Dawn Lukas watched a Cairo walkway in disbelief on Jan. 28 as she wandered home from her brother’s apartment, only minutes from Tahrir Square.
Burned out vehicles, overturned guard stations and strewn debris everywhere plagued the streets, she said. Fire and black smoke spewed out of windows from a building high above. A surreal traffic jam of military tanks filled the desert city, as flocks of protestors surrounding them demanded change.
Lukas made it safely to her apartment, six blocks from Tahrir Square, where she had moved in just the day before. The same day, a citywide blackout cut off Internet access and phone services for nearly everyone in Cairo.
Arrival
Lukas, an SRJC English instructor, considered the trip to Egypt after a friend of her brother mentioned a job opportunity working for Spread Your English, an organization that teaches English to Egyptian students. Apart from a spring semester of teaching an online English 1A course, her schedule looked free. She could grade papers over the net, help educate the world, and spend her time off exploring nearby pyramids and ancient tombs. Diving into the unknown, she booked a ticket one week before her flight, ready to spend the next three months in Egypt. She landed in Cairo International Airport on Jan. 24 at midnight, without the slightest notion that a national uprising was underway.
On her first day in Egypt, Lukas went to Liberation Square where small protests had begun slowly growing in size as locals from Cairo called for President Mubarak to resign immediately. “The danger level was so low I felt secure as a spectator,” Lukas said.
Lukas was taking photographs with her iPhone when a man she described as “weirdly intense” approached her. He was one of Mubarak’s henchman dressed in civilian garb.
She slid the phone into her pocket. “The police don’t want you taking pictures,” the man scowled, and walked away. Lukas reached in her pocket; the phone was gone.
“The ministry of defense stole my iPhone!” Lukas said with a hint of humor in her voice.
Suddenly, she said, “There were explosions. POW! POW! POW! It sounded like gunshots.” Then, Lukas spotted several policemen in the crowd throwing tear gas canisters. “Billows of smoke [were] coming towards us. I couldn’t see… I was crying too hard to see, holding onto my brother who was guiding me out.”
Two days later Lukas was settling into her new place when an explosion of tear gas swept through large gaps in two of the apartment windows, filling her room. Lukas said you couldn’t see the gas, but you could feel it in the room. “My eyes stung like I had sand in them.” Lukas described the taste as an acrid, metallic flavor festering at the back of her throat.
The following Saturday, when hundreds of thousands of protestors had filled the streets, Lukas took a second trip to visit her brother. Twisted metal barricades guarded by rows of armed soldiers blocked every roadway that led to her brother’s home.
There was nothing to do but go back to her apartment.
New blockades barricaded the way to her home. The guards wouldn’t let her pass. Lukas headed to the American Embassy, where she found a man, kind enough to walk her home. This time, the guards gave her entry.
Getting Out
It was Sunday. It was time to go. No one at the airport was taking calls. Lukas called her husband, Eddie Lukas, after several failed attempts to get in touch with airlines, praying a phone call from American soil might get through. It worked. While her husband worked out final arrangements to get his wife on a commercial airplane, F-16s roared just above her 11-story apartment building, circling Liberation Square. Two different worlds. “The noise was deafening,” she said.
For the last time, Lukas stepped onto the balcony to capture snapshots of a revolution in progress. Below, a large self-assembled gang of anti-Mubarak protesters protected activists from police and inciters of violence. When they saw Lukas taking photos they surrounded her building. They had wooden sticks and big kitchen knifes, and were yelling in Arabic for Lukas to put her camera away. She could hear them rattling the grate in front of her door shouting “No. No picture!” It was time to go.
Lukas packed all of her belongings in two suitcases; one with her most treasured belongings and the other, OK to leave behind.
Then, she jumped in the back of a cab early Monday morning and headed for the airport. The military forced the cab to turn back twice, resulting in a half-hour trip taking more than two and half hours.
Crowds upon crowds swarmed the airport. “I had to shove my weight through them just to get in,” Lukas said. Men dressed in uniforms from the government and military were everywhere. She could overhear talk about the pilots not coming to Cairo. Recalling those squished beside her, Lukas said, “We made instant friendships. We were like sardines being bumped on all sides—that was our joke waiting to board the flight. Everyone applauded when the plane took off. They gave us twice as much alcohol when we ordered drinks.”
Finally home
After her plane landed at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Lukas headed home to Redwood Valley for a little post-revolution relaxation and reflection on her experiences. “It makes it seem like a movie, when you have these two different realities,” she said.
“I have a whole new regard for the conveniences of American life and a disregard for the inconveniences. I was changed by being a part of this… I’m now connected to a global awareness.”
Since returning home, jogging with her dogs and shopping for groceries—things we often take for granted—have filled Lukas with a deep gratitude for life’s simpler pleasures. “The grocery store there was the size of a living room, and it was a competitive sport to get food. The grocery store here is enormous.”
Lukas plans to continue teaching her online course and hopes students on campus can just become aware of what’s going on and understand what the Egyptian people are going through. “My brother is still there, and I’m concerned.”
She hopes stories like hers can help provide awareness for Americans and support to the Egyptian people.
