Rachael Borowy, a sophomore from North Carolina, was one of six Elon students studying at the American University in Cairo when political unrest sparked violent protests a few weeks ago.
After days of uncertainty, she managed to get on an evacuation flight to Istanbul, Turkey, and is now waiting for the semester to begin at Haifa University in Israel.
Q: What was it like being in Egypt as the protests were beginning?
A: When the demonstrations were first beginning in Egypt, we felt pretty far removed from what was happening. Cairo is a huge city and at the start of the demonstrations people were gathered in very specific pockets of Cairo.
We would occasionally see people gathering and walking to protests, but we were advised against going to those parts of the city. And once the protests had begun in earnest, we had actually left Cairo with our Egyptian orientation leader and gone to a beach about an hour away (not due to the protests; we wanted to get there before classes were due to start).
There, we were closer to the protests in Suez than Cairo.
Q. How do you feel Elon handled your situation?
A. Elon, I'm sure, was worried about our safety; however, it was not Elon who contacted the American University in Cairo's New York office to find out where we were, nor was it Elon who began to research what would happen to us should we be forced to leave, nor did Elon look into what our options for study abroad (would be) if we left.
That responsibility was assumed almost solely by our parents. While Elon was sending us e-mails about legal and financial issues, e-mails we wouldn't receive until days after we had left Egypt because Internet had been shut down, our parents were contacting Haifa University in Israel to see if we would be able to transfer our enrollment.
It was only after a conference call between our parents, Elon and Haifa that everyone was on the same general page.
So while I understand Elon has legal and other administrative issues to worry about, we did get the impression that those issues may have held too much importance to Elon when, for what they knew, we could have been in the middle of riots fleeing for our lives.
Q. Did you feel safe in Egypt before? Do you feel safe in Israel now?
A. We never felt unsafe while we were in Egypt. In fact, I would have stayed on the AUC program had Elon not pulled all financial and academic support from us and I believe some of my other classmates on the trip would have as well.
Obviously there were dangers, and there is always a chance something will go wrong, but there was still a greater threat of one of us getting hit by a car while crossing the street than being in any protesting-related danger.
Our final few days in the city, we did see a lot of increased activity from both the military and civilians, including quite a few military checkpoints and large groups of people passing to walk towards demonstrations. Even then, we did not feel that we were in danger.
The day we were flown out of Cairo to Istanbul, we heard about plans to storm the Presidential Palace, and the next day we were glad that we had left when we did because there was no guarantee that school would be starting or that we would be able to leave if it didn't, but it was still not fear of being involved in violence that motivated our actions.
Now in Israel, we are totally safe. We were all a bit amused when we learned that Israel was the safer alternative, and I think our parents were a bit concerned because of the way the media portrays Israel, but so far there has been nothing at all to worry about. Where we are, in Haifa, is in the north of Israel and while there has been violence here in the past, now this city is a pretty quiet place.
Q. Why do you think the world is watching the Egypt situation so closely?
A. I think the world is watching Egypt so closely because they are seeing the effect that one nation can have on another. Egypt was not the pebble that began the ripple effect, it was the efforts in Tunisia that sparked many Egyptians' motivation for change.
Now, especially because of the Egyptian protestors' success, the world is waiting to see if Algeria or Yemen will be heading down the same path. In addition, I believe certain American news media outlets are playing on the fears of some American people