the night of significant disappointment or perhaps too high of expectations

Written at 2:30 am after returning from an extremely disappointing night- the night Mubarak did NOT step down.

The past few mornings I have visited Tahrir Sq, mostly to deliver food and basic supplies to medical and volunteer staff. It’s a truly amazing mini-city that they have built. A barber shop, medical clinics w/ free services/supplies, tent city w/ a day care tent, free cell phone charge center, stages w/ speakers and entertainment, media centers that display all the daily newspapers, etc. It’s one of the first times in the 1.5 years that I've been here that I haven't been harassed on the streets but instead actually interacted with Egyptian citizens from all walks of life.

Tonight around 7:15 pm I was returning to my house w/ my friend. Curfew was to start in 45 min and he got a call that Mubarak was in Dubai! We quickly turned on the radio, called our key contacts and consumed the rumor that Mubarak was to speak and perhaps even step down. I ran inside and changed my clothes (good running shoes and a scarf in case of tear gas) and dropped everything but my passport and camera. Within 3 min, two more friends had joined and we headed to Tahrir to participate in what we expected to be a historical night.

The energy was intense. As we passed through each security check pt (one must show id and get searched by civilians four times in order to enter the square) they asked us basic questions and rushed us through with an excited welcome. Flags were waving. Music from the 1973 victory over Israel played over loud speakers. Small groups of drummers danced and chanted.

A large "screen" suspended to a building projected Mubarak's speech a few hours later. The insufficiently large speakers turned up way too loud distorted the sound beyond comprehension (not that I can understand that much Arabic anyway!) The entire square w/ 1000s, perhaps millions of people, went silent. Egyptians are rarely silent and it was a tense and eery feeling. (The kind of feeling that makes you feel you have to pee, when you really don’t have to.) Cell phones and radios delivered the speech though his voice still projected over the square.

At certain points, small groups would start to chant in frustration. They were quickly squelched. And as he finalized his speech, curse words were quickly covered by angry chants. Silence errupted.

I was with five well connected guys who quickly got calls telling us to get out. A mob like feeling consumed the Square. As we quickly fled the square, I passed a women who just sat on the curb screaming. Her screaming frustrations quickly became mixed with body-shaking sobs. I cannot imagine her frustrations- her disappointment. We passed growing chants-- march to the Palace tonite! "Leave" mubarak. etc. Eventually we ran to beat the protesting crowds to the bottleneck exits and to get to the bridge before they over took our way home. We made it safely.

I haven't been personally involved since the beginning however anybody could have felt the 180 in emotions tonight. As we made our journey through the desert backroads one friend's lips were sealed with anger, another one basically said, "f*** it, he'll kill us all before he leaves." I sat and tried to analyze, of course we shouldn't believe he would leave so easily. Only 17 days to topple a military dictator after 30 years? We were foolish to believe it. The scariest thing to think about isthat Mubarak really has nothing to lose but his pride-- and that will not be taken easily. He's worth approximately $70Bil USD, cannot relate to Egyptian people and has basically done anything he (and the US) wanted for the past 30yrs...it's starting to look ugly. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. Most likely it will involve a lot of blood...