The apartment's doorman assembled Molotov cocktails. The neighboring locals began arming themselves with golf clubs and shotguns. University of Cincinnati student David Watkins realized that his study abroad trip to Egypt had taken a terrifying and historic turn.
When he heard gunshots outside his building at 2 a.m. and impromptu broadcasts over the street speakers calling for Egyptians to protect their honor and their families, Watkins, 21, realized he would have to leave the country. It was no longer safe.
Watkins realized he probably owes his life to the Egyptian neighbors who promised to protect him and his roommates through a night of looting and prison breakouts.
"We literally had to rely on ourselves and the random Egyptian men who were protecting us," Watkins says. "The experience we went through bonded us beyond knowing each others' names."
Click here to view a photo slideshow covering David's experience.
This was nothing like the five-month trip Watkins spent a year planning. As a fourth-year international affairs and political science student, Watkins studied Arabic for two years before seeking assistance from UC's International Programs and getting accepted into Butler University's Institute for Study Abroad program.
Watkins planned to participate in an intensive Arabic language program at Alexandria University from January through May. He sublet his Cincinnati apartment, applied for scholarships, packed his bags and took off for Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 20. But when he arrived at the airport, he was met with his first difficulty: tracking down his Egyptian resident director.
"I had a picture of my resident director and [was] looking at all these Arab guys and going, 'Uh, where's Dr. Muhammad?' " Watkins said. "Muhammad's a pretty common name."
A man kindly approached Watkins and asked if he had a phone number for Muhammad, then used his cell phone to contact the resident director, who was in a different terminal. The helpfulness and hospitality was common among the Egyptian people, Watkins said.
He spent his first few days in Cairo Watkins spent the next few days sightseeing in Cairo with 11 other students in the Butler University program. When protests began Tuesday, Jan. 25 in response to a national holiday honoring the police force, Watkins didn't think much of it.
"We understood the Egyptian police forces are notoriously brutal and typically crushed any type of democratic demonstration," Watkins said. "Even my Egyptian resident directors — while they supported the protestors, they didn't expect them to go very far."
Demonstrations continued for the next two days. Watkins and his group left Cairo for Alexandria Jan. 27. He and three other students were staying in an apartment in Kafr Abdou, one of the nicer neighborhoods in Alexandria.
"It was the best apartment ever," Watkins said. "Marble countertops, hardwood floors. We had a pool table. I had a queen bed. I don't even have a queen bed [at home]."
While Watkins and his roommates unpacked, protests continued in Cairo and Alexandria. Soon, services like Facebook and Twitter became unavailable. Then, without notice, Internet service was disrupted.
But Watkins was able to use his cell phone to communicate on Twitter. When phone lines were disrupted early Friday, Jan. 28, Twitter became his only means of communication with the outside world.
"Maybe that's why I was able to cope so well with the danger and the pressure that was all around us," Watkins said. "As expensive as it is to Tweet on an American SIM card in a foreign country, I almost needed it, because it was a way to tell people what was going on."
And, quickly, what was "going on" became increasingly dangerous. After the Internet and phone lines were cut off, the protests took a more extreme turn. During the Friday call to prayer, thousands of people arrived at a mosque in Alexandria and those who couldn't get inside lined the streets.
"All the phones were down, and that did create a backlash," Watkins said. "A lot of people who weren't necessarily involved in the protests, when you turn off their cell phones, that gets them pretty angry."
The Egyptian military was deployed to protect Cairo, Suez and Alexandria, according to Al Jazeera. At that point, Watkins started to realize that what was happening wasn't just a protest.
"Before, there wasn't necessarily an expectation that the revolution was going to happen," Watkins said. "And then Friday came … it just snowballed from there. We knew something historical was happening."
Watkins and his three roommates wandered the streets of Kafr Abdou and the surrounding neighborhoods. What they saw was a country on the brink of revolution.
"There was black smoke coming from the city because every police station was being torched," Watkins said. Police officers with canisters of tear gas forced Watkins and his roommates to return to their apartment shortly after the military imposed a 6 p.m. curfew. "The tear gas was just horrible," Watkins recalled. "It was just like a cloud of tear gas over the city."
By the next morning, the police had disappeared.
"It was almost like President [Hosni] Mubarak saying, 'OK, you don't want me? Here's what life is like without me,' " Watkins said. "And the Egyptians were like, 'OK, fine, we'll just do [the police officers'] job.' "
The phone-booth-like posts where police officers sat to direct traffic had their glass windows broken in and were now occupied by civilians.
"There were ordinary Egyptians just out in the streets directing traffic. Guys in business suits — you knew that wasn't what they got up in the morning to do," Watkins said. "It was a lot of human pride there."
Later Saturday, Jan. 29, Watkins heard reports from Al Jazeera that more than 4,000 prisoners had been let loose in Alexandria due to a combination of prison riots and a lack of police officers. The military imposed a 4 p.m. curfew but, without police, was struggling to secure the city.
That night, all hell broke loose.
"The guys in our neighborhood started arming themselves," Watkins said. "Baseball bats, two-by-fours. They're like, 'We're going to protect you. Don't worry, just stay in your apartment.' "
Suddenly, Watkins was thrust into a world of video-game surrealism. The clusters of "bad guys" — looters, prisoners, secret police — roamed the streets, stalking their prey. Watkins didn't know whether the gunfire outside his apartment came from the enemy or the neighbors holding them back. The apartment's doorman enlisted the students to barricade the stairwell as he prepared Molotov cocktails — glass bottles filled with flammable liquid to be set on fire and hurled at a target — to brandish against anyone trying to break into the apartment.
"It was just four American students who had never been to Egypt before, who didn't know the language, trying to fend for themselves as anarchy broke loose," Watkins said. "We couldn't call 9-1-1 and say, 'Oh my gosh, come help us. There were no police. It really hit home that we were isolated."
Throughout the night, Watkins and his roommates watched brawls and fire fights from their second-floor balcony. They packed emergency bags and gathered mattresses, tables and potted plants to barricade their front door. The phone service had been somewhat restore, and Watkins managed to reach his parents and tell them that things were escalating.
"That night crossed a line from interesting and amazing to extremely frightening," Watkins said.
But Watkins couldn't help notice that his country's role in the revolution was nowhere near what most would expect of the land of the free and home of the brave. The tear gas canisters that clouded the city had "Made in the U.S.A." printed in bold letters on the sides, while the tanks rolling around down were given by the United States to allies.
"Most everyone made the distinction between our government and us," Watkins said. "But at the same time, they had to ask us, 'Why? Why isn't your government supporting us? You're the homeland of democracy. Why wouldn't you want us to have elections, too?' "
The next morning, Watkins and his American roommates received word that they would be leaving and had just 10 minutes to pack. As they left the apartment, they met the men who had spent the night guarding them.
"I think it hit us at the same time it hit them that things were going downhill," Watkins said. "We were leaving. They had protected us all night, but we still had to leave. They were visibly upset; they were crying because we were leaving." The cluster of strangers had become so connected in that short night that even without knowing each others' names, the separation was painful.
Watkins, his roommates and the other students left Kafr Abdou in an over-crowded mini bus, which headed toward the Borg Al-Arab airport. Along the way, the bus was stopped at several military checkpoints, which was unnerving in itself for Watkins.
"[The officers] step out in front of your van, and one of them puts his arm up and the other puts his AK-47 up," Watkins said. "Some of them were sitting there, directing traffic with their handgun."
Next to the checkpoint, the students saw a mall with whitewashed, barricaded windows and a parking lot full of tanks. The curfew was 3 p.m. that Sunday.
The following three days, Watkins, the other students and the Butler University resident director holed up on the second floor of the airport, joined by students from Middlebury College in Vermont and surrounded by security guards armed with assault rifles. They were scheduled to fly out of Egypt Jan. 30, but their plane never arrived. Neither did the evacuation flight the State Department organized to take them to Athens, Greece, Jan. 31.
The students passed the time playing cheese wheel and pillow baseball, hosting dance-offs and snacking on the only food available in the terminal — Mars bars and tuna-flavored potato chips, which are "as nasty as they sound," Watkins said.
While he was waiting, Watkins continued to communicate through Twitter, commenting on the horrifying events that occurred. The Tweets were picked up by the Cincinnati Enquirer, UC students and professors and Watkins's family. People back home posted messages of support on Watkins's Facebook wall and Tweeted to his Twitter account. The outpouring of support was just what he needed.
"That Saturday night, we couldn't help but be faced with the reality that we were all alone," Watkins said. "And to be able to finally see that while we may have been physically alone, we were on the minds of so many people praying, to know that in hindsight meant a lot."
Finally, Butler University and Middlebury College enlisted the help of Global Rescues, a Boston-based company that employs former special military personnel to rescue people around the world. Within three hours, Global Rescues had a chartered Boeing 737 in Alexandria to pick up 30 students.
Watkins and other students arrived in Prague at 3 a.m. Feb. 1. The first thing Watkins did was spend two hours talking to his family on Skype, a live video chat program.
"It was emotional just thinking about returning to the U.S.," Watkins said. "There's a point where you started to question whether or not you would get that chance to see them."
The danger was over, but Watkins's wait to see his family in person would take a little longer. Snowstorms in Chicago forced Watkins to delay his return to the United States until Thursday, Feb. 3, and then four canceled flights from Chicago to Dayton further postponed his homecoming. Finally, he arrived home early Feb. 4.
Watkins had lived through riots and protesting and barricades and disconnected phone services and — let's not forget — the Molotov cocktails. But, in his view, it had all been worth it because the Egyptians who had risked so much protecting him had gained something incredibly important.
"It had everything to do with basic human rights," Watkins said. "The right to express yourself without worrying about getting beat up or tortured. The right to elect who governs you in a free and fair election."
Watkins gained something from the experience, as well. As much as he hated to leave the country without spending his five months learning Arabic, he knew his experience was life changing in a different way.
"I have a poster back in my apartment in Cincinnati that said, 'Live today like you'll die tomorrow, but dream like you'll live forever.' And in the midst of all that was going on Saturday night, that saying came up in my mind," Watkins said. "I realized I was taking tomorrow for granted and, that night, tomorrow couldn't come soon enough. And we really wondered what tomorrow would look like when it did come."
For the Egyptians, the Feb. 11 dawn brought the beginning of a new era when President Mubarak resigned. And while Watkins recognizes that this was just Egypt's first step toward democracy, he knows it was a momentous one.
"We went through something with regular Egyptians that is fairly unique in history," Watkins said. "This was something new and unheard of for them as much as it was for us."
For Watkins, Feb. 12 marked the beginning of another journey — this time, in Morocco. Several study-abroad programs around the world announced they were accepting students who were forced to leave Egypt, and he was eager for the opportunity.
"I'm more nervous about going to Morocco than I was about going to Egypt, but at the same time, I feel like this isn't my first rodeo," Watkins said. "This [wouldn't be] my first revolution, so to say."
While the night in Kafr Abdou will undoubtedly stand out as one of the most horrific, yet inspirational times of Watkins's life, he remains thankful for the Egyptians who swore to protect for American strangers.
"They didn't know who we were, and it made you think: Reverse the situation," Watkins said. "Four young Arab guys move into an apartment near you in the U.S. Would you protect them, not knowing anything about them? Would you look out for their safety?"
Watkins arrived in Rabat, Morocco Feb. 13. Inside the city, a crowd of protestors was gearing up for another fight for freedom.