Audrey Gourlie spent just 10 days in Cairo, but racked up memories that will last a lifetime.
The 20-year-old Concord-Carlisle High School alum and Colby College student had traveled to Egypt through a study-abroad program just prior to when the riots broke out in Egypt, which forced her to follow a new path. After the initial revolts, and an urging from the American Embassy, Gourlie joined other U.S. citizens at the airport in Cairo on Feb. 1, where she waited for 13 hours for a flight out.
"We could have stayed, but there was no telling what the school semester would have been like," said Gourlie in an e-mail. "With the cancellation of school for at least a week and a half and no guarantee classes would actually start again — and no real telling what was going to happen there — we played it safe and got out."
Gourlie has found a new program in Greece, where she will spend the remainder of the semester. But she said she will remember her time in Egypt forever, and looks forward to a return visit.
What prompted you to go to Egypt and what were you hoping to learn?
I didn't have to take any classes for my major this semester so I decided to go somewhere exciting and completely different from any place I've been. Also, my professor for my Modern Middle Eastern class freshman year was a visiting professor from the American University in Cairo, and he sparked my interest in Egypt. When I found out that my cousin was also thinking of studying abroad in Egypt, we decided to both apply to the American University in Cairo (AUC). I was going to take Arabic, some classes for my art minor, and a history class, but we left before classes started.
Since the majority of the school is made up of Egyptian students, I was really hoping to make some friends from the area who could show me what the city was really all about. I didn't know too much about Egyptian culture, so I didn't have that many expectations except as to learn a new and different way of life.
Did you ever feel unsafe as an American?
I was never unsafe as an American there. I felt anxious at times, maybe scared once, but this was all the product of living in a dorm full of mostly non-Arabic speaking students who didn't know exactly what was going on.
As a blond American I definitely stuck out. All of us girls would get noticed walking around, sometimes whistled at and stared at, but nothing too harmful. All the Egyptians we met were actually very kind to us…. Nothing about the riots was ever directed at us. Most of the Egyptian friends we had begun to make were very concerned about us and kept checking in to make sure we were OK. They apologized profusely about it messing up our original plans.
We always felt safe in the dorms (our campus is 40 [minutes] from the city, but our dorms were in the city) and we were fairly confident we'd be able to stay until we heard about the prison breaks and reports of looting and vandalism. No one there likes the police force but when they stepped down (on Friday Jan. 28th I think), things started to feel less stable…. Still, we were always safe in the dorms. Like most other neighborhoods, when the police left their posts, locals came together and formed neighborhood watches to keep their shops and homes safe. Several of the Egyptian students living in our dorm even joined this new protective force.
Can you give me a picture of what you saw?
I have a picture I took from the top of our friend's apartment building. It's from Friday, Jan. 28, when things started to get bad…to see that in person is something I'll never forget. From the roof, we were able to see some pretty intense scenes from a safe distance. Buildings and cars on fire, police firing tear gas; nothing I've ever seen before.
In this picture, to the left of the square we could see police firing tear gas at the protesters who were retreating back down that center street. We saw the protesters picking up the tear gas canisters and throwing them back or [throwing them] into the fountain in the center to put them out.
We saw them gather, advance, retreat, advance again. With the call to prayer, we saw the protesters kneel down in front of the line of standing policemen to pray, and then about 15 minutes later watch them get past the police. We couldn't be sure, but it appeared the two lines were conversing for a bit and then the police just stepped away.
I cannot be certain about what really happened, but that was the most I saw of the protests.