Day Two: Of Loneliness and Silent Prayers
On March 27, the Egyptian government began enforcing a nighttime curfew in a bid to combat the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Cairo’s streets have slowly been emptied of any activity during that time and even in non-curfew hours, the Egyptian capital is calmer than usual.
These are the stories of AUC students coping with the curfew, home confinement, and online teaching. On Day One, a few Caravan reporters shared their stories.
We’d like to hear from the whole community – students, alumni, staff, faculty – as we all go through a very challenging time in history. Send us your stories to caravannews@aucegypt.edu
Day Two – March 29, 2020
Global cases: 658,000; Deaths: 30,112
Egypt cases: 576; Deaths: 36
Of Loneliness and Silent Prayers
Laila El Refaie
Business Administration graduating senior
At 10:00am, the realisation finally sets in. Any hope I had left of being able to leave the house dwindles into nothingness, at least for the next two weeks. I already know it will be longer than that, but I convince myself to forget about it for the time being. How else will I stay alive? After all, this is only the beginning. I open my eyes, and register my to-do list for the day as I check the notifications on my phone. New cases in an old country.
I get ready for my presentation. A funny meme. Finish the reading for my 2pm class. A text from a friend I haven’t spoken to in weeks. Work on the seemingly infinite number of assignments I have to do. More cases reported around the world.
At 4pm, I drag myself out of bed and trudge towards the coffee machine, a stomach ache grappling at my insides, writhing inside me and vowing to disrupt any plans I had made for the day. I step away from the machine. I don’t feel like drinking coffee anymore. The morning went by in a flash, and with a hot water bottle on my lap and a full face of makeup, I switch on my video camera for my presentation.
My work goes smoothly; I always make sure it does. But I had only slept three hours, and if I stay awake for any longer, I know I would no longer have the energy to contain my sadness. I eat a lunch the contents of which I can hardly even remember, and retire to my bed for an afternoon nap. As I settle into the covers and hide my eyes from the sunlight, I whisper a silent prayer that this will all be over when I wake up.
It’s almost midnight, but it isn’t over. Not when I wake up. Not when I try on the yellow dress I bought that I had thought would bring me joy. Not as my fingers rattle at my keyboard, placing letters next to each other to form words in sentences that will go on and on and on, even after I am freed from this shared imprisonment. I am in a constant state of dreadful awareness that not only am I alone, but I am in fact, lonely.
I crave the embraces of my friends and the echoes of laughter around closed rooms. I close my eyes, that I may remember the feeling of a friend’s presence within a meagre metre of me. I return to my bed, and get under my covers, and allow a pair of tears to fall past the barricade at my eyelids.
It’s 1:26am, and I let myself dream. I dream of the day this will all be over, and my eyes will race each other to take in the details of each movement and each facial expression I see on those around me. I dream of the time when my arms can settle around those who are dear to me, and they will tremble with the tightness of each embrace.
I dream of the moment when I will be with those whom I love, surrounded by strangers, each of us living a story we had once taken for granted. Shimmering eyes and trembling lips and fingers curling around each other and the sound of ringing laughter echoing from one person to the next like a relay of runners passing to one another their baton of joy.
In that moment, with all the war and misery lying patiently on the sidelines to creep back into our lives once we have had our respite, I know that we will have a brief taste of Heaven.
Still the Winner at Rummikub
Sara Tadros
Sophomore, Psychology (intended)
Day two of the enforced nighttime curfew also marked the end of my second week in self-isolation. Just like the past few days, I woke up at around 7am, had breakfast, made my bed and got dressed. I then spent an hour or two watching tiktok videos, waiting for my mom and my siblings to wake up. We had a zoom meeting with whole family for about an hour or so. It felt really good to catch up with everyone. Afterwards, I started working on an assignment that was due the next day.
For this assignment, I had to conduct a few interviews, and so I sent out emails to the professors that I wanted to interview and asked them if I could meet with them on zoom to ask them a few questions. In the afternoon, I decided to take advantage of all this free time that I had to clean out my closet and get rid of some of my clothes.
This was something that I wanted to do for quite a while now but I never had the time for it and so finally getting it done felt very satisfying. A while later, my sister made us all a healthy dessert that was surprisingly delicious.
We then decided to end the day with a little game night. We played Rummikub, our favorite board game, and of course, I won.
