Like this:

Today’s my last day in Egypt, readers. I’ve been here so long (about three and a half months now, just about as much time as I spent in Ethiopia), it doesn’t seem quite real that I’m flying out of here tomorrow.

I’m heading to the airport at noon for a 15:25 flight. I am hoping that there will be no problems getting to the airport — there’s a good chance that tomorrow might be a crazy day here; they think it’s possible that a lot of people who’ve been working all week and were thus not able to participate in any of the protests will join in on Friday after morning prayers. Whatever happens here in Egypt, I hope it happens peacefully.

Currently, downtown Cairo is experiencing normalcy with a veneer of tension: still lots of riot police at the ready, but life on the streets looks otherwise normal. There’s still a lot of tension in the city and the potential for more trouble. No one knows where this thing is going, but it sure isn’t over yet.

Tomorrow I fly first to Casablanca, where I have a two-hour layover, and then switch planes for Lomé, Togo. I’m going to get there at the ungodly hour of 02:05, but that couldn’t be avoided; my flight on Royal Air Maroc was several hundred dollars cheaper than the alternatives.

Just now, I was having tea and sheesha in my favorite cafe while I waited for a chance to get on the Internet. For the second time in Cairo, I was almost hit by a falling object from the upstairs seating section: somebody upstairs dropped a pen, which fell onto my table. Immediately, a brilliant multilingual pun occurred to me, and I announced to everyone:

–Al-aqlaam min as-samaa’ (“Pens from Heaven”).

No one was amused or edified, alas.

I have no idea what the Internet situation is going to be like in West Africa. I’ve been spoiled by reliable high-speed connections here in Egypt, and I suspect I’m going back to the world of 56 Kbps dial-up connections. We’ll see, though. I’ll keep updating this blog as much as possible, as soon as possible.

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