Cairo chaos - getting my leg stuck between the metro and the platform

I woke up this morning and decided to visit Saad Zaghloul's home, near the centre of Cairo.

Saad Zaghloul was the founder of the Wafd political party, one of the biggest parties in Egypt, until it was dissolved in the 1952 revolution. When the British exiled him to Malta then the Seychelles for his antagonistic political activities, the Egyptian people were furious and this was one of the major factors that caused the 1919 revolution. The occupying British forces had begun their occupation of Egypt in 1882 and after extensive striking, 1920 saw the end of the British protectorate of the county.  He was also the main writer of Egypt's first constitution, in 1923.

I got off at Saad Zaghloul, a metro station I had never got out of before. In front of me was a huge Ancient-Egyptian-esque temple, that the unhelpful men selling T-shirts around the metro entrance, told me was Saad Zaghloul's house. It turns out it was his mausoleum and after circling this structure for 15 minutes in the unbearable heat, I finally found the actual house.

Inside, I exchanged the usual 'question and answer session' of my origin, instigated by the combination of  Egyptian ID I presented to the door man and my Irish face. With these formalities over, I was shown around the house by a kind, smiling woman. There was another guest walking around with me, who after the tour, I found out that she was a half-Italian, half-Dutch Opera singer from Florence, with an audition later that day.

The house was very grand, and in very good condition, and the tour was really quite interesting. The woman explained to me that at the top of the wide staircase of the house were two parrots on either side of the large doorway. These parrots were trained to recognize Saad's footsteps on the stairs, and as he approached one parrot greeted him in French, the other in Arabic. He also had a very interested shower room, where he sat on a large green beach chair, as the shower water poured over him.

I also learnt that Saad Zaghloul died on the 23rd of August 1927, and that the British exiled him from Egypt on the 23rd of December (of some year, that I have forgotten and can't find on wikipedia!). On the day he died, his wife stopped turning the dial on the beautiful French mechanical calendar they had in their bedroom, stopped forever on the 23rd of August.

Then of course, the constitution was written in 1923. I really believe that this number, 23, is important. It features highly in my life (I was born on the 23rd of July -the anniversary of the 1952 Egyptian revolution-, among other instances), and I do not want to dismiss it as purely coincidence. (I refuse to be affected by the negative implications of Jim Carrey's horror film, The Number 23, which my slight obsession with the number begun way before the release of said film).

I walked through the market next to the house, with the Italian girl. She spent a while arguing with an electronics' vendor, who she had a sneaking suspicion was trying to take too much money from her, but in the end she just accepted his reasoning. I bought some bananas and grapes, and handed over a 100 pound note. The change was given to me with 10 pounds less than it should have been, and I nearly didn't notice it. 'Hagg, I need 10 pounds' I shouted. He handed it over without looking sheepish or questioning the validity of my statement. That told me that he had intentionally given me the wrong change and that he was used to playing that trick with foreigners.

This kind of incident has been on the rise in the last few weeks. I handed a kiosk vendor a 100 pound note, which he conveniently forgot to give me the additional 50 pounds change that he owed me. Luckily I didn't let him get away with it.

I decided to go to Attaba to find some headphones for my phone. I spent several consecutive days looking for my pair, but I have finally concluded that they were picked out of my bag whilst I was being jostled in Tahrir Square on Sunday.

As I left the metro, there were crowds and crowd of people trying to get on. I thought I'd be safe if I kept close behind the woman in front of me, as she battled to make her way out of the metro carriage. I was taking very small baby steps to get off behind her when, Whooooooooooooosh! My leg slid down from under me between the gap the metro made with the platform.

I just sat there, one leg dangling in the gap (the entire leg, by backside was actually sitting on the platform edge), whilst women all around me screamed and screeched. In the moment that I fell through the gap, I was overcome by a surprising calm, despite the very really danger that I was in, of losing my leg from the upper thigh downwards. Instead I just felt the presence of the women around me, and blamed them slightly for what happened to me, wanting them to feel guilt for what I decided that they had done to me. An evil part of me wanted the metro to pull my leg off, just so the women would be sorry... (Twisted, very twisted thinking I realise).

One fast-thinking woman pulled me up and I walked away with a relieved smile on my face and a temporary pain searing through my inner thigh. My aunt later told me how the women could have carried on boarding the carriage regardless of my fall, marching on top of me in their blind determination to make it onto the carriage, and how I was very lucky that they hadn't.

I was surprised with how fast I found the headphones in Attaba (one of the busiest places in Cairo, I feel like an ant when I go there, imagining what all the people must look like from a bird's eye view), and even managed to find a book I wanted to read ever since my friend recommended it to me - Paolo Cuello's The Alchemist.

I was not spared peace of mind on the metro ride home either. A woman selling belts in the ridiculously busy carriage kept smacking me on the back of my head with her entire stock of belts, as she swung them onto her right shoulder. The first time she did it, I was startled. The second time she did it, I was angry. The third time she did it, I was calm, telling myself ''she's gotta do, what she's gotta do to make a living!'' How quickly my emotions fluctuate here in Cairo, I thought to myself.

When my metro stop came, I jumped off the carriage and made it home in record time. I recounted the details of my day to my family, tried to read my current book (The World's Religions, by Huston Smith), but instead I lulled myself into a deep, tired sleep.

Cairo is exhausting. But it's where Life happens.

Morsy becomes president of Egypt, and I think I'm about to die in the Tahrir Square crowds

I was walking around the Tahrir Square vicinity, planning on catching the metro home. I had a choice when I came to a fork in the road, I could turn right and get on the nearest metro, or I could turn left and see what all the fuss was about in Tahrir, after seeing throngs of people shouting, chanting, smiling and waving huge Egyptian flags in the sky. I chose to go to the left.

I have never been somewhere so crowded in my life. Cars that passed were beeping the 'wedding march' song and others were singing a faintly familiar football tune, but with the word Morsy repeated numerously. The happiness in the air was infectious as groups of teenagers took to dancing in the streets.

I felt satisfied with my solo-exploration to the outskirts of Midan Tahrir, and I decided to catch the metro. The first metro entrance I met was closed. The second was literally jam-packed with people and I didn't fancy being stuck underground. I gave my aunt a call and she suggested that I go to the next metro station which would be less crowded. I agreed, and made my way through the square - huge mistake!

With every step I took to get to the other metro station, I was unknowlingly pushing myself deeper and deeper into the sea of men standing in the square. Every step I took I thought I was getting closer to leaving the square, but reality soon hit me.

Men were squashed around me on all sides. Some were gentlemenly and let me pass as best as they could in the crowded area. Others, could not be said the same about.

One man grabbed me from behind, so I spun round just in time to see his hand retreating. I looked him in the eye then punched him in the shoulder. He retorted defensively, either pretending or genuinely unsure why this foreign girl just punched him and then started swearing at him. My Egyptian friend who I told about the incident, reassured me that he was most probably the culprit, since he was so defensive about himself.

It was the bearded men who were surprisingly the most gentlemenly, and they made way for me to pass, instead of trying to touch me like the disgusting men behind me were doing.

Soon, I found myself unable to escape. The men towered around me on all sides, and there really was NO WHERE for me to go. A boy about my age told me in English 'You must go. Too crowded'. No, you don't say? 'Where shall I go??????????????????' I screamed to him in Arabic.

Seeing me in desperate need of being rescued, he took me by my wrist and literally fought his way out of the sea of men surrounding us. A few minutes into the escape, a genuine thought came into my head ; 'I'm going die. So here is where it is going to happen, in the heart of Tahrir Square, squashed and suffocated by men.' I truly embraced this thought and calmed myself with the thought that 'We've all got to go sometime'. I guess it should have been shocking how quickly I embraced my possible death.

Actually, after I had this thought, another thought entered my mind. And that was the sort of the two frogs in the tub of milk. One frog gave up trying to escape from the milk, and died. The other one kept paddling his feet in the milk until he churned it into butter, then hopped out into freedom. For a brief second I was going to succumb to being the first, dead, frog. I was going to stop moving and just sit down on the floor, tired of struggling through the sea of bodies. Then, the second frog made its appearance, and I decided to be brave and keep fighting through the crowds.

When I felt a blast of cool wind hit my face, I was so relieved and felt so much gratitude for the man who had led me out, of what I honestly thought would be my death. I shook his hand firmly and thanked him curtly, before he got the idea to try to further any kind of relationship with me.

On my way out of the square, I spied another foreigner girl. She was on her own, taking pictures, and after my ordeal I felt that my social barriers had been demolished, and I just went up to the girl and started talking to her. She was German, but lived in England for the last 6 years, and was working for a newspaper (I think) in Egypt.

To get home, I had to catch the metro that I was going to take if I had just turned right, instead of left and going into tahrir. To get to the metro I had to cross one of the most famous bridges in Cairo - Asr el Nil. There was a loud, noisy fanfare, that I expect will continue all the way into the night, and there were more than frequent shouts of 'Morsy'.

My political opinion of the results (I can't believe I actually wrote, my policial opinion! I never thought I would write that, as I am generally apathetic to British politics, so I extended this belief to all politics. However, coming to Egypt has really shaken things up for me, in terms of how to view the importance of politics for me personally) is that it was better for Morsy to win. This way Egypt has avoided a nasty backlash that would have resulted if Shafik (tied up with the old regime) had won. Morsy, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, however, is a very weak personality, and I believe that he will be controlled by higher figures, so in effect will be just the puppet in the political arena.

I was quite surprised that the votes were not rigged for Shafik to win though, since it would have been in the best interest of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces for him to win, and they are the ones calling the shots at the moment.

I speculate that Morsy's election will have appeased the rebellious masses, but SCAF will still retain the majority of power, and the president will effectively be powerless - I mean, the Muslim Brotherhood majority parliament was dissolved last week, with a flick of SCAF's wrist, so what's stopping them from doing the same to Morsy? I think may be a month will pass (or less) before the non-existnnece of Morsy's presidential powers will emerge.