As protesters stormed sections of Cairo on Friday afternoon,Laura Dolbin watched towers of black smoke rise from city streets asshe watched from a rooftop as the chaos unfolded.
"The dorm I was staying in was located in (the district of)Zamalek," Dolbin, 22, of Pottsville, a college student studyingabroad, said in a phone interview Saturday from a hotel in Cairo. "Iwas three blocks away. We were standing on the roof of the dorm. Icould see black smoke and fires. I could see all the tear gasleaking in. I could hear gunshots and I could hear people screaming.My throat was starting to hurt and my head was starting to hurt fromthe tear gas.
"I never felt fear like this."
The daughter of Schuylkill County Judge Cyrus Palmer Dolbin,Laura Dolbin is a senior psychology and history major at Universityof Delaware, Newark, Del. She and nine of her fellow studentsembarked to study in Egypt on Jan. 3. They were due to leave thisThursday, but turmoil in the country has led them to try to leavesooner.
Protests have been raging in Egypt for five days, demandingPresident Hosni Mubarak end his nearly 30-year regime. Rioters havebattled police with stones and fire bombs and burned down the rulingparty's headquarters, according to The Associated Press.
"My wife, Suzy, and I have been on absolute tenterhooks. We can'teat. We can't sleep. We're just waiting for the university to getthe kids - not only Laura - out of there. We're praying. I'm goingto church Sunday to ask God for there to be deliverance for my childand peace in Egypt," Judge Dolbin said late Saturday.
Laura Dolbin said she was hoping to depart from CairoInternational Airport to return to the U.S. this morning.
"Hopefully, we can get on a plane," she said Saturday.
According to AP, thousands of passengers were stranded at Cairo'sairport Saturday as flights were canceled or delayed, leaving themunable to leave because of a government-imposed curfew.
Egypt blocked the Internet across the country Friday to hamperprotesters who use social-networking sites to organize, according toAP. The only connection Dolbin had to her parents was her cellphone.
"When the protests started to get bad on Friday, we discussedleaving Sunday. Our professor contacted the university and tried toget us out of here faster," she said.
Dr. Yasser A. Payne, an assistant professor with the BlackAmerican Studies Program at the University of Delaware, has been thestudents' guide during the trip.
When violence crept closer to her dorm in Zamalek, a district ofCairo, she and her fellow students were moved to the Kempinski NileHotel at Garden City, Cairo.
"It has very good security on it," she said.
On Saturday afternoon, hotel security asked Dolbin and her fellowstudents to dim their lights to hide from looters.
"We got to dinner. I sat down. We got our appetizers. Then thehotel workers had us take our dinners to our rooms and shut off allour lights and be quiet because there were looters at the door. Whenthe curfew sets in, looters come out, and they are no longerprotesters. They are people who want to break in and get what theycan. They're targeting rich areas," she said.
Laura Dolbin said that before the protests erupted, her visit toEgypt was pleasant.
Dolbin is taking two Black American studies courses, one with anemphasis on history and one on psychology.
"We've been studying an ancient Egyptian culture called Ma'at.What we're trying to do is learn the ancient culture/religion anduse it as an intervention for Black American issues, likesocioeconomic status. And so we've been going on excursions to thetemples to look at how the ancient Egyptians practiced this. One wasthe Temple of Luxor. We went to the pyramids, too. We went to theValley of the Kings and to the tombs. Anywhere where there's ancientEgyptian history, you can find Ma'at," Dolbin said.
Dolbin celebrated her birthday Tuesday in Egypt, turning 22.
"We had no idea something like this would happen," said hermother, Suzy, on Saturday. "Up until Tuesday, things were goingfamously. She was taking classes. She was touring the country. Shewas really learning a lot."
Dolbin's family includes two siblings, a brother, Raeff, 16, anda sister, Alice Anne, 24.
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