2008
Apr 
6

Quiet Night, Quiet Morning

10:00  
 

All that fuss over nothing

Well, no strike actually happened. The Egyptian security forces prevented it from even beginning:

Egyptian security forces prevent planned textile strike
International Herald Tribune – Sunday 6 April 2008]

And so it goes.

The weird thing about all of this—or maybe not-so-weird—is that there was definitely a sense of foreboding in the air last night. The streets were deadly silent. I live on one of the busiest streets in my district—generally full of traffic, and relatively loud until late into the night—but last night, there were points when there wasn’t a car in sight in either direction for several minutes at a time. The air smelled very different as well: free of exhaust. The last time I smelled air like that was at the beginning of Ramadan last year when the entire city went quiet for a day or two.

The expats were all abuzz last night as well, making sure that they were registered with their respective embassies and preparing to hunker down in case of some sort of conflict, laying in food and supplies in case it became suddenly unsafe to go out.

In the end, nothing happened, which I suppose shouldn’t come as a surprise. Strikes are illegal in this country, so of course the government would step in to prevent one. This certainly would not serve as the catalyst to any sort of angry uprising. But, the important thing was that many people thought it might, which is why everyone stayed inside last night. I hadn’t realized until last night just how clued in everyone is to whatever the current climate happens to be.

Though it is still relatively quiet today on the streets—possibly because of the now-approaching sand-storm—I still feel like the air is tingling with some excitement. I wonder what will happen next.