The Vote

News photo...

Very loud music blared from a store as we crawled through traffic via our faithful taxi driver, Sadik.  We had just returned from our out-of-country travels and found ourselves down to 2 eggs precipitating our trip to the store.

Someone had told us that yesterday (Jan. 13) had been some sort of holiday.  I didn't quite understand the words used to describe it so as is my custom I googled it.  Ah, yes.  It's Mohammad's Birthday which is a national holiday.  So we knew that we wouldn't be venturing out that day.

News photo

Today, we thought, would be a normal day so we gave Sadik a call and he came straight away to pick us up.  We chatted with him as he weaved through the traffic which came to a sudden halt in front of the city courthouse.

"What's going on today?" we asked.

He began a long explanation.  In language learning this can also be called "gap finding."  It's when someone begins discussing a topic that you realize is a "gap" in your vocabulary.  We had just discovered a canyon-wide gap.  No comprehension was taking place.

John asked more questions and discovered that somehow Morsi was involved.  This led us to think that perhaps his trial was taking place and that citizens were showing their support or disdain by coming to the courthouse.

We arrived at our first stop and I hopped out with my list as John followed me with a basket.  I found most of the items I needed (sans broccoli, spinach and cottage cheese) and proceeded to the next store.  The place wasn't as busy as normal so I was able to complete (80%) my list as John and Sadik hurriedly bagged the groceries to make way for the customers ever so obviously pushing us out of the way.

I told Sadik that we were finished for the day and he began driving toward our place.  This time however, he was taking a different route.  Meh, he must know about some construction or something.

We were making our way through the traffic when he pointed out a group of young men walking down the street holding four fingers in the air and lifting signs above their heads.  Sadik said that they were protesting today's vote.  Vote. Oooooooooh, this makes so much sense now.  These young men were members of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Groups of them have been protesting since Morsi (their leader) had been removed last year.  Most citizens in our neck of the woods don't support them, still they braved the streets.

Today is the day that Egyptians vote on a new constitution.  As Sadik pointed out the dissenters, we began noticing lines of people on the sides of the road waiting their turn to cast their vote.  Women had one line and men had another.  Policeman and soldiers were dispatched at each location and tanks were on the end of major streets.

I asked Sadik if he thought there would be trouble.  He nodded yes, but said the police would take care of it quickly.  He had just commented when music began blaring from a store across the street.  They were protesting the protestors by drowning out their chants with music.

I tried to be sly and shoot some video, but prudence told me to be careful. : )  (I'm still working on how to upload it to Blogger.)

We returned to the apartment with enough groceries for the week and enough correct info to converse intelligently with our neighbors.

Please join us in prayer during this transition time that the hearts of our friends will be open and that our presence here would represent well the One who can make genuine and lasting change.