Settling Into a New Cairo Norm

Egypt has taken a back seat to many other protests and governmental crises throughout North Africa and the Middle East. In particular the limited news coming out of Tripoli makes me extremely glad that we were in Egypt for this whole thing. I think we all decided to evacuate because we were concerned that the tragedies that are unfolding in Tripoli could have happened here if President Mubarak decided to hold on to power harder. But families were able to evac via plane in relative smoothness. (Getting 2300 people out on a dozen or so chartered jets in 36 hours will never be smooth, but I think Meg will agree it was reasonable.)

Tripoli has a much smaller population of Americans to evacuate, but the number of foreigners there (Egyptians have a HUGE expat population that are fleeing), the limited resources that were already there and are now further complicated have made it harder to get out. (The first efforts to get people onto commercial flights didn't work.) Now, toss in weather and the people staged and ready to get onto a ferry to cross the Mediterranean are told they can't leave because of the 5m swells. All this while the violence continues to escalate. I'm not entirely sure how bad the news in Egypt sounded to the external world, but from my external location in Egypt it sounds like Tripoli is already in a significantly worse condition with a dictator who is borderline (?) insane.

3 weeks ago I would have had a hard time saying it, but we should all count our blessings that we were in Egypt and not someplace else while these historical events unfolded in North Africa.

Here in Egypt, we are settling into what I'm calling the "New Cairo Norm". (Telemark lovers will catch the reference. :) ) Things are not stable here, but they are calmer. There were reports on NPR yesterday about a fire at a Ministry of Interior building, and there are labor protests that seem to be sporadic and widespread. There are still regular calls for protests in Tahrir square, during the week they remain small, but on the weekends they seem to spike. Generally they are very peaceful and very calm. Maybe they'll be tolerated, maybe the government will eventually get tired of them and say their negative impact on Egyptian tourism needs to end. Time will tell.

The Egyptian economy and its tie to security continues to be a concern for me. Banks are back to work now after about a week of protests. (This is a pretty big issue if people can't get money to pay for food or employees.) The Egyptian stock market has been closed for the last month and won't reopen fearing money laundering of blacklisted foreign ministers. This is probably the truth, but it has the convenient side effect of keeping the exchange rate fixed during this crisis. As soon as it reopens what happens? Since they've cleared a good chunk of the unsettled times and Egypt is now off the front page, maybe they won't see the value plummet as bad, but inflation could still be a problem lurking in the future. Couple in the widespread unrest throughout the region and the worldwide economic crisis that has just started to recover and I wonder how much foreign aid will come into the region. If it does come in, from whom? China? Iran? Ultimately, the real economic impact will not be felt for quite some time.

But personally, we are settling in for the long haul. We are now on a 5 days / week work schedule and hours have returned to a more normal number. This is largely enforced by the restrictive transportation issues -- I'm only allowed to go to/from work via an Embassy van, of which there is only one departure time in the morning and 2 in the evening (an 8 hour day or a 10 ish hour day.) Neighborhood security seems to be reasonable, but our policy is that we're not supposed to be moving after dark. If you consider when I get home from work, that ultimately means I'm either stuck at home or stuck at work other than on days off. Finally, the curfew (midnight - 6am) is keeping the Golds Gym from opening until 7:30am. (Have to wait for employees to get the place ready.)

I've started taking Thursdays off as part of my weekend so I can run with some teachers in the desert. It is also a day I can hit the gym and do a double session. On days when the van permits it, I've started running before I go to work which is a nice change. I'm going to try to make a bigger effort in waking up early and getting on the bike trainer before I go to work. Hopefully as things get more stable, the movement policies will become less restrictive and I'll be able to get some more outdoors time. At the moment, I feel like I got to the gym and outdoors more in my time in Baghdad, but I'm working on fixing that.

One day at a time. Things will get better and I'll be that closer to Meg's eventual return.