On Sunday, Sam MacEneany was supposed to start his international education in Middle East history and the Arabic language. Instead, he found himself under a campus lockdown at American University in Cairo and a part of history as it happens.
“It’s pretty crazy,” he said by phone Sunday night.
MacEneany, a Two Harbors High School graduate, went to Egypt this month as part of an international studies program through St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., where he is a junior history major.
“It’s not the best situation,” MacEneany said. He is stuck at the new campus of the university, “about 45 minutes” from the original university in downtown Cairo and the growing protests there. Classes were to begin Sunday but have been canceled for at least a week while things remain in flux. The president of the university, which has about 500 North Americans among its more than 5,000 students, was expected to address students today for more on the immediate plans for the campus. About 90 percent of the student population is from Egypt.
MacEneany plans to leave no matter what happens. It’s estimated there are 90,000 Americans who live in Egypt and many are trying get out all at once, jamming the airport and delaying flights for days. Among them are members of a band from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D.
MacEneany wants to transfer to a university in Istanbul, where some other Two Harbors graduates are studying, and continue his plan to be in the region into June. If not, he’ll have to come back to Minnesota and St. Olaf for the spring semester. Some students are trapped, he said, too far into their school’s semester schedule to leave without losing the half-year of study.
The Cairo campus is secure and MacEneany feels safe, he said. He couldn’t imagine any protests ballooning toward the university. There are security checkpoints at all the entrances and security guards are walking around with “two-by-fours … and I’m sure weapons of some kind,” he said.
He knew the dangers he might encounter in traveling to the Middle East. There were signs all around the region in the past few months that protest and violence could spread. But he “really didn’t think it would happen here.” He said he knew political rhetoric would be heating up before elections this fall.
The lockdown has been in force since protests exploded Thursday. MacEneany said some students rushed downtown to see what was happening and came back with some amazing video footage. “The police looked young, like me,” he said. “And scared.”
MacEneany’s only method of keeping tabs on what’s going on is through cable TV networks like the BBC and CNN.
There is no Internet service, and cell phones can be used for voice calls only. And one day, cell service was out, meaning only land lines were available, making it an expensive call to relatives back home or to make arrangements to leave, he said.
“Without the Internet, it’s a different world,” he said.
MacEneany’s mother, Shary Zoff of Two Harbors, said she has been able to keep in contact with her son despite the changing levels of technology available. “Everybody’s safe,” she said. She planned to put money in her son’s bank account today to cover growing expenses.
“The worry is being able to get out,” MacEneany said.
Before the protests, he was in orientation and doing sightseeing. He took a trip down the Nile and saw many of the ancient sites. He’s chagrined that he didn’t get to see any pyramids and may not get a chance to anytime soon.
“It’s not going to be the same Cairo for a while,” he said.
It’s the history major talking when he calls the situation “exciting.” It’s “nothing I’ve experienced before.” He said it’s good to know that people in Minnesota and the rest of the country are following the developments. He said others in Cairo are feeling a “sense of excitement” over the possibility of major change in the governance of the country. “We’ll see what happens,” he said, hopeful that it will be a more peaceful change. “It could all go up in flames.”
