CAIRO - Three years ago, when Moneim Mokhtar first travelled to Italy on a scholarship, he was also escaping from the gloomy reality he was living here. Yet, days after the January 25 revolution erupted, he took the first flight back to Cairo. "I wanted to say out loud that I'm Egyptian and that this is my country," Mokhtar, 25, told the Egyptian Mail. "It was quite hard to leave everything at the drop of a hat and come home, but it was absolutely the right thing to do. I couldn't stand missing it." This student of architecture is one of hundreds of Egyptians living outside the country who headed back home with the revolution, though the majority of the estimated 5 million Egyptians abroad couldn't make it. “If only I were with you,” Magdi Nawar, who lives in the UK, wrote with regret on his Facebook page during the first couple of days of the Egyptian revolution. Magdi's Facebook comments were more heated and critical than those of all his friends back in Egypt. “It's just painful to feel useless, while your sisters and brothers need your support,” Magdi told this newspaper online, adding that he couldn't move an inch from in front of the TV screen. “I was on fire. On the one hand I'm proud of what's taking place, but on the other I'm dying to take part and am deadly worried about my family and friends.” This father of a two-year-old half-Egyptian-half-British baby girl tried his best to make it back home to Egypt but he couldn't. The hardest moment for him was on Friday January 28, when Internet and mobile services went down. “I was lost in deep anxiety,” he added. “It was just as if a big blackout had swallowed my whole country, family, friends and memories. Those 24 hours were the hardest ever that I've passed through.” Despite the fact that he couldn't be in Egypt to take part in its people's uprising, Magdi believes that what happened could mean a lot of changes to his future life. “When I first married my British wife we tried living in Egypt but couldn't. I didn't want to raise my children in such polluted atmosphere,” said this 37-year-old man, referring to both the physical and the moral and ethical pollution. “I now know that this will change and I will be able to get my kids back to their father's homeland. I'm sure of one more thing: had I been in Egypt, I would have participated in the revolt.” Like Magdi, Lamia Sayyed now regrets missing the revolution. This 28-year-old physicist, who failed to join in a single march or demonstration, didn't leave her home during the 18-day uprising. She wasn't living outside the country, but inside her own fears. “I was a coward,” Lamia says with tears in her eyes. “I believed that the streets were full of thugs, waiting to prey on helpless girls like me; I surrendered to my fears and to my ma's.” Lamia's regrets are now “unbearable and unimaginable”, as she puts it. She feels that the opportunity of a lifetime has just passed her by. For a lot of Egyptians – particularly women and girls – it was quite scary to leave their safe havens and head to Al Tahrir. Still, this all changed after the first week, when scores and scores of ‘non-demonstrators' bucked their trends and took to the streets. “Even when all my friends started to speak out, I lagged behind,” she adds. “I only wish I could turn back the clock to four weeks ago.” While Lamia's biggest dream now is to go back in time in order to do things differently, Diana Saud is firmly rooted in the here and now. Diana, a geologist who has spent the whole of her 46 years in Egypt, apart from business trips abroad, has been dreaming of a revolution for the past 10 years. But she wasn't at home when the wheel started to roll. “When I emerged from the airport on February 12, having flown in from Dubai, I – for the first time in my life – saw tanks in the streets. I saw the Egyptian flag being borne aloft by Egyptians of every age and social background,” Diana says with a thrill in her voice. “My dream was coming true before my very eyes.” Diana was surprised at the huge number of demonstrators and the fact that many social problems had disappeared. “I couldn't believe it when I saw my fellow Egyptians – who'd been very sad and gloomy when I left them a fortnight earlier – smiling and showing concern for each other.” This mother of two had experienced another very moving moment at the airport in Dubai, as she was about to fly home to Cairo, when scores of passengers from all over the world saluted her, simply for being Egyptian. “I got my dignity back. At that moment, I wasn't part of the revolution and couldn't participate, but I felt proud and grateful to witness such a moment in my lifetime.”
