Dispatch from Cairo: The biggest joke

Zayne Amer, a graduate of Central Bucks High School and Temple University, participated in the protests in Cairo demanding the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. On Jan. 28, as she marched with a group on the way to Tahrir Square, she was struck by rubber bullets and breathed tear gas meant to disrupt the demonstrations. Amer, 26, is a dual citizen of the United States and Egypt. She works at the American University in Cairo. What follows is her account of what she saw as the Mubarak regime collapsed and the jubilation in the aftermath.

The Biggest Joke

I will always remember where I was on Thursday, February 10, 2011.

That day, rumors flew across Twitter, Facebook, the news and phones. The government announced Mubarak would speak live at 10 p.m. Then, Al Arabiya news reported what Mubarak would say in his speech: He was stepping down. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. If he was supposed to speak live, how did the news know? Never in Egyptian history had a presidential speech been leaked.

At 10:01, Twitter started chirping with #ReasonsMubarakIsLate*. My personal contribution (and obviously my favorite) was "Mubarak is prepping Suliman on #thenext30years." Though we were all tense, and had our doubts about what would happen, the atmosphere throughout Cairo was one of supressed excitement and celebration.

When Mubarak finally appeared, even the traffic stopped. We all waited with bated breath as he proceeded to tell the Egyptian people and the international community that he would not resign as President of Egypt. He would continue until September when elections would be held.

Tears of frustration started pouring from my eyes as a string of expletives started pouring out of my mouth. I was shocked and, most of all, angry. How could this 82-year-old despot not see that he was killing the country? I couldn't believe that someone could be so utterly selfish.

His speech continued. It was filled with rhetoric and covered with more "I's" than a potato. How could he talk about the people who had died? What right did he have? He set the police and thugs on the peaceful protesters! He outlined his plans the next six months. People stopped listening. Friends called from Tahrir Square to tell me the crowd had immediately started shouting anti-regime slogans and "irhal," literally meaning "leave." Everyone I knew was boiling over.

Not long after Mubarak's speech, VP Omar Suliman made a speech. He said things would change and that the foreign media should not be trusted. I couldn't take anymore. I had been crying for hours. I turned off the news and went to bed.

When I woke up, I did not watch the news. I needed a day off from the roller coaster I had been riding for the past 17 days. I checked Twitter and Facebook (where I received messages from all over the world with condolences, as if someone had died). I went out and had a coffee in a cafe and ended up at a friend's house. All day, my fingers were itching for a remote as much as my feet were itching to go to Tahrir. At my friend's house, we decided to check the news. What we heard we had not expected. Mubarak had resigned. Not only that, but he had transferred power to the military High Council, not Omar Suliman.

When I heard the announcement, tears of pure happiness started pouring from my eyes as a stream of surprised expletives started pouring out of my mouth. I couldn't believe it. In 18 days, the citizens of Egypt, including myself, had stood up to a dictatorial regime, stayed strong though various attacks and taken down a dictator.

Immediately the streets exploded with noise. Cars honking their horns, women trilling, people yelling and cheering. My phone rang off the hook with congratulations. I left my friend's house about five minutes after Suliman presented Mubarak's announcement and headed for Tahrir. The streets were already jammed with people. Flags waved, people posed for pictures with the army, everyone was congratulating everyone else through the car windows. I started crying again. I had never seen my fellow Egyptians so happy.

Midan El Tahrir (Liberation Square)

It took an hour to get to Midan El Tahrir because of the traffic. In the square people were already in full party mode. Hugs were being dished out like candy. Vuvezelas, leftover from the World Cup, could be heard everywhere. Flag sellers were making a mint and Egyptian pride was as high as the sky.

After making my rounds, celebrating, cheering and waving my flag I went home. Saturday was going to be a big day- we, the people of Egypt, had decided that we were going to clean up the streets after three weeks of no municipal services.

When I got to Tahrir Saturday morning, it was already clean. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Egyptians had come out to clean up their country. Children were repainting sidewalks, young adults were painting over graffiti and putting murals in its place, everyone had a broom, gloves, masks and garbage bags and proceeded to clean downtown Cairo. It was the same in other areas of the city.

People were focusing on the streets, so we looked for something else to clean. A man, I didn't know his name, was obviously trying to clean out his passport photo shop that had been trashed during the past three weeks. We swooped in. He cried as we filled the garbage bags with his life and then he thanked us all for helping him. We scoured the streets for other wrecked small businesses. Each time we saw one, we helped. Between shops, we picked up trash from streets that had been missed by the other volunteers.

Cairo has some of the worst pollution in the world. It is usually strewn with garbage. But at the end of the day, it was a city that I didn't recognize.

I saw prisoners escaping from prison, but I never saw them turn themselves back in; I saw people stealing, but I never saw any one returning what they stole; I saw sectarianism among the Muslims and Christians, but I never saw Muslims protecting a church, or Christians protecting Muslims while they pray; I saw some people killing each other in front of the police or government, but I never saw people protecting each other in the absence of government or police; I've seen people throw trash in the street, but I've never seen them clean up a whole city on their own will. I've now seen all of this in Egypt. Egypt has changed and will continue to change. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Here's to a better Egypt and a better world.