dan telinga aku separa pekak selepas selesai tengok benda alah ni.
kakak garang, ana raflee bukan raffali, g-ra, cik merah jambu
ex-cubemates/ -roomates/ -bedmates wtf
friends since june 2006 - now
"tiada sesuatu yang akan kekal di dunia ini selain Hosni Mubarak"-cik merah jambu, 2011
update on 12 February 2011:
he resigned! he resigned! he resigned!!!
#1 the experience is horrifying! imagine trying to sleep on the cold hard floor without any blankets on winter night. i only had my winter jacket, a hoodie shirt and jeans and so obviously i didn't manage to catch any naps. also partially i was scared someone might steal my luggage (you can never be too careful during this time)!
#2 that explains why the moment i boarded the plane to doha, i fell into deep sleep. i didn't even remember watching the safety video at the beginning of the flight (that how quick i fell asleep! see?)! i think the woman who was sitting next to me had to hold her pee for hours (i was dead sleeping okay?) because the moment i opened my eyes, she asked me to move a bit because she needed to go to the loo wtf.
i pitied her. hahahahhaa.
#3 throughout the 24 hours in cairo airport, the only representatives that were present almost all the time were from united states and canada and also british! they were walking back and forth shouting "american? american?" looking for their citizens to offer helps.
#4 met another malaysian in the airport who turned out to be a dentistry second year student in al azhar! so i mostly sticked with her all the time. she was in the same flight as me and she had been staying in the airport way longer than me. must be worse for her i guess.
#5 but at least in the evening there was a group of malaysian students (one of them turned out to be my friend which i didn't recognise hahaha sorry! i have bad memory for faces!) giving out free food for malaysians stranded in the airport. and also an embassy officer came to see us for like 10 minutes before went to somewhere else to settle other businesses.
#5 and during the midnight, since i couldn't catch any sleep, i decided to walk around the airport looking for an electric outlet so that i could charge my phone. while i was waiting for my battery to be fully recharged, one of the guys working at the airport came up and chatted with me. asking me about my studies and stuff. he also asked to use my charger for 10 minutes which i said "okay" and then he asked whether i had any meal since my stay. i thought he was offering me a meal on him or something but then he said,"if you are hungry i can lead you to the cafe nearby". the nearest cafe was next to the place we were standing wtf.
so "no thanks. i am okay".
#6 and then i had another transit at doha for five freaking hours which means no sleep for another 5 hours again because i might miss my flight wtf.
#7 so we (my new friend and i) spent the 5 hours chatting non stop in the food court, walking around the airport and buying some snacks and then more talking.
#8 boarded the plane to kuala lumpur but i was extremely tired to fall asleep so i had to feign having a headache so that i could ask for paracetamols and fell asleep.
still couldn't do so.
#9 the number of malaysian students from egypt in the same flight as me was 4. freaking four. there were two another guys sitting of front of me. one of them were from cairo university and the other one i never had the chance to see his face wtf.
#10 reached klia at 2.05pm! waited for my luggage for almot and hours and i made it out from that place at 3 something pm! all in all i spent almost 74 freaking hours in airports and on air.
i think i have had enough of airports to last me a lifetime. so i guess having 6 month holiday is a good thing after all.
p.s. the title is another pun. living in the airport and on the plane for 3 days. geddit?
so everyone is waiting asking anticipating (wtf) for me to write about my experience during the whole week of riot in egypt. anyway parts of this post were written using microsoft words and parts weren't. of course i tried to edit everything back, but sorry la aku malas end of story wtf. putting up the stories here just for the sake of jotting down!
being stucked in a place where there was a huge riot going on the outside.. wasn’t fun. sure it was good for experience (and pembinaan jati diri wtf) i guess. perhaps one day, when one of my grandchildren would tell me about his/her history lesson in high school and i could go all show off-y and be a cool grandma by saying "eleh granny dulu ada dekat mesir la time tu. tak heran!" wtf.
or perhaps for a book-to-be-written wtf.
but if you’re a proper girl (as claimed by a friend of mine in alexandria) like me, you need a proper bed and bathroom as a place to stay like me, you are fussy and a little claustrophobic like me, it would be your most horror dream ever.
that was why after numerous persuasions from friends, phone calls from fellow malaysian asking me to come and stay in the malaysian hall for safety, i still refused politely. For i knew i would be more stress staying there with other malaysians (not saying it’s the “malaysian” fault. More of the condition of the place, no offense).
despite how i know the risk of staying out alone and only having my egyptian foster family to accompany me in the building, i somehow felt safer here. in my own home. i guess, my house was my safety blanket after all.
right after two days the riot started last 25 jan, any foreign students from all over the world except malaysia (and indonesia i heard) had started jetting off to their home countries with the help from their governments. but still there wasn't news coming from my own government stirring the panic among the students in the malaysian hall.
and also as i was typing this into my microsoft word (no internet you see?!?!), the bullshit so-called president of egypt, husni mubarak had just announced that he wouldn’t step down. nice move there. someone was so in need a lecture and a lesson or two about moving on. urgh. i could hear the uproar coming from the people outside from the nearby street protesting. shrieking and shoutings, you know that whole.. riot package. OMG in fact i just heard a BANG! I think that must be a gunshot or something.
So where was i before i sidetracked again?
Oh ya. My experience during this riot.
Oh ya. My experience during this riot.
hmmm... lets just say i was not having a really bad time despite the fact i didn’t go out from my house since Thursday, 27 of january. A WEEK. thursday - that was the day i skipped my class to go to the bank to withdraw 80% of my savings in the bank just in case the situation got worse and the banks had to be closed. and i couldn't be more right! thank god for my female intuition wtf. #feminism
the only non-virtual human contact i could have within my reach was of course, my neighbor who had been supportive enough. asking me daily whether "i am okay", offering me food and drink, telling me to tell them if i am short on money and even “banned” me from going to the grocery shops, offering their oldest son as the “scape goat” to the grocery. HAHA. Yes, they are indeed the nicest people in egypt i can find despite sometimes they annoyed me few times... every year.
but of course those occurences are always forgetable with a plate of mahsyi.
but of course those occurences are always forgetable with a plate of mahsyi.
somehow being surrounded with the comfort of a place called home, i still have the Familiarity to tell me "it's going to be okay". however i was almost toppled over the edge when the government decided to cut off every single possible communication means in egypt during the Jumaat Ghadab Riot.
i saw with my own eyes the moment the clock striked 11am, my connection went ka-poof! even the internet disconnected itself wtf.
you see, in this century everything is about the internet. That was how the opposition party in malaysian managed to get into our parliment during the last election. The situation wasn’t that different here because the organisers were utelising the internet mostly for spread of infos and news. i was totally relying on their facebook group and twitter to get the live update!
i was expecting myself to lost the marbles or something actually having no internet connections. But somehow i was okay. In fact i take this experience as my rehabilitation. It was no secret i was an extremely heavy internet user. With all the blogs i am following, and facebook, and twitter. Heck, even when i was in class, i still went online on my phone checking out some websites.
and during the night i could see from the window of my house, some men were taking shifts as the night patrols as some prisoner broke out from the prisons! that was when i started to fear the situation. no internet to check or update myself, friends weren't living close enough to my housing area, and limited phone access (luckily the mobile phone lines were restored two days later after the Cut Out™) so, at least, i could still call some friends to ask about the updates for any evacuation plan and news from my parents (but we still couldn't text!)
so if you are asking me again, how was it during the riot and curfew period?
i was okay and was doing fine. my life still went on as normal as how it used to be before the uprising blablabla.
the only difference is.. i can now claim myself as an internet survivor!!! (hello? not having internet for a week plus is an achievement okay!!). perhaps i can start a Webaholic Anonymous group wtf. "hello everyone, my name is pink and i am a webaholic survivor" wtf.
how's that as my introduction line?
p.s. this post is getting to long so i think i will write on my "sleeping at the airport" experience in a separate post.
contohnya tengah jalan jalan dalam kedai. ada abang eropah (haha taknak sebut arab konon pfftt) kacak gila badan gagah perkasa lalu, aku tanpa ragu ragu akan cakap,"hai! awak kacaklah. jom kahwin awak."
contohnya la kan. tapi memang pernah je aku buat ahhahaha.
jadinya hari ni ketika aku berdiri dalam bas shuttle KLIA untuk ke tempat kutip bagasi, ada makcik dengan anak kecik dalam kereta bayi dan beg masuk. tempat dah penuh maka ada seorang pakcik melayu berdiri dan tawarkan kerusi dia lah (sifat terpuji).
dan biasalah orang melayu ni kan bercakap berlapik berbahasa bunga bunga. makcik tu kata "takpe okay je ni nak sampai dah pun."
mesti korang terfikir kan apa watak aku dalam situasi ni? haaa nak sampai part watak aku dah. teruskan la membaca.
sebab dah terlampau biasa sangat buat perangai mengomel sesuka hati dalam bahasa melayu terus automatik cakap "kalau awak taknak duduk meh saya duduk" dalam nada gadis gedik gedik (think scha alyahya).
pakcik tu terus pusing pandang aku dan kata,"duduklah," sambil senyum simpul penuh makna. muka dia macam nak tahan gelak.
oh shit! aku baru teringat aku dah ada kat bumi belacan rupanya.
malunya ai tuhan je yang tahu yu.
p.s. ye saya tahu ramai nak dengar kisah saya ketika seminggu rusuhan dan darurat. bawak bersabar ye. definitely will write up on it but for now, i need to gain my health and energy back first.
how my google reader looked like the moment i load my browser with all the default links
internet is back like an hour ago.
i am doing fine over here. and right now i am at the cairo international airport waiting for my flight back to malaysia.
for you who are reading this, please pray for my (and the others) safety peeps. hopefully there wont be any problem causing any delay in my flight because i still have another 23 effing hour (i came to the airport a day earlier to avoid any unexpected trouble) to board that plane.
till then, see you in malaysia.
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