Friday, September 02, 2005

I started writing this post with the intention of describing a marvelous trip to the pyramids and the Sphyinx at Giza yesterday, however, I neither feel that I would be able to afford its description all glories due nor that such enthusiasm would be fair. I have been in Cairo a week thus far, and have felt completely removed from the world outside, though likely I am still very far from experiencing any sort of reality here as well. I feel as though I am on vacation experiencing the greatest fling of my life. Of course word does indeed travel, however, even among vacationers, and quickly the news of Hurricane Katrina reached my ears. As it turns out, my roommate, Krystina, lives in New Orleans and is (perhaps was) a student at Tulane University. Piece by piece, we have gathered information from the on-line newspapers, but really neither of us had heard very much. I of course felt very sad for the people suffering from the tradgedy, but pictures of water and wind gusts alone don't always properly stir the emotions. It's not like being in DC, where you hear every single piece of insignificant gossip and talk it over and over to death in a ritzy bar full of over-stuffed white men. Or everyday seeing people crying and screaming on the television screen and just wishing that you could do something to help. Thinking of this makes me think of watching the towers fall on 9/11, sitting in Mr. King's World Literature class in high school, and later returning home, unable to pull our eyes away from CNN. It's not like any of this here in Cairo. Perhaps it is for the people who live here, though even if it were I would have not a clue in the world. But tonight, after eating and drinking, laughing and smoking, and packing my bags for my weekend Red Sea resort vacation, the horrific reality of this massacre is beginning to hit me. One of Krystina's friends from New Orleans finally was able to get in touch with her to let her know what has been going on.

"Evan is alive and in Memphis, where he fell through the door of my father's house at 6pm Wednesday evening. His story is the weirdest, funkiest, most riveting thing you've ever heard. I'm sure he'll write a Flyer article about it. At any rate, as you probably know, all the Tulane webmail is down-- Tulane was slaughtered, by the way. Things just got worse after the storm passed, instead of better, and we've been watching CNN 24-7 with the refugees who are living with us now. One girl managed to get in touch with her dean, and asked when she could come back to school; he told her to find another school. She's called all the other universities at which she was also accepted, but so far everyone has turned her down. Uptown is the only area that wasn't inundated, at first, but as Evan was leaving on Tues. night/Wed. morning, the water was rising towards his last dry post at about 6 inches per hour. The main chemical towers burst, and sulfur dioxide and nitric oxides from fertilizer plants have completely contaminated the city. There are thousands of bodies in attics. There are more bodies floating in the street. Cats and dogs are dead or dying everywhere, and malaria and cholera have started showing up in the people who couldn't get out. Everyone is looting ammunition, and there were multiple shooting in the Superdome alone-- obviously even more shootings in the streets. People are holding up nurses in hospitals and ambulance workers. Evan said the majority of the people who did stay in the Superdome were there because they were sick or disabled, and that they are not getting any medicine anymore. I'm so glad you're not here!! And not just because we're out of bedrooms, couches and floor space, but because it is so, so, so sad... every news report is another story so sad you want to cry, babies in intensive care in hospitals who have no power and no generators-- a man whose wife's hand was ripped out of his grasp and who floated away as she told him to take care of the kids and that she loved him-- parents who can't find children, children who can't find parents, and everywhere the looters and shooters roaming the streets, killing police officers and rescue workers. It is the saddest thing ever."

Newspapers are one thing, but people are real. I can't imagine how my roommate is feeling, with one of her best friends telling her all of this from so far away, feeling so far removed, completely isolated, and worse, helpless. Let alone all of the others who have lost family members, friends, homes, and a city full of memories.

I suppose that tradgedy in the world is really nothing new, and why should we be feeling so bad and so unlucky? After all, how many suffered and died because of last year's tsunami? How many Iraqis have gone down by an American bullet? Even so, we all suffer when we feel that one of our own has fallen.

In a way I wish this all felt closer to me somehow, so that maybe I could at least grieve where grief is due. But instead I just feel guilty for not having searched for an English news channel on my TV and scoured every article and column in the papers and online. But really, none of this matters. I just hope that Americans will embrace each other and pull together to make it through all of this.

posted by Katie Warren @ 9:39 AM

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