On Wednesday morning (January 29), Internet access to Egypt and much of the Middle East (including two continents) was cut off. Apparently the fiber optic cables that run between Europe and Egypt were damaged just off the shores of Alexandria. It seems that the cables were disrupted due to rough waters and possibly a ship (possibly its anchor). After almost 18 hours, service was partially restored. Access was limited and extremely slow. We could only access some sites and even then not all of the sites were available. When this occurred you have a feeling of being cut off and isolated. We rely so much on the Internet at school as well as at home. E-mail was sporadic – only a small percentage actually would get through. We were unable to “SKYPE” as the limited bandwidth would not allow for a stable connection. Of course we were unable to do any of our financial and business communication back home. Saturday morning service improved as they are routing Internet traffic through some other cables and satellites but by the afternoon, access again stopped as another line was cut. As we post this, we are back up at least temporarily.
The weather was beautiful on the weekend– clear blue skies and temperatures in the mid 60’s. We enjoyed a nice long walk in the morning. It was the first nice days in a nearly a week as temperatures have been in the mid to low 50’s with rain nearly every day. On our walk we met a former student who is attending college in Cairo. He was involved in a traffic accident the day after Christmas. He was turning onto the Corniche and was struck by a taxi. The driver of the taxi claimed to be injured and since he was taken to the hospital for a checkup, the young man was locked up in jail for a day. He will be going to trial soon and is hopeful that the court will rule in his favor.
We started basketball practice last Monday. I am not sure if we will be able to have a team to travel. According to the organization that we belong to, we have to send both a boys and a girl’s team to the tournament. Right now it looks as though there will not be enough girls interesting in playing to field a team. I do not have many more boys but I think we would have enough. I have a couple of boys who have been playing quite a bit and it would be a shame if we were not able to take a team. There is so many things going on right now and kids are traveling for MUN, Fine Arts, etc. If we have a team – it will be made up primarily of Indian students along with one American, one Brit and a couple of Egyptians.
