Greetings from Cairo!
We have made it here safe and sound; but not without a few kinks on the way. Our flight was delayed and we ended up waiting in Amman airport for over 10 hours and arriving in Cairo a half a day later than expected. It took us some time to figure out our internet situation, but thankfully we now have a USB modem which we will just refill with Vodafone whenever we need more online airtime.
It’s been 2 days since I checked my email and I logged into my email today and found over 80 emails…kind of overwhelming but doable, lol 🙂
International citizens from around the world have already begun arriving in Cairo and we are so excited for this first of many steps that will take place for this coming week.
There have been A LOT of new developments for our trip; everything still points to Egypt boldly and blatantly targeting us and completely banning us from entering Gaza. They have even gone as far as revoking our license for the orientation meeting we were to have tomorrow night (Sun.) at a school campus in Ramses Square. We are still told to show up to the location tomorrow night at 7pm, but if there is no word by 7:30pm, we will meet at another location at 8pm.
There will be a briefing meeting tomorrow morning where I will get more information and share with you here 🙂 But other activities that are planned include:
- Tying flowers and names (of all those who died during the assault) to the wrungs on the October 6th bridge.
- Take felucca boat ride on Nile River where we will place 1,400 lit candles into mini-feluccas/baskets and float them down the river to commemmorate the lives of the 1,400 dead during the assault.
- On Monday morning, Hedy Epstein (a marcher who is also a holocaust survivor) will begin a hunger strike to demand that Egypt opens it’s borders and allow us into the Gaza strip to continue with our plans.
- Later in the day, we will converge at a location downtown for a rally and protest to Egypt’s decision to ban us from entering Gaza. We understand this is a risk (since any assembly larger than 6 people is illegal without a permit), but we are sticking to our plans and demanding that our voices be heard.)
- Updates on further actions and activities to take place throughout the rest of the week will be coming in daily and as I receive them, I will post as much info here as I can (without sabotaging our efforts).
Very courageous of all the marchers to be going through all this trouble because of Egypt’s “loyalty” to Israel, and I, amongst many others, commend all of you for your bravery!
I especially want to comment on Hedy Epstein’s approach – going Gandhi on them, eh? I love it. Hopefully the Egyptian government will care enough (at least about Egypt’s image) to make a change of plans.
May Allah bless you.
Way to go marchers!!!!! We are very proud of your dedication to this cause, may God bless you and keep you always safe.