Something happens to some of us when we go to Egypt !!!!!  we feel like we have 'come home'. Something happens to some of us when we leave Egypt !!!!!!  we feel 'home sick'.                               If this happens to you,;;; please realize that you are not alone........

From a Native to Natives

This Blog started by a Native Egyptian Woman who experienced Egypt with its ups and downs, its happiness and sadness, its war and peace; and its hope and despair. A woman who knew the Middle East with its looseness and reserveness, its sincerity and hypocracy, its ignorance and culture, its honesty and dishonesty; and its reality and imitations.

To the World and the people who are interested in knowing Egypt and the Middle East as the Natives do; I dedicate this Blog.

A Brief Journey of Life

Being a woman in Egypt, I have experienced the sufferings of the Wars, the suppressant of the dictators and the lack of life basic essentials due to lack of peace.

I was born In Alexandria, when Egypt was in the status of War with Israel. I remember as a little kid how it was so scary to hear the War Sirens and how we had to turn the lights off and either stay still where we are or go down to like a basement in the street. It was so scary as a kid to sit with my mum and use scissors to cut and paste sheets of black paper to cover the shutters from inside and outside just in case if we will have a candle on during one of those sirens, no one will see it. I remember as a little kid, when they taught me how to pray, for months and months, my only pray was not to have any more wars in Egypt. I used to cry and ask God for that.

Egypt at that time had nothing, whether you had money or you did not, you can get nothing more than what is permitted. The government used to distribute the soap and the sugar and the necessities of life per person, so you buy only from the government and depends on how many in the family. A family of three for example used to get six pieces of soap per months. People should line up at the beginning of every month to get their things. We were a middle class family living in the second largest city of Egypt and I remember sharing the jello sandwiches with my friends at school because they ran out of any sugar or sugary stuff for the month.

Egypt had a terrible infrastructure, but all the money of the country was going to war, so it was a usual thing to get up in the morning and there is no water to shower or drink, or to find that the sewage system pipes had exploded and the whole street is flooded. Many things like this.

We had the peace treaty later, and life had changed in Egypt. We started to see things available everywhere. We started to know several kinds of food and products which we never had.

Years passed and the inflation made it impossible for people to buy things which are available. The poor became poorer and the rich became richer and the middle class like us were really suffering to keep an image which does not exist, we were getting poorer but we had to look good.

Years passed and the corruption in the government started to be really huge. It started to be in all our aspects of life. You must be corrupted to survive, you must steal to eat, and you must bribe to exist.

The people at the top were there knowing nothing about the rest of the Egyptians. They were living on their own fantasy world.

I finished the college of Tourism and started to work as a Trip leader/ Egyptologist, and all the time I could sense the turmoil in the Egyptian society behind the scenes. People were totally unhappy and more of suffering on daily basis, either from poverty or needs which they could not get or corruption or humiliation, etc.

I started a tour by accident on January 25th, when the whole protesting started. We were touring in Alexandria and the protesters made us pass through very peacefully and they greeted the tourists whom I had and the tourists took their photos. The 26th and the 27th were almost the same. The police was there watching the protesters and things were peacefull.We arrived to Cairo on the 27th in the evening and we were suppose to have the tour of the museum on the 28th, but they called me early in the morning to tell me that the museum will be closed and I better take the people and go to visit the pyramids. Coming back from the pyramids, we had to go through the protesters again, but this time with lots of gas bombs around. It was horrifying to the tourists when the bus was attacked by some people and we had to stop. I had to go out and talk to the people that those are the Guests of Egypt and they better be safe. Two of them were really good and shouted at the others to let us go. It was a scary moment to me, as I did not know how they were going to react to my words. We arrived to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening imprisoned in it but watching the protesters and the police from behind the windows. The security of the hotel had to provide me, as the leader of the group, with a gas bomb and a pistol. It was my first time ever to touch a real weapon.

The next day, I had to evacuate the tourists and go to the airport. There were criminals everywhere and prisoners who escaped. We saw them and they ran after the bus.

Things started to get worst in Egypt and we had a curfew, shortage of food and Gas, prisoners who were free, criminals attacking people, no police or security. I went down with the neighbors carrying sticks and knives to protect the subdivision, the men were surrounding it with knives and weapons, but many of the buildings were attacked.

I started to go to Tahrir square, which was the center of the revolution. I was there the day when the camels and horses attacked the protesters. It was weird to see the camels attacking people and people falling under their legs. Stones were thrown from everywhere and a friend of mine got wounded in his forehead. We tried to stop the blood using whatever was available from sand to cloth. There were no ambulances available and I had to put him on one of the tanks till I found a doctor in the area.

That day was a disaster; I saw a camel hitting a tank by mistake and the there were people carrying chains hitting every one.

There were foreign reporters and I talked to a Two French ones and an Israeli reporter. I was trying to explain to them what was happening, as many of the people around did not speak good English. The French reporters were so shocked and they were filming.

I heard later that the Egyptian museum, which is located in the square, had been robbed and that the criminals are going into it and trying to attack it with big cars. So I and others went over there and stood around it surrounding the museum with our bodies. Some of the criminals were already inside and others were trying to enter, so we were trying to prevent the ones outside from going in and the ones inside from coming out till the army came and arrested some of them. The criminals were fighting with their hands and chains and we were ready to do whatever to protect our antiquities. We stayed there after for more than 10 hours till the army got enough security to secure the museum, but unfortunately some pieces were robbed.

Days later the president left the office and things started to get quieter. I went with many other Egyptians to clean the square, so life can go back to normal. It was so sad when I thought to take a piece of Rock as a souvenir from the square. I found a good shaped piece which I thought to put in my pocket, and once I picked it up from the ground and was turning it, I found that its other side was covered with blood.....it was sad and scary and I had so mixed feelings then.

Now unfortunately tourism had stopped and I really miss seeing the pyramids and the sphinx...I always had a spiritual connection with the pyramids. I lost 16 people from my family in 2003 including my mother and when I thought about what can make me so sad as that year....I found that if anything will happen to the pyramids specially the great one.