Egypt Update #6: More from Middkids here and Profs in Alexandria

Like MiddBlog’s Egypt coverage so far, this post will focus mainly on Middlebury’s ties to what’s going on.  For other info, look to The Lede, the BBC, etc.

The College Administration’s involvement in getting students out of Egypt was interesting (see here & pp. 3-4 here). But the story didn’t end when the plane took off.

A recent drawing by Wessam El-Maligi, an Egyptian professor (via Tik Root). Part of El-Maligi's caption: “Just like in pre-school, we are connecting the dots to form a challenging word, ... knowing there are many different letters and shapes to follow.”

In our last Egypt post, we mentioned Tik Root ’12, who was recently evacuated with the rest of the students on Middlebury’s Alexandria program. He’s been maintaining an email thread among contacts on both sides of the Atlantic, in the interest of keeping people informed and mobilizing support for the protesters. As his first email (from Friday) said:

Now that reporters are being targeted in Egypt, we are going to try to get as much information as we can from the front lines. [We're keeping] a running list of Egyptians who can be contacted on the ground (we confirmed with them personally).

On Saturday afternoon, Root, along with Otis Pitney ’12, interviewed Dr. Nehad Heliel (director of Middlebury’s Middle East program) and Dr. Ashraf Mansour (one of the program’s professors). The conversation between the two students in the US and the two professors in Alexandria has been transcribed and made available as a public Google Doc.  It’s definitely worth a read.

Today, Root published a second Google Doc full of quotes, stories and conversations from Friday up until yesterday, collected from students, professors and other acquaintances involved in the protests. We haven’t gotten all the way through this one, but it’s very interesting so far, and it showcases varied voices and opinions.

It’s astounding that we (and by “we” I mean people with computers) are able to get so close to the ground.  Even if you’re not sure how you feel about the protests, it’s impressive that we can learn about them so quickly and so thoroughly. Not every protest gets this kind of press. Something revolutionary may really be happening here.