CAIRO: Sitting on the metro, struggling to calm down her weeping baby, 29-year-old Nesreen Saeed was not optimistic. She complained about the continuous protests saying, “their childish acts are driving the country into chaos.” She described protesters as “irresponsible” and argued that they only protest because they are bored and have nothing better to do. She told me that protests ought to stop if “these idiots” want Egypt to ever prosper or develop. On the opposite bench, hiding under her dark niqab, sat Asmaa Ibrahim Mohamed, reading the Qur'an. The 31-year-old nurse hesitated when I asked if I could talk to her. Despite my obvious Arab features and fluent Arabic, she asked, “Are you Egyptian?” her eyes filled with distrust, stared at me amid a sea of black, then she asked if she can see my ID – which I showed her laughingly. Her eyes began to relax as she studied my ID card – and even though I couldn't see her face, I could tell from her voice that she was finally now relaxed and smiling. Asmaa, who's married with three children, is a nurse at The National Cancer Institute. “The problem is that other countries want unrest in Egypt to continue,” Asma said, and then told me a devastating story of an abandoned building and serious human rights violations. A year and half ago, the thirteen-story building in Qasr el-Aini, where cancer patients were kept and treated, had to be evacuated after the staff and patients repeatedly received warnings that the building was at the risk of collapsing. The staff and patients were then moved to Tagama'a al-Awal, to a building Asmaa described as “filthy” and “unready.” Clutching onto her Qur'an to emphasize the seriousness of the situation, she swore that patients are now lying on the floor inside this new building, urging me to go see for myself. “Where are human rights organizations? Where are the changes that we were supposed to see after Mubarak? Cancer patients are lying on the floor like animals,” she said, adding that she's very scared for Egypt with the way things are going. 27-year-old Mai Mohamed, who used to work at a sunglasses shop before January 25, had to quit her job because she now feels unsafe. “The streets are no longer safe. How can the police protect us when they can't protect themselves?” Mai asked with frustration, adding that the shop where she worked is now making less money and is therefore letting many of her former colleagues go. “The revolution has made the problem of unemployment worse,” she said with a smile on her face, adding that she is optimistic, despite everything because “God is on our side.” An older woman, with a little boy sitting on her lap, told me that she doesn't understand politics, but that the increasing prices of daily expenses is a serious concern for her family. “The price of tomatoes keeps getting higher; we're just worried, if the prices keep getting higher while people's salaries remain low, people might starve to death,” she told me as she stepped out of the metro car, holding her child's hand. BM
