joshedwards.com

We’re taking the snowday today to watch streaming footage of the Egypt demonstrations on Al Jazeera English. Crazy footage.

It’s amazing to see Tahir Square not just devoid of cars, but packed with people. When we were there in April of 2008 it was wall to wall cars, day and night.

I actually just pulled out my journal from out trip. Apparently I didn’t write one of the stories down, though, so it might be a little off, but here goes:

Steve, Liz and I took a taxi home from dinner one night, and got an English-speaking driver. He was chatty, as most taxi drivers are, regardless of locale, and at one point motioned to his glove compartment. He said he had a gun in there, and if he ever saw President Mubarak he would shoot him.

He seemed pretty serious.

It was startling to hear, but made sense with all of the stories we were hearing of rising food prices and rampant unemployment. The people’s desperation was palpable.

Trying to imagine that city now, almost three year later, sadly these riots make perfect sense.