Friday, April 28

We intended to have a very laid back, boring spring break, but that's not exactly how it has played out. The beginning of this week started out that way. We went to see the Egyptian Museum because we never had seen the mummy room. It was okay, but still the museum is much like a large warehouse. We also did a little souvenir shopping.

Our vacation changed from normal to surreal, though. We were at a cafe when all the waiters seemed to be watching an Arabic newscast about the bombings in Dahab, Egypt. We couldn't figure out what they were talking about, so we asked the waiter. He told us there were three atomic bombs in Dahab. Now, we knew they weren't atomic, but we kept that to ourselves. The thing is, our friends were vacationing in Dahab.

We figured what are the chances that our friends are hurt? I started to text message them because their phone was not working. While I was doing that one of the guys who was in Dahab called us so we could call the embassy.

Our friends were the Americans injured. Without going into all the details, they were transported from Dahab to Sharm and finally flown to Cairo. We've spent the last few days at the hospital where they were waiting to be evacuated to Germany.

While their injuries were fairly severe, they are going to be okay. It was such a random thing. They almost didn't decide to go down to the area of the bombing. They almost walked to a different area. Violence is so random.

We've learned a couple of things from this experience. First, everyone needs to appreciate America. Joe and I really saw our tax dollars at work this week. When we finally figured out what hospital they were at here in Cairo, we headed over there. There was a full room of embassy staff including the embassy doctor and nurse. The whole three days they were in Cairo, there were several embassy employees watching out for them, making arrangements, helping out, etc. The Britains and the lone Russian guy on the floor really didn't have as many people there. We were really confident and calmed by the help they provided. They worked after hours and last night saw everything through until everyone was loaded onto planes at 4:30 in the morning.

We also learned some useful information for my own delivery. Let's just say that Egyptian healthcare is not the same as ours. We definitely learned that in the nursing department, it's kind of self service. We had to take round the clock shifts to help them out. Of course, they couldn't really do much for themselves because of their injuries, so it won't be exactly like that for me. The hospital wasn't the best of the best, but it was supposedly the best for emergency medical care. It was adequate as the American doctor put it. It's been good to see how things operate here. It helps me to be less nervous about my delivery.

Putting myself aside, our friends are safely in Germany now. Actually they have gone to the military hospital where they treat a lot of victims from Iraq, so they are very familiar with this type of injury.

We caught up on sleep today and we have a few days before school starts up again. Keep our friends in mind as they have a long road of recovery ahead of them.