Global Reflections

Incommunicado

First of all, thank you to all of you who posted comments or sent emails expressing your concern for us and for others in Egypt. Jeff and I deeply appreciate your concern and your prayers.

I obviously was not able to post anything during the internet blackout, but that did not prevent me from recording my thoughts and reactions to what was going on. I typed ongoing reports--my own personal, delayed Twitter-esque record--with the intention of publishing them on this blog when I was able. The final product, before any editing I do along the way (I promise not to edit the content, but I may edit for clarity or grammar before posting--but I will leave in uncertainties and even information that I later discovered to be wrong, because I want it to reflect what we were experiencing at the time), was 11 pages long. I'm going to post it in installments. It ends with the news that Alexa and I were going to be evacuated--after that, I was too busy to keep it up. I'll try to record what I remember of the evacuation process and post that too.

For now I'll start with the initial report, what I wrote as a typical blog entry, before the twitter-style updates were added. Those will begin in the next post.

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Friday, 28 January 2011

We woke up this morning to discover that we had no internet access. This was not unexpected, with the protests planned for today. We had been warned that internet access and possibly even mobile phone coverage could be cut off by the Egyptian government as a way to limit the ability of the people to coordinate protests. Jeff discovered our lack of internet access around 7 this morning; we later learned that friends who arrived home from an evening out at 12:30am had no internet access at that time either. As best we can tell, it was shut down shortly after midnight.

Shortly after 8am, Jeff told me that the expectation was that mobile phone service would be cut off around noon. This timing made sense, as protests were expected to start after Friday prayers, around 2pm. We decided to call Jeff’s father, despite the early morning hours on the East Coast, and ask him to post a Facebook status explaining that we were incommunicado, but safe, as we had no plans to leave our home today. We took this precaution because I had received expressions of concern from the States yesterday, so if there was any news coverage of today’s protests at all, we knew people would be concerned, especially if they were unable to contact us. It turned out that we were wise to go ahead and make the call early, rather than waiting closer to the anticipated noon cutoff time. Mobile phone service was disabled shortly after we used my mobile to call Jeff’s father.

Our plans for today—put in place a couple of weeks ago, before protests were even a consideration—included a drop-in here at our apartment for our old Bible study group, which dissolved last spring when our leaders moved away. We spent the rest of the morning preparing oatmeal-peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies, vegetables and dip, and brownies … unsure of whether anyone would even come, with today’s anticipated events. If people decided that they were better off staying home, they had no way of letting us know. (Landline phones were still connected, but most of us only know each other’s mobile numbers and email addresses.)

We had a brief period of worry this morning, not for ourselves, but for an embassy friend who needed to go to work today. He left his home in Maadi at 9 and took the metro downtown. The trip by metro usually takes around 45 minutes. It was expected that it would take a little longer today, as the metro station under Tahrir Square has been closed for the last couple of days. Our friend was required to exit at a neighboring station and then walk to the embassy. But even with this extra time, the trip shouldn’t have taken longer than an hour. At 10:30, he still wasn’t answering his office phone. With mobile phone service unavailable, there was no way to contact him. Luckily, the worry didn’t last long—he arrived safely at the embassy and made contact by 11 or so.

All but one of the expected couples did come to our social event this afternoon—one of them with her embassy-issued emergency radio tucked into her handbag (ours was on the coffee table; the others were not mission members and therefore had no radios). They reported that the streets of Maadi were “eerily empty” this morning, although there apparently was a rush on the commissary when it opened. That makes sense, as many families do their shopping on Fridays and wouldn’t have wanted to be out this afternoon. Combine those families with even a few panic shoppers, and the commissary would have been slammed. We're very grateful that Jeff always insists on having a large stash of emergency rations here--primarily peanut butter, tuna, and chunky soup, plus lots of bottled water. No commissary run needed for us today.

We spent a pleasant couple of hours this afternoon chatting, eating, and admiring Alexa with our friends. We also turned the television on in the background, to the AFN news station, so that we’d see the news coverage if anything major happened. Unfortunately, the Today Show was on … so we were treated to fluff about adjustable beds and a teacher who had sex with her student ten years ago.

After our friends left, we received a phone call from Jeff’s supervisor. The embassy phone tree had been activated to disseminate a warden message that usually would have gone out by email—basically, there were clashes between protesters and police throughout Cairo, roads around the embassy are closed, there’s a small demonstration near the overpass in Maadi, and no one should attempt to get to the embassy. News of the protest here prompted me to tell Jeff that we need eggs; I can just run down to the metro market (practically under the overpass) and pick some up. Jeff wouldn’t let me leave the apartment. *sigh* I know, it isn’t logical, it probably isn’t even sane, but … I want to see. But I can’t, so I won’t dwell on it.

Then we got a phone call from another friend. She lives in Zamalek, an island in the Nile just across from downtown Cairo, and she could hear protesters from her living room. She was watching the coverage on CNN International and al-Jazeera English on her satellite. I lamented that we’d had our Orbitz disconnected and were reliant on AFN’s one news channel, which was showing fluff. She reminded me that our Orbitz satellite could pick up the free satellite channels—including CNN International and al-Jazeera English. Yay! Jeff hooked it back up for me, so now we’re sitting here watching CNNi while I type. We aren't getting al Jazeera, so CNNi or AFN are our only options. I prefer Fox News, which is showing now on AFN, but Fox News isn’t devoting themselves exclusively to the protests like CNNi seems to be.

Some of this coverage on CNN International is ridiculous. They’re reporting that prisoners have been released from Egyptian prisons and are being used as “shock troops” to put down demonstrators. They’re also reporting that one of these “shock troops looked wild-eyed, like he was on drugs.” I’ve got two words for you: No. Way. Do these reporters not know how drug users are treated here? Let me tell you, they DO NOT get released early and given the opportunity to bash some heads. Now, I still do not intend to reveal with whom I agree philosophically—the demonstrators or the Mubarak regime—but I will say that CNNi’s coverage is very biased. These reporters obviously are on the side of the demonstrators. They’re criticizing everything about how the government is responding, saying that the government is overreacting even though the government is reacting against protesters who are throwing Molotov cocktails and calling for the overthrow of the government. Whether you agree with the protesters or not, how would you expect the government to react? The CNNi reporters are saying that the government is showing “no restraint.” Really? No restraint? When they’re using tear gas and batons? If they were showing no restraint, they’d be using bullets. Dispersed from automatic weapons. There would be no protesters left standing.

Don’t get me wrong. The images on TV look pretty bad; the situation out there is bad. The government is responding forcefully, and the response is getting more forceful as the day—evening now—goes on. Police are using tear gas and batons. We saw one protester on the news get hit by an armored police van. Martial law has been declared. It’s bad out there. The case may be made that the government response is disproportionately forceful. But there is restraint. Is there enough restraint? I won’t comment on that. But I do wish CNNi would be a little less hysterical in their reporting.

Speaking of less hysteria in reporting, we spent a few minutes on Fox News. “Egypt is exploding.” Exploding?! Thank you, Shepard Smith. I’m sure my mother will be very reassured to hear that.

Okay, off the “objectivity in news reporting” soapbox. Back to what’s going on.

There’s a curfew in effect from 6pm until 7am in Cairo, Alexandria, and Suez. I’m not sure what the consequences of breaking curfew would be—is it immediate arrest? Will they eventually go to “shoot on sight”? For now, it looks like they’re still using batons. I guess our friends at the embassy are stuck there tonight—we did just receive a call from one of them saying that we shouldn’t buck this curfew; the government is serious about this. I guess I won’t go out for eggs after all … although I do wonder: Does Cairo include Maadi, which technically is a suburb? I won’t get to find out … and from some of the pictures I’m seeing on TV now, I think I wouldn’t go out anyway. The time for that was this afternoon.

I wish I could call or email my family to reassure them that we’re safe. I hope they saw my father-in-law’s Facebook post this morning and know that we’re not out and about in any of the chaos. More importantly, I hope and pray that the one protest-related death currently being reported is the only one.

Evacuated

This is just a quick post to say that Alexa and I were evacuated from Egypt on Monday, along with 1498+ other Americans. We just arrived at my mother's house tonight and are desperate for sleep. I hope to post more within the next few days.

Jeff remained in Cairo and will continue to remain there so long as he is needed. (He does not expect to evacuate.) We have every confidence in his safety and in the safety of the remaining mission personnel.

Protests

This is not going to be a long, in-depth analysis of anything. I say that so no one will be disappointed. But I do want to take a moment--and it may only be a moment, if Alexa wakes up--to make you aware, if the news hasn't already, that there are some pretty big protests going on in Egypt right now.

You may remember hearing the news that a popular uprising in Tunisia successfully overthrew the government there not too long ago. That news has inspired other populations to stage their own protests/demonstrations/whatever word you want to use.

In Egypt, the day for protests was set at Tuesday, 25 July, which was a national holiday: Police Day. I started hearing about it a few days before that, maybe Thursday or Friday. I didn't think much of it; we hear about demonstrations fairly often, and I can rattle off all the standard lines: Avoid areas where demonstrations will occur, even peaceful gatherings can turn violent, and so on and so forth. Usually we're told by the Regional Security Office (RSO) that protests are planned for a certain day, and that's the end of it. This time there were indications that the RSO was more concerned than usual. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that extra precautions seemed to be occurring in the days leading up to the protests. That was enough to tell me this was going to be big.

And it was. Check out some pictures from a Facebook group called Operation Egypt. There were some huge protests on Tuesday, including a massive one in Tahrir Square, just a block or so from the embassy where Jeff works. (As it was a holiday, he wasn't there on Tuesday.) As planned, our family stayed home. There was a time when I would have wanted to go see what was going on--staying on the outskirts of everything, being reasonably cautious--although Jeff never would have agreed. But now that we have Alexa, I was all for staying home. So we did. We checked the internet news a couple of times but overall didn't work ourselves up over anything.

Yesterday Jeff went back to work. I stayed home with Alexa and didn't check the news or anything. Jeff got home around his usual time last night. He informed me that they had been dismissed early, but he had work to do (catching up from being out sick on Monday), so he hadn't left early. The early dismissal was because the protests had continued from Tuesday to Wednesday. That surprised me, as usually these things occur on the planned day and then they're over and done with. Jeff said that as he was leaving work, there were rumors that a demonstration was starting in front of the Semiramis Hotel on the Corniche, across the street from the embassy.

This morning I saw Facebook status updates from friends here in Egypt: "I'm okay." "Pray for Egypt." "We're fine, staying in Maadi, which is still quiet." I saw a post from my sister-in-law indicating that she was praying for all Americans in Egypt, and I knew she was thinking of us. I realized that the protests must have hit the international news sometime yesterday/last night. I did a quick search and began to realize just how big this really is--something I hadn't realized as I stayed cocooned in my quiet apartment with my sweet daughter. The pictures that I linked to earlier blew me away. When I went to Operation Egypt's home page on Facebook so I could link to it, I saw an update that was posted less than half an hour ago: "Protests starting now at Liberation Square (Midan atTahrir) Cairo. No police yet." This is the huge midan near the embassy. Many of the pictures I linked to were taken there. It looks like it's going to be another day of protests, another day of tear gas, another day of struggle.

I'm not in a position to comment on Egyptian politics. (I'm in Egypt on a diplomatic passport, after all, and many people don't understand that I don't speak for the American government, even though my husband does work for the U. S. embassy.) I have my opinions, which will remain with me for now. But I think we all can agree that Egypt needs prayer. The Egyptian people need prayer. If you're a praying person, please pray. Pray for the safety of the police and the protesters, and any bystanders who are caught up in events as they simply try to go to work, school, or about their daily lives. Pray for justice for all the citizens of this country. Pray that God will have His hand on these events and that He will work in and through them to accomplish His purposes in the lives of the individuals involved and in the life of Egypt as a country.

Day three has begun. There are calls on Facebook and Twitter for even more massive protests tomorrow after Friday prayers. I don't know how long this will go on or how it will end. But right now, the Egyptian people are protesting.

Update: Jeff just emailed me and said that he was in Tahrir before lunch today. He saw lots of police but no protesters. I wouldn't be too surprised if small groups of protesters were being arrested or run off immediately. The key will be what happens this evening, if large groups show up, and what happens tomorrow afternoon.

Quick Takes

It's been so long since I've written anything! There's so much to update you on, too, but very little time to do it. Alexa just went down for a nap, but she rarely naps for longer than 45 minutes, and sometimes not even that long. So rather than trying to do a series of posts, I'm just going to do a bunch of short "quick takes" in this one. So buckle up, it's going to be a quick ride!

My little brother is now a married man! He married his long time sweetheart in early October. It was a true family affair for us--Jeff arrived a couple of days before the wedding, as he was a groomsman. I was a bridesmaid. Alexa was a flower girl, at least in name. She wore the same dress as the older flower girls and was carried down the aisle by the mother of the groom. It was a beautiful wedding, with a fall theme, which made for gorgeous decorations. My sister sang and even managed to get through it without tears. The bride was, of course, beautiful.

After the wedding, our little family spent a few days visiting friends and family in other states. Everyone was completely taken with Alexa. We spent quite a bit of time in the DC area with friends, whom we convinced to go with us to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. We'd been a couple of times before we moved to Egypt and loved it, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go back. It was just like we remembered, with elaborate costumes, decadent food--can I just say croissant sundae?!--and all sorts of attractions, from jousting to shopping to watching the drunks to knife throwing (I think we avoided the drunks throwing knives, though). Our friend who went with us got her first henna tattoo. I've never had one, but it was interesting to watch. I documented the whole process in photos, but since this is a quick takes post, here's the one and only picture you get: the artist with his work.

The flights went very well, overall, and Alexa was wonderful. She slept through all of our flights, with just brief awake periods for food and diaper changes. Luckily she didn't have any dirty diapers on the planes, saving those for layovers, so it wasn't too difficult to do lap changes. Also, may I just say that United was very baby-friendly? They had no issues with us taking on the car seat once we established that Alexa had her own ticket, they offered us an infant life vest before we ever took off, and there was room (in economy plus, to which we always upgrade because of Jeff's long legs) for the person in front of Alexa to recline his seat without interfering with the car seat. Lufthansa, on the other hand ... grrr. They didn't want us to use the car seat; we had to repeat two or three times that it was airline approved. Then they refused to give us an infant life vest when we requested one--they tried telling us that we wouldn't be flying over water because there were no large bodies of water around Frankfurt. Apparently the flight attendant didn't realize that we'd be flying over the Mediterranean Sea on the way to Egypt! She finally told us that it was their policy to give it to us only if/when it was needed. So apparently it's important for every passenger and crew member to have immediate access to a life vest--every passenger except infants, that is. I guess if there's no time for a busy flight attendant to go get the life vest before the plane hits the water, parents can miraculously grow suction cups on their arms to prevent the wiggling--and at that point wet--child from slipping out of their arms. My blood pressure still goes up when I think of that one. And then, in a final blow to Lufthansa's credibility in my eyes, the person in front of Alexa put his seat back, hitting the back of her car seat and causing it to pop up into an unsafe, unusable position. Luckily, Jeff was feeding her at the time, so she wasn't in it. Needless to say, I am no longer a fan of Lufthansa. At all.

Alexa has been sleeping through the night ever since we got here. She slept incredible hours on the planes, probably due to the vibrations, and has been doing it ever since. She usually goes down for the night between 10 and 11 and wakes up at 7 or 7:30. I would like her to fall asleep around 8 or 9 and stay asleep, but she currently naps for half an hour or so starting at 8 or 8:30, then wakes up for 60 to 90 minutes for one more feeding and diaper change before going down for the night. Until the last week or so, her longest naps during the day were around 45 minutes--she'd take several short naps ranging from 20 to 45 minutes, with 90 minutes of wake time in between. Lately she's been taking a long morning nap of 2 to 3 hours. I think that's because I've been laying down with her for that one, so when she starts to wake up, I soothe her back to sleep--I need a long nap, as I'm getting up between 5 and 5:30 every morning so I can pump, shower, try to get breakfast, and maybe get some laundry started before she gets up.

Speaking of pumping, I haven't shared the whole saga here yet. I had intended to breast feed Alexa, but that hasn't worked out. She was unable to take anything by mouth for the first two days, and after that, she had a hard time latching. Combine that with the fact that I wasn't producing enough milk in a day to get her through one meal, and well, formula supplementation via bottle was necessary. She never took to the breast, despite my best efforts and assistance from a lactation consultant. So we invested in a good pump, which I use regularly. Lately I've been able to produce enough milk that we only give her one 8-ounce bottle of formula a day. The rest of what she eats is milk. I'm not sure how long we can keep it up, but we're going to keep going with that as long as possible. Breast milk provides the best nutrition for her, so I'm committed to pumping until I can't produce milk anymore or until her first birthday, if I make it that long.

We're fully on cloth diapers now. I had purchased some used BumGenius 3.0's before Alexa was born. When I tried to switch from disposable to cloth diapers a month or so after her birth, I discovered that the BGs were too big in the legs. So we used prefolds and covers instead. We're still using those during the day. We were using disposables at night until shortly after we returned here, but we decided to bite the bullet and see how well cloth worked at night. We realized that the BGs didn't fit in the legs because the elastic was shot, but we found two that still had decent elastic, and we used one of them with a doubler overnight. It worked wonderfully! No leaks and, thanks to the stay-dry layer, Alexa felt dry the next morning. We've used them every night since then (other than a couple times when we needed to use diaper rash cream). We bought a couple of new BGs on sale and LOVE them. They're too expensive to justify buying for all-the-time use, though. So we'll keep going with prefolds and covers during the day and the BGs at night, at least unless/until we find someone who is able to replace the elastic on our used BGs. It almost makes me wish I knew how to sew ... but I do NOT have time right now to learn a new skill.

And now Alexa is awake, so if I forgot anything, it'll have to wait until next time.

Just in case the next time isn't for a while, let me just say to you all:

Merry Christmas!!

On Our Own

I started a post titled "The First Week" almost one week after Jeff returned to Egypt on 2 August. I haven't had time to finish it. Or, more accurately, on the few occasions when I've had uninterrupted time to finish it, I was so tired I couldn't think well enough. That post is a bit out of date now, to say the least. But the main point of it still stands: Jeff had to go back to Egypt so that he could work, and we had to stay here in order to get all of the required paperwork--medical clearances and Alexa's passport and visa. For almost two months now, it's been me, Alexa, and a good bit of help from my mom. As much help as my mom has been, though, it isn't the same. I have a newfound respect for single parents. I've been gradually adjusting to the things I've needed to do, but at first, I was completely overwhelmed.

The day that Jeff left, I readied myself and Alexa for bed. Then I just sat on the bed and held her while I cried. I missed Jeff already, and it wasn't just because I wanted to be with my husband. I also was looking forward to the night ahead of me--a night of waking up every two hours, trying to nurse Alexa, bottle feeding her when she refused the breast, trying to get her back to sleep, then pumping so that there would be some milk available to mix with the requisite formula (I couldn't pump enough) for her next feeding, then cleaning the pump kit, and finally going back to sleep. Based on how long it had been taking Jeff and me to do each task when they were shared (Jeff feeding her while I pumped, for example), I estimated that I would be up for 75 to 90 minutes each time Alexa woke up. So I could expect to sleep in 30 to 45 minute increments. I was already exhausted and overwhelmed, and I hadn't even started yet.

That night went even worse than I expected. I forget all the details now, but I remember clearly that at 3am, I had gotten less than an hour of sleep. I was rocking Alexa, trying to get her to go back to sleep, when I realized that she needed a diaper change. As I got up from the glider, it rebounded back and hit the wall--hard. My mom's room is right below mine, and the crack of wood on wall woke her up. While I was changing Alexa's diaper, she came in. There I was: standing over the changing table, crying so hard from exhaustion and stress that I couldn't even see what I was doing, trying to change the diaper of a baby who had absorbed my tension and was screaming as loudly as I wanted to be. Mom deftly shooed me out of the way, changed the diaper, and sent me to bed while she stayed up the rest of the night with the baby.

Things have gotten better since that first night. First I realized that Alexa was content to fall asleep in my arms while I pumped, if I just got her calm enough not to squirm too much first (Jeff had rigged a way for me to pump hands-free, which has been a lifesaver!). Then when she got big enough to rub up against the pump supplies and be uncomfortable, she was okay lying in my lap. When that became too precarious, I realized that if I got up when she first started squirming, rather than waiting for all-out hunger, she would take the bottle and then fall back asleep without requiring a lot of soothing after. And at some point, I decided that it just wasn't worth it to keep spending the time--and allowing her frustration and hunger levels to climb--while I tried to nurse her. We just started skipping straight to the bottle. Now, instead of 75 to 90 minutes per waking, it's more like 45 to 75. And she's sleeping longer, usually eating on a 3-1/2 hour schedule at night. I average 2-1/2 hours of sleep at a time now during the week. On weekends, Alexa goes downstairs to spend the night with her Grandma Linda, and her mama gets up at most every 4 hours to pump.

Things have gotten easier during the day, too. I still rarely shower before Mom comes home for lunch at 1, unless I get up early to shower at 7 while she's still here to take care of Alexa. Yesterday was only the second day that I've showered while home alone with Alexa without being summoned from the bathroom by her cries--and I did it twice yesterday: my usual morning shower and then another one last night because I'd gotten sweaty at my niece's soccer practice. Very proud of myself for that, even though I didn't get to dry my hair last night because Alexa got hungry.

I still don't accomplish much in a typical day. I spend most of my time feeding Lexa, pumping, changing diapers, and just holding her--she hates being put down. The bouncy chair is my best daytime friend; it's where Lexa was until just a few minutes ago and therefore why I was able to start this post. And for the last few weeks, Lexa has spent all day on Wednesday with her Aunt Jeanne and her cousin Harry. That's allowed me to do some shopping, cleaning, and packing that I would not have been able to do otherwise. I'm trying to get ready for our return to Egypt, which isn't too far away now.

Lexa and I are making it on our own. Or as "on our own" as we are, with the help we receive from Lexa's nearby grandparents, aunts, and uncles. But there's a wonderful day coming soon, when Grandma will drive baby Alexa and her mama to the airport to pick up Daddy. A few busy days later, she'll drive us all back to the airport, and the three of us, rather than the two of us, will be on our own. Lexa and I will have fewer relatives around to provide childcare, cuddles, and general help, but we'll be with the one person we need most.

We miss you, Jeff, and we can't wait to be reunited with you.