I know everybody is at least vaguely familiar with the ancient plagues of Egypt. You know, the whole "the rivers ran red with blood". All the historical texts are going to have to be updated with these latest two.They both happened in the past week, hopefully with some tag such as "the streets ran dark with mud/oil/blood/sticks and stones"; take your pick.
Sunday appeared to be a glorious day. I woke up at the beach, the sun was out and it was hot. Unfortunately, I had to go to school so no beach that day. After breaking all the nonexistent speed laws in Egypt to get to school slightly late, I rushed through the sunny and surprisingly warm campus to get to class. An hour later, it was raining. It wasn't just a slight sprinkle that happens maybe twice a year and still manages to make Egyptian drivers freak out. No, it was a full out downpour, including thunder and lightening. These sort of things are as common as revolutions in the Middle East before January 2011. That being said, Egyptians don't know how to drive in the rain, considering it never rains. And traffic in Cairo is beyond annoying on any given day just because the roads are not equipped for all the cars that frequent them. A normal one way trip to school or home will take a little over an hour, depending if I want to get off early and take a train (which you usually want to do since its quicker than driving into Tahrir) So I hope on my bus at 3pm and hope that I will get home by 415. How idealistic. At 430, I had only gotten half way home. The traffic on the main ring road was stop and go, and at this point, the rain had ceased to a light drizzle. Luckly, I got to the Metro, and was home by a little after 515.
I texted my friends who were supposed to leave a little after me, and unfortunately for them, they got the short end of the stick. One left at 530 and got home around 10pm. The driver decided to take random back roads and take a quick trip up to the pyramids in Giza and the Citadel (which is NOWHERE close to our house or Tahrir) For him, the rain had again picked up and was a solid (acid) rain that continued well into the night. My roommate and another friend left at 630 and they too got home after 10, quite wet and discontent. It took them about 2 hours to get to the Metro, and they decided to get off, as I had. By this point though, the train had basically stopped running and people were walking along the train tracks trying to get to where they wanted to go. Matt and Louis ended up walking for half an hour in the rain, found a cab, and finally got home. Another friend said his bus driver didn't want to waste gas, so he refused to turn on the defroster and used a newspaper while driving to continuously wipe the windshield.
The next morning, with the sun trying to come out, the commute to and from school was just as ridiculous. Streets in Cairo do not have any drains or anywher to filter all the unexpected water so it just formed lakes in the streets. Many of these 'puddles' were so deep that when cars drove through them, the water came up to the bottom of the car and tops of tires. The good majority of streets were like this, and stayed like this for a few days. Thus ended the 11th plague.
Plague number 12 was not so natural. It too involves the same sort of stop and go traffic on the main ring road only two days later. After an unknown and unexpected 2 hour drive to school, Rami and I were anticipating a hopefully shorter trip back. No such luck. As his car is slightly more comfortable than a bus, and with excellent reclining seats, I was able to fall asleep for about 45 minutes as he went maybe a mile down the road. Soon after I woke up (and realized we had gone now where in an hour when it can, on good days, take 45 minutes to get to Maadi) we saw the reason for this charlie foxtrot. And it was black. Stretching a few kilometers in both directions from the main accident point, was pools of oil in one lane on the side of the road. I still am unsure what exactly happened, but one or two oil tankers and maybe a regular passenger car had some sort of collision that caused a lot of oil to flow freely into the streets. By the time we were passing it, bulldozers had appeared and had driven into the jersey barriers on the side of the street and were trying to create a place for the oil to go. For the rest of the street, they had dumped tons of sand on top of the oil that couldn't or wouldn't go anywhere (thank God that the ring road is through the middle of the desert I guess)
After such a crazy week, its only appropriate that the protests that have been happening every Friday since the fall of the regime finally escalate. Unknowingly, we ventured into Tahrir to get food late afternoon on Friday (4/8) and stumbled into the biggest protests since February. At this protest, however, was many members of the Muslim Brotherhood and many more fundamentalists, which apparently caused clashes during the day. At night, however, protesters refused to leave and defined the 2am-5am curfew. The military stepped up and started firing round (they claim they were not live rounds but 2 people died of gunshot wounds). I woke up at 3 and 4am and there was steady and continuous gunfire and a lot of shouting. At some point, the military withdrew and the protesters blocked the streets into Tahrir a la revolution days are are now vowing not to leave until Defense Minister/Field Marshal/Head of State Tantawi leaves. There were at least 3 burned out cars in the street and many wounded this morning. It will be interesting to see what Tahrir looks like tomorrow morning when I have to walk through it to get to the bus. And lets hope there is a bus to catch to school. At any rate, I have almost two weeks off starting Thursday. How much worse can it get, right?
Sunday appeared to be a glorious day. I woke up at the beach, the sun was out and it was hot. Unfortunately, I had to go to school so no beach that day. After breaking all the nonexistent speed laws in Egypt to get to school slightly late, I rushed through the sunny and surprisingly warm campus to get to class. An hour later, it was raining. It wasn't just a slight sprinkle that happens maybe twice a year and still manages to make Egyptian drivers freak out. No, it was a full out downpour, including thunder and lightening. These sort of things are as common as revolutions in the Middle East before January 2011. That being said, Egyptians don't know how to drive in the rain, considering it never rains. And traffic in Cairo is beyond annoying on any given day just because the roads are not equipped for all the cars that frequent them. A normal one way trip to school or home will take a little over an hour, depending if I want to get off early and take a train (which you usually want to do since its quicker than driving into Tahrir) So I hope on my bus at 3pm and hope that I will get home by 415. How idealistic. At 430, I had only gotten half way home. The traffic on the main ring road was stop and go, and at this point, the rain had ceased to a light drizzle. Luckly, I got to the Metro, and was home by a little after 515.
I texted my friends who were supposed to leave a little after me, and unfortunately for them, they got the short end of the stick. One left at 530 and got home around 10pm. The driver decided to take random back roads and take a quick trip up to the pyramids in Giza and the Citadel (which is NOWHERE close to our house or Tahrir) For him, the rain had again picked up and was a solid (acid) rain that continued well into the night. My roommate and another friend left at 630 and they too got home after 10, quite wet and discontent. It took them about 2 hours to get to the Metro, and they decided to get off, as I had. By this point though, the train had basically stopped running and people were walking along the train tracks trying to get to where they wanted to go. Matt and Louis ended up walking for half an hour in the rain, found a cab, and finally got home. Another friend said his bus driver didn't want to waste gas, so he refused to turn on the defroster and used a newspaper while driving to continuously wipe the windshield.
The next morning, with the sun trying to come out, the commute to and from school was just as ridiculous. Streets in Cairo do not have any drains or anywher to filter all the unexpected water so it just formed lakes in the streets. Many of these 'puddles' were so deep that when cars drove through them, the water came up to the bottom of the car and tops of tires. The good majority of streets were like this, and stayed like this for a few days. Thus ended the 11th plague.
Plague number 12 was not so natural. It too involves the same sort of stop and go traffic on the main ring road only two days later. After an unknown and unexpected 2 hour drive to school, Rami and I were anticipating a hopefully shorter trip back. No such luck. As his car is slightly more comfortable than a bus, and with excellent reclining seats, I was able to fall asleep for about 45 minutes as he went maybe a mile down the road. Soon after I woke up (and realized we had gone now where in an hour when it can, on good days, take 45 minutes to get to Maadi) we saw the reason for this charlie foxtrot. And it was black. Stretching a few kilometers in both directions from the main accident point, was pools of oil in one lane on the side of the road. I still am unsure what exactly happened, but one or two oil tankers and maybe a regular passenger car had some sort of collision that caused a lot of oil to flow freely into the streets. By the time we were passing it, bulldozers had appeared and had driven into the jersey barriers on the side of the street and were trying to create a place for the oil to go. For the rest of the street, they had dumped tons of sand on top of the oil that couldn't or wouldn't go anywhere (thank God that the ring road is through the middle of the desert I guess)
After such a crazy week, its only appropriate that the protests that have been happening every Friday since the fall of the regime finally escalate. Unknowingly, we ventured into Tahrir to get food late afternoon on Friday (4/8) and stumbled into the biggest protests since February. At this protest, however, was many members of the Muslim Brotherhood and many more fundamentalists, which apparently caused clashes during the day. At night, however, protesters refused to leave and defined the 2am-5am curfew. The military stepped up and started firing round (they claim they were not live rounds but 2 people died of gunshot wounds). I woke up at 3 and 4am and there was steady and continuous gunfire and a lot of shouting. At some point, the military withdrew and the protesters blocked the streets into Tahrir a la revolution days are are now vowing not to leave until Defense Minister/Field Marshal/Head of State Tantawi leaves. There were at least 3 burned out cars in the street and many wounded this morning. It will be interesting to see what Tahrir looks like tomorrow morning when I have to walk through it to get to the bus. And lets hope there is a bus to catch to school. At any rate, I have almost two weeks off starting Thursday. How much worse can it get, right?
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