Note to governments worldwide: if you want to freak out every expat living within your borders, turn off all mobile phone networks and cut off all Internet access. Hey, it worked in Egypt and it could for you too.
I never knew how much I relied on these two relatively insignificant things to keep me *plugged in* to the rest of the world.
Friday morning we woke up to a very normal feeling day. Everyone knew that protests were being scheduled after Friday prayers (which ends around 1:00PM Cairo time). Usually we’re up earlier and off to the international church around 9:30AM but I forgot to set my alarm so we got up a bit later and went out for breakfast.
Cairo is always a quiet city early on a Friday morning and this Friday was no different. The streets are mostly empty (as in fewer cars that don’t have to stop because of traffic, we’re still talking about a mega-city of approximately 20 million people here). —