Our little corner of the world has become a little less safe. Over the weekend, a few couples went to Cairo to enjoy the three day weekend. They were in the area of the Khan el-Khalili, the famous shopping market bazaar – one of the oldest in this part of the world. The Khan is a favorite stopping place for tourists and is always very busy. A couple of weeks ago, persons on motorcycle (cars are banned in the area), tossed a bomb into a crowd of tourists – actually students from France. One person was killed and seventeen others were injured. Obviously security in the area was tightened and no one really gave much thought to anything else that might happen. Well, this time it struck really close to home as one of our teachers was attacked by a man with a knife. Fortunately, the teacher was able to fend him off without serious damage. He was cut in the face and had to have 5 stitches. The man was quickly wrestled to the ground and carted off by the police. Supposedly he had been recently released from a mental facility. His motives for the attack were his dislike of the events that have been happening in Gaza, blaming Westerners for the unrest in the Middle East.
During a typical week, our school website receives approximately 3,000 hits. On Sunday we received nearly double the average for a day. The article about the attack mentions that the teacher was from an “American school in Alexandria” and visitors to our website searched in Google and Yahoo for the phrase “American school in Alexandria.” We hope this is not an indication that the mood in Egypt toward Westerners is changing. Times are tough here with an economic crisis and unemployment over 20%. The country is in a difficult position, an Arab Muslim country that is also on good terms with Israel and often serves as a peace broker in the area. We’ve not noticed any change in Alexandria, but students tell us that the overall crime rate is rising due to the tough economic times.
The weather continues to be a bit nasty. Saturday evening the rains were heavy and we even had lightning and thunder. In fact, our school internet router was hit and we were without service for about 12 hours. Hopefully the weather will clear up and warm temperatures will return.
