The Everyday in the Revolution

A poster seen in Midan Tahrir yesterday. The red Arabic script on the upper right says "The most expensive newspaper in Egypt. The Price: Freedom." The red script below that atop the fake newspaper says, "Egypt, where are you going?"

Increasingly, as my time here in the Middle East stops just being "my trip to the Middle East" and starts becoming "what I'm doing with my life," I've felt more unsure about what to write here. I forget that the things I do here are strange and fantastic and worth writing down. I've even started to feel like it's not that abnormal for revolutions to break out all around me. Because even as they do, I'm just as caught up in what my job is going to be after this fellowship period ends and where I'm going to be for that.

Every day, I become more and more intent on finding some way to stay in the region longer--probably in Cairo. I'm visiting there now, but I find myself wondering what I'm supposed to post here these days, as this journey ceases to be something fantastic and strange and instead becomes everyday.



I came back to Cairo and felt instantly energized. Something about the size and the frantic electricity of the city, amplified post-revolution immediately found its way into my blood. Yesterday, Friday, we walked to Tahrir through a few mini protests, past the barbed wire remnants around the Media Ministry, and past the inevitable opportunistic Egyptian salesmen with 25th of January and I-heart-egypt paraphernilia everywhere we looked. Flags billowed everywhere we looked as Egyptians red, white, and black face paint sung and danced in the streets to Egyptian music blaring from a battery of loudspeakers. There obviously weren't anywhere close to as many Egyptians there as during the revolution's hey day, but there were probably at around a thousand or so there spread out in the circle still. One shy looking Egyptian man carrying an "oud," a traditional Middle Eastern musical instrument, saw me carrying me my camera and asked me to record this video and post it on the internet. I think the song is their National Anthem.

So in short, the spirit of the revolution is alive and well (though the implications of the recent referendum may not bode well) here in Egypt, and judging from the continuing cross-cultural, cross-sectarian solidarity rallies going on as well, it is certainly still something that many different Egyptians are paying attention to.


Indeed, when I stopped by AUC's campus to see my old fusha teacher (and take advantage of their awesome gym and outdoor track), she told me how seemingly every Egyptian has become addicted to politics, following the news obsessively and discussing it all constantly. About the extremely high participation in the recent constitutional referendum--36 million compared to the 6 million election turn out of the elections just last November--she simply said in Arabic incredulously "What's that? What IS that?"


And so, I've all but concluded that I have to find a way to stay here. Leaving this all for America feels like it would mean I'm sort of giving up on ever actually learning Arabic, a fate I'm not yet ready to accept. This means I've got to a find a job out here is all. I'll be accepting suggestions or job offer any time.