Blazing trucks and a closed-down campus keep students at the beach

One month into my study abroad, I should know better than to think that any trip in Egypt will go according to plan.

This past Friday, most of the international students embarked on a trip through the school to Ain Sokhna, a resort town on the Red Sea coast near Sinai.

It sounded fun and was free, so I decided to go. I thought it would be a good chance to get away from the city.

The first few days went surprisingly well. We spent Friday on a beautiful beach surrounded by desert mountains.

The seawater was so clear we could see the ocean floor, and we could see the Sinai coast across the water.

On Saturday, we went to St. Anthony’s Monastery, the oldest monastery in the world.
We hiked to a mountain behind it, in the middle of the desert.

We loaded our buses that night and prepared to make the two-hour trek home.

At the same time, what we believe was a petrol truck exploded on the one road we needed to get home.

Perhaps the driver finished a cigarette and threw the butt out the window, or a passerby discarded his or her cigarette. Despite an iron tank, this somehow managed to set the petrol on fire.

As one of our Egyptian orientation leaders said, “Welcome to Egypt.”

Traffic was shut down in both directions and we were forced to sit in traffic for hours.

Eventually, our leaders made the call that we would spend another night at the hotel and leave in the morning.

Of course, we couldn’t simply turn around and drive back. Traffic was gridlocked.

We had to walk about a kilometer, or 0.62 miles, at night in one of the more dangerous parts of Egypt.

An armed security guard escorted us. We had to walk in three lines — girls in the middle with guys on either side.

It went smoothly and nothing of much interest happened, aside from jokes and stares from the Egyptians watching this parade.

The next day, we set off again for Cairo.

The two-hour trip took about four hours. When we arrived, we all had received an email from American University.

The email said classes on campus were shut down indefinitely due to student protests.

The students have reached an impasse with the administration, and security is refusing to back the administration because the students supported a security strike last year.

You’d think they’d call in the police. They can’t — the police are at odds with the university’s private security.

It’s the administration versus everyone else.

In an attempt to stop the students from locking the gates, American University President Lisa Anderson had all of the gates removed. There’s a bit of irony to that.

The prim and put-together Anderson was forced to climb and hop the same gates last week in order to meet with administrators.

I would have paid money to witness that.

When some students discovered the missing gates, they bought new ones, had them installed and proceeded to lock those.

The students who can’t afford a 7-percent tuition increase somehow found a way to afford new gates for the school.

Welcome to Egypt, indeed.

The most shocking thing to me is how this no longer shocks the rest of us. Students protesting, armed escorts — it’s our new normal. It takes a lot to faze us now, and we’re only one month in.

That being said, Egypt usually finds a way to get a rise out of us.

Even if it takes a blazing truck.

­—  hannsmit@indiana.edu