changes

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Originally uploaded by travellingLite

Alex welcomes me to Cairo with a Revolution 2.0 t-shirt with an Egyptian flag and the date 25.01.2011 on it. What began as a ‘normal’ protest against police brutality on Police Day (Jan 25th), turned into Revolution 2.0, 1.0 being the one in 1952 that converted Egypt from a monarchy to a Republic.

The following day, on the metro, Alex practices his Arabic with a bubbly 5 year old. The kid, half-shocked and half-amused at the tall foreigner talking in his language, nonchalantly mentions that he is going to Tahrir, as are we.

We step out of the train to be stopped by 14 year olds, who check our passports and bags, before we can make it to the square. I wonder if they stop anyone from entering…

There is an excitement that lingers at Tahrir square or hope perhaps for a better future. Egyptian flags flutter in the little wind there is on this hot, humid day. Men, women, boys, girls, children of all ages lounge about in the square that has been cordoned off to traffic, quite a difference compared to my last time in Cairo three years ago. A teenager timidly suggests me to cover my head with a scarf, before disappearing in the crowd.

In one corner, everyone bows in prayer to the call of the mullah. Hundreds others live comfortably in their encampments, surrounded by enormous posters about the revolution.
A man sits on a railing and smokes, patiently waiting for customers for t-shirts that say “I love Egypt”. Another painstakingly bends down and draws on the road- more drawings of a person holding the Egyptian flag against the sun. A graffiti on the wall of a popular café screams ‘I want to see another president b4 I die’.

A young man wearing a purple shirt, LOVE written all over it inversely, two brushes in hand, one in his mouth- red, black, white, his forehead painted with those colors, offers to paint my hand.
I oblige with a smile and a ‘Shokran’, and extend my left hand, struggling to hold the heavy wide-angle still as I take a shot of the moment where I become a part of the revolution, as best I can.