At 11 a.m. on Jan. 31, Elizabeth Houbeck waited in the lobby of her dormitory at the American University in Cairo. Outside, a car waited to escort her and one other student to the Cairo airport, where they would be evacuated to Athens, Greece. Inside, the director of the AUC dorms still had not received confirmation of Elizabeth's itinerary and hesitated to let her join the driver.
Elizabeth called her father, Bob Houbeck, director of the UM-Flint library, to let him know of her logistical troubles. This prompted a 3:30 a.m. phone call to UM-Ann Arbor Assistant Dean for International Education John Godfrey.
"He responded immediately and called back a few hours later to let me know that he had handled the situation," Bob said.
This was the beginning of the UM-Flint Spanish major's, evacuationfrom Cairo, Egypt. According to Rick Fitzgerald, a spokesman with the UM-Ann Arbor Office of Public Affairs, Elizabeth was one of six U-M study abroad students who were evacuated from Egypt on Mon., Jan. 31 due to the coordinated efforts of UM-Ann Arbor and UM-Flint.
For Elizabeth, that Monday morning was the end of a very nerve-wracking week and the beginning of a carefully planned evacuation.
After Godfrey sorted out the problems with her driver, Elizabeth arrived to the Cairo Airport and boarded the private flight that UM-Ann Arbor had arranged with insurance carriers. She waited while the organizers of the flight negotiated with the Egyptian Air Force, asking for permission to leave past the 3 p.m. curfew.
Around 4:30 p.m., Elizabeth's flight was finally able to leave Cairo for Athens, Greece. Elizabeth was not able to return to Detroit until Thursday. Feb. 3 because of inclement weather.
"The degree of personal attention to the plight of these students by UM-Ann Arbor and Flint was very remarkable," Bob said. "Students and parents should feel confident of the university's willingness and ability to take care of their students who are abroad."
According to Fitzgerald, U-M has a policy that prohibits undergraduates from studying abroad in countries with a travel warning in place. On Sunday, Jan. 30, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for Egypt. Upon receiving word of the State Department's travel warning, the students' programs were cancelled for the semester and the university began to organize their evacuation.
"Our understanding is that all of the U-M students were safe at all times and not directly involved or near any of the protests," Fitzgerald said via e-mail. "For the most part, students remained on the campus of either American University in Cairo or Alexandria University in Alexandria, which were secure at all times."
While Elizabeth was relatively sheltered from the situation in Cairo, she happened to drive through protests on Thursday, Jan. 27 when her group was returning to the AUC campus.
Despite this experience, Elizabeth said that students at the AUC felt relatively safe because they were not allowed to leave their dorm. Students were able to gauge the severity of the situation in Cairo by watching Al-Jazeera and CNN from inside their dorm building.
Even as the Egyptian government began to shut down access to Facebook and the entire Internet and cell phone systems on Friday, Jan. 28, students held out hope that the situation in Cairo would improve.
"Everybody thought it was just going to go away," Elizabeth said.
After Elizabeth received her departure information from UM-Ann Arbor on Sunday, she knew something had changed.
"When I went to bed that night, I saw that the doors were barricaded and our guards had started wearing weapons," Elizabeth said.
While Elizabeth is thankful to be out of the country, she is still concerned about the Egyptian people. Elizabeth described a billboard on the side of the expressway in Egypt that said "I am an Egyptian against terrorism." And below those words, was the symbol of the Christian cross and the Muslim crescent overlapping each other.
"I do think that the people really want democracy," Elizabeth said. "I got the feeling that the people were more united as Egyptians, rather than Muslims or Christians."
According to Fitzgerald, UM cooperated with HTH, a travel insurance carrier, which arranged flights with different charter airlines, in order to evacuate the students. The university was able to get into contact with UM students because of the information they entered in the UM Travel Registry. One UM student decided to stay in Cairo because that student has family in the area, Fitzgerald said.
"It is reassuring that the UM family really takes care of their students," Bob said. "There were no distinctions between the safety of Flint and Ann Arbor students."
Elizabeth hopes to return to Cairo in the future, but in the meantime, she is registering for winter classes at UM-Flint and planning for another study abroad trip to Salamanca, Spain this summer.