. Both that we spoke with said they could smell smoke and hear shots fired, but they had been safe inside their homes. They had been transferred to a hotel in Heliopolis, close to the airport, the night before, just as the Maadi-based families moved out to Kattameya.
Now came the tough part of the airport saga: we had to somehow cross lots of perpendicular lines of airport-goers trying to check into commercial flights in order to reach Passport Control at the other end of the hall. A few intrepid people, including Suman, managed to weave their way through the crowds early in the afternoon and make it to our gate. It took us three tries, actually, and our group of about eleven Shell stragglers finally made it through Passport Control around 5.30 pm. Twice we tried to push through the throngs, but twice the Shell Emergency coordinator called us back, saying it was too dangerous. His plan was to wait until 4pm, when the curfew began again, and the airport would no longer be letting new people through the doors, hence enabling the crowd to thin out a bit. We have no idea how many people who went to the airport that day actually had tickets or were just going to try their luck. I met a Lebanese woman with a stroller who was sitting next to me during one of the several hours of waiting time. She told me that her husband was trying to check into their flight to Beirut, which someone had booked online for them in Lebanon. She had said that they actually parked their car and left all of their luggage inside, as they thought it was so busy in the terminal that any bags would have hindered their progress. I was doubtful of their success, but later on I saw her husband had returned with tickets in hand. At 4 pm, though, those whom the airport security were turning away began getting angry. This happened during our second aborted attempt to get to the passport area. I saw the metal detector shaking and I witnessed at least ten men climb through the active baggage x-ray machines in order to get to the other side. I must admit that when the Emergency Coordinator recalled us that time urgently due to the danger of being trampled, I lost my cool and began storming backwards through the crowd to our previous point. I did not care who I bumped into or how hard. I slammed into one guy’s elbow as I reached our earlier perch and he yelled at me angrily, ‘mish kwayyis,’ or ‘[that was] not nice.’ I shouted back at him, ‘Stop it!’ in English. Now that does not make any sense and it was just all the built up tension and frustration coming out of me. That is definitely the moment that I’m not proud of in this whole ordeal. I was too flustered to even apologize to that man.
Finally in the early evening, our Emergency Coordinator spotted a brief window of opportunity and we headed into the crowd once more. Those of us without children made somewhat of a human barrier around a couple that have two girls, one aged two and the other only about four months old. The dad hoisted his older daughter onto his shoulders and she was having a wonderful time, swinging her arms around wildly from side to side (which I think bought us some extra room, to be honest). It was amusing to hear a very gentle-sounding French engineer directing us, ‘I’m afraid this is not the time to be polite, we’re just going to have to push.’ He also gave us encouraging updates, telling us how close we were to our goal: ‘30 meters and we are there! Okay, now just 20 to go!’ Towards the end of the line, I started getting a little far from Connor and he shouted over to me to ‘follow the tall guy,’ who was also with Shell. Since I’m quite accustomed to doing that, it was great advice. Waiting in the fairly tame passport line, we all agreed that if we got back soon, the Maadi folks would have to have a party. Events unfolded quickly and smoothly after Passport Control. We boarded our plane, 
which appeared to be from a Spanish company, 
like any other flight.
Once on the plane, we could breathe somewhat more easily. Guesses were flying around as to how long we would be gone and if we would ever go back. While a few people did not seem at all heartbroken to leave their lives in Egypt, most were anxious for a return to normalcy. The couple with the two little girls actually both work in Cairo, he as a geologist for Shell and the wife as head of the Dutch Cultural Institute. They have lived in Egypt for several years and both of their daughters were born in Cairo. I heard the mother poignantly say that Cairo is home, not Holland (although they are both Dutch) and that she was hoping for a speedy return.
The atmosphere on the plane was pretty jovial. 
As we took off, the whole group clapped. It was nice having to chat with people from the company whom I’d never seen before. One guy (the ‘tall guy’) was telling Connor and me how great life is in Brunei and it sure did sound good at the time. The airline made a lot of money in alcohol sales during the five hour flight to Amsterdam. 
When we touched down on Dutch soil, another spontaneous burst of applause rang out through the plane. Shell HR have been very impressive so far in managing our evacuation and all the myriad of questions that accompany it in our post-evac period.
This is where our particular adventure of escape ends. It is not the end of our story, however, or our relationship with Egypt. Connor and I, as I write this, still have three good friends in Egypt and I have several colleagues from my refugee office who are planning to wait out the revolution in Cairo as well. Nadia and her family are faring alright so far. I’ve been calling her every day. She’s taking good care of Saqqara and informing us on how our house and Sayid are doing. Apparently Sayid is armed with a samurai sword to ward off intruders. His family is all in southern Egypt, in the town of Aswan, though, so I would not blame him at all if at some point he decides to go be with them, especially since I assume that all the tenants have left our apartment building (although I don’t know that for sure). Nadia’s husband was released from recovery in the hospital early, since there were no doctors or proper equipment to care for him there. Her children are not attending the protests, as they are sticking close to home and tending to their father. Nadia reports that food is getting quite expensive and cash is scarce.
We’re taking things day by day. I’ve done some sightseeing in little towns near The Hague, but it’s hard to have my heart totally in everything here when my mind constantly races back to the people and the situation in Cairo. We just want the country to stabilize enough that we can return to our homes, confident of our safety, and piece together our lives along with those with whom we went through these trying times. Our sincerest hope is that through all this unrest a better future for Egypt and her people can emerge.
