Bombs in Sinai

This is my Egypt trip, continued. Again, I wrote this about a month ago in an e-mail to my family.

There were three bombs in Sinai last night. Which of course, is nothing new to me, because I've been living in Jerusalem for the past two months. Since I've come to Israel, there have been relatively few bombs. One in the entrance to Jerusalem from Ramallah, the two in Be'er Sheva and one in the French Hill area of Jerusalem. I wasn't really scared when those bombings happened, even from the French Hill bombing which is 10 minutes from my house. But yesterday, I was pretty freaking scared. I was out with my two friends, Hanna and Marianne, and three Egyptians, playing 2 on 2 pool. One of the Egyptians got a text message, looked really upset, and left. I wasn't worrying about it too much, particularly since his leaving gave me more shots in pool (I won both games, by the way).

We didn't really worry about it, especially since he came back about 10 minutes later. Then, we were sitting down, having a beer (well, I wasn't because I'm a poor student) and he still looked pretty upset, so we asked him what happened. He said that there was a bombing in Taba and that 300 people were killed. At first we didn't believe him, because he looked like he was joking, and the number that he mentioned was too extreme. But he eventually got serious, and told us that he didn't know if it was true, but he thinks that it was. We, of course, wanted to check the news immediately, but it wasn't up yet (this was only 30 minutes after it happened) and news of bombings usually show up an hour afterwards. So we just sat there. In the bar. Not knowing if it was true, and worrying. It was horrible.

After a little bit, we got up and went to the hostel that we're staying at. They have a television outside, with carpets around for people to sit on. There were so many people there, mainly Israelis, all just sitting and watching the news. That's when we found out that the bombing actually did happen, in Taba, the border town that we spent about 2 hours in the day before. We were actually standing right outside the Hilton for about half an hour. It seemed surreal. So, being the good daughter that I am, I went immediately to e-mail my mom. Usually I call when something like this happens, but my cell phone only works in Israel. So I e-mail her, and big thanks to you, Abba, for calling her and leaving her a message. I wasn't sure whether I told you guys which town in Sinai I was going to be in, so I was understandably worried. That done, we went back to watch more of the news. Because it just happened, they didn't have any actual footage, so they kept on showing the same clips again and again. People crossing at the Eilat-Taba border, the Hilton Hotel (when it was still standing), and my personal favourite, a beautiful little Black toddler wandering around the beach, pressumably Sinai, naked. It was a bit of a contrast between those visual images, and what we were hearing. Bombing in Taba. At least 30 dead.

Soon, they started to announce the other bombings in Sinai, and we all started to get a little more scared. It's actually more luck than anything else, because we were thinking of staying in Nuwieba, but luckily picked Dahab instead. They put up a map of Sinai, with red dots were the three bombings happened. They were all along that coast, and you could just see that Dahab is exactly were the next dot would be, to complete the line. Seriously, I was half expecting to hear an explosion. Usually, I'm super fine when bad stuff like this happens. But this was different, partially because I wasn't even sure if it was over. It felt like when I was watching September 11 on the television in residence in Waterloo. We were all just sitting there, watching, not knowing what was happening, except that it was a planned attack, and scared shitless. This time, we were sitting with a room full of Israelis and Egyptians, watching the news. For so long, they didn't even know what to report, and we were watching the news in Hebrew, so I had to try hard to understand. But eventually, we understood and didn't even know how to react. Some guy was talking about how horrible it would be to get back to Israel, and how he'd have to cancel his flight from Eilat tomorrow. We were talking about how STUPID it was for them to bomb Egypt, because it may kill Jews but it also totally screws up the Egyptian economy. How much is tourism going to drop now?

And I just wanted to talk to my mommy. As I said, usually I'm cool under pressure, and I always viewed my calling after bombings as being a comfort to my mom rather than me. But yesterday, I was scared, and being the big girl of 21 that I am, just wanted a hug from my mom. Eventually, we went to bed, because the news was so repetitive and sooo horrible. So when I woke up this morning, I was very grateful to G-d that nothing else happened, and that we were all okay. I don't know what we're going to do. Probably stay in Sinai for another couple days, then move on to Cairo, which would be one of the safest places for us now. But we need to go back to Taba on Sunday to sort out the visa situation, so we might not even be able to complete our Egypt trip, which would suck. Also, I was debating whether on not to go on the jet ski trip, which I would have loved to do but which cost a lot of money. But now, fuck it. I'm going. No point in me saving my money all the time if I can't enjoy it. So I guess that's it. Sorry for this horribly long e-mail, I just wanted to get it all out. Thank G-d I am alive and well, and have made me even more grateful than ever that I live in such a safe country as Canada. I will talk with you guys later.