| Maha Brence Ahmad’s day at Tahrir turned into a two-week mission By Mariya Petkova |
| When the people around her first started shouting “Yasqut, yasqut [fall, fall] Hosni Mubarak,” 39-year-old Maha Brence Ahmad was scared. It was Friday, January 28, and she was walking from Al-Hussein Mosque toward Tahrir Square with a group of anti-Mubarak demonstrators. But she soon gathered up courage and shouted out.“I said it. It was very loud, very strong and very powerful. I had tears in my eyes. I was happy I was saying this,” recollects Ahmad. “I had in my mind all the humiliations that Egyptians have suffered in police stations, on the streets, in government institutions. I was freeing myself from all this humiliation when I was saying, ‘Yasqut, yasqut, Hosni Mubarak!’” A presenter at Youth and Sports Radio and a master’s student in anthropology at the American University in Cairo, Ahmad had paid little attention to the protests on January 25 and admits she was generally skeptical about them. Then Ahmad received an email from her sister, who was beaten and harassed while out protesting on January 26. It was then that Ahmad decided to take the protests more seriously. Even still, she debated whether to go or not. Ahmad was trying to finish her thesis and knew that going to the protest would delay her. “This was the voice of reason, but the voice of my heart [told me] I must be with these people. I would be ashamed if I don’t participate,” she says. Ahmad decided to go to Tahrir Square for just one day. She did not return home for two weeks. From the very beginning, Ahmad was busy. Immediately after Tahrir Square was taken over by the protesters, she looked around to see how she could help. Hearing that a mosque was sheltering the injured, she started collecting donations from people to buy medicine. Ahmad spent the night going back and forth between the mosque and the few pharmacies that were open. Once the makeshift clinic was stocked, Ahmad looked for something else to do. “I felt that after three days of protests, people have lost their voices. I knew that ginger helps when you lose your voice, so I thought I would make ginger for the people.” Ahmad started making ginger tea for the protesters at the Merit Publishing House office near Tahrir Square. People laughed at her, but she was convinced she was doing something good. “This is not funny. People have lost their voices. I want their voices to be back again to continue protesting.” In the days to come, Ahmad distributed ginger tea, water and food to the protesters. She was part of a group of volunteers who set up a supply chain for food and water. However, on Wednesday, February 2, when Mubarak’s supporters attacked Tahrir Square, it wasn’t cups of tea Ahmad had to carry around. Shaimeh El-Alemy, an activist who Ahmad met on the previous Friday, saw her in the square and told her to collect rocks and carry them to the protesters who were fighting. Ahmad tried to resist. “I said, ‘This is a peaceful demonstration!’” But soon she found herself gathering rocks. For two weeks, Ahmad slept on the floor and on chairs at Merit or at a friend’s apartment close to the square. But she did not feel exhausted. Instead, she felt charged with positive energy. Because of her experience at Tahrir Square, Ahmad is optimistic about the future. “We have hopes [because of] what we learned from our interactions with Egyptians from all classes, from all of Egypt: Christians and Muslims, Muslim Brothers and liberals and communists,” she says. “We talked to each other and now we know each other. We are ‘one hand’ and we will bring change to the whole country.” |
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