On a sunny September morning in 2013, Mohamed Ahmed Abdelsalam’s mother was under the impression her son was leaving the house to go to Friday afternoon prayer at the mosque. But minutes later he joined a sea of more than 3,000 Egyptian protesters marching to Ramses Square, where they planned to join the nation’s majority in demanding that Mohamed Morsi, elected president of Egypt, be reinstated to power.

Abdelsalam was shaken after learning about the massacre of more than 1,000 of his countrymen just two weeks earlier. Peacefully gathered in Rabaa Square, the Egyptian public had protested the undemocratic removal of their president. When buckets of cold water and stones failed to quell the drenched and bruised demonstrators, the Armed Forces opened fire, dispersing hundreds and murdering many more.

“What happened that day in Rabaa Square made more and more people take to the streets,” Abdelsalam said, shaking his head in disapproval of the military’s nefarious acts. Abdelsalam, a Fulbright Scholar spending the year abroad at Fairfield, reflects on being away from his country during this critical time and the emotional toll it has taken on him.

“I’m really worried for my people there. Just yesterday I found a friend whose Facebook account got closed. This friend used to participate regularly in all the protests and I don’t know what may have happened to him,” he said.

Though 5,500 miles now separate him from Egypt, Abdelsalam vividly recalls the memory of participating in a protest only days before traveling to the US.

The only traffic Cairo, Egypt, had seen that Friday afternoon was by foot.  Eerily carless streets guided Abdelsalam and other mosque members along the route to Ramses Square, their desired final destination. Nearing the May 15 Bridge, the crowd poured in, like dense liquid, from all side streets and pooled together at the bridge’s entrance. Children weaved between the legs of their elders. Chants emanated from hand-held megaphones. The bodies seemed to morph together and exist as one, but the nudging knees and elbows in odd places didn’t bother Abdelsalam. He felt united, safe, among people with analogous political opinions. The protesters’ weapon of choice: words. Signs bearing words like “Morsi,” “more democracy,” “freedom,” and similar slogans in support of a democratic Egypt peacefully danced their way across the bridge.  Sun-kissed, wrinkled fingers and smooth, young palms became one as all ages symbolically raised four fingers skyward in memory of those killed in Rabaa (Arabic for “four”) Square.

Like a hawk stalking its prey, an AF helicopter droned above, meticulously watching the crowd nearing the end of the bridge, though blindly listening to the enthusiastic, hopeful chants demanding democracy and Morsi’s return.

Abdelsalam carried with him a bottle of Coca-Cola, believed to have reversing effects on tear-gas. He planned on pouring the soda over his eyes if the AF chose to use this stinging method of dispersal on the crowd that now numbered over 3,000. Fortunately, Abdelsalam did not need to shower his eyes in carbonated sugar. Unfortunately, he had to worry about a much more lethal weapon. Raising his arm to his ear, sticking his thumb upward, pointing his index and middle fingers forward, and recoiling the rest, “I thought I was going to die,” he said.

The moment the AF began to shoot at the crowd, the chanting ceased. The enthusiasm was drowned out by heaving breaths and panicked voices. Abdelsalam touched his arm as though to wipe a wound. “I saw their blood with my own eyes,” he said, his eyes unmistakably seeing the turmoil for a second time. The united wave of confidence crossing the Nile was alarmingly disrupted, rippling instead with chaos and retreat. He watched his brother through the blur of grounded officers in altercations with protesters, making sure not to lose sight of him.

It wasn’t the first time Abdelsalam’s cellphone rang.

“Mohamed, where are you?” his mother’s skeptical voice demanded through the phone.

“I’m on my way, I’m on my way,” Abdelsalam sputtered.

Click. He knew his jumbled response could not have possibly blocked out the 3,000-person chorus of alarm and apprehension. In Egyptian culture, the eldest brother typically becomes the head of the household when the father passes away, but Abdelsalam’s married older brother has his own family’s responsibilities to govern. That leaves Abdelsalam in charge of his widowed mother and 11-year-old brother who were waiting for their father figure to return from afternoon prayer.

As the crowd dispersed like a herd of sheep being chased by hungry dogs, Abdelsalam withdrew to the underbelly of a bridge. His nerves bolted throughout his body, prodding him to race home, but his wit fought back. Running, indicative of guilt, would only draw attention to Abdelsalam’s red and white striped shirt – an easy target. Walking was the only, though terrifying, choice. Like being swarmed by angry bees, Abdelsalam chose not to swat but to be still, and rather than sprinting home, leisurely strolled away from the mayhem.

Abdelsalam stood silent in his doorway. Though quick to tears, the short, plump woman firmly scolded him for lying. She needn’t yell or fuss – her distress was discernable in her reminding Abdelsalam of his patriarchal position. He was not sorry that he participated in the protest that day, but to calm his mother’s nerves, the only words her son could murmur quietly escaped his lips: “I’m sorry.”

Abdelsalam let a crooked smile momentarily spread across his face. “She forgave me at last,” he said.

Currently, Abdelsalam refers to the situation in Egypt as “critical.”

“Soldiers detain or shoot directly activists, youth, children and even old people and women,” he said, mentioning however, that he would without hesitation be among his people protesting if he were in Egypt.

But among the distress, Abdelsalam remains hopeful.

“I think that the coup will not continue for long and Army leaders will fail in subduing people’s resistance,” he said.

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