My name is Mona El-Sabbahy, I´m 18 years old.
I study architecture, and I´m in the No Military Trials for Civilians campaign
I´m also in the Popular Committee to Defend the Revolution.
My name is Hanan Sadek, 52 years old. I work in an oil company.
I heard about the 25th of January on the internet.
There was an event & everyone was talking about it.
I hadn´t decided to participate, until they posted a manual
in case of injuries or arrests, to do so and so.
So it was a bit reassuring, and I decided to participate a day before the protest.
And I started sending invitations out, but I was still afraid,
because I still didn´t understand it, and was hesitant about telling people.
Wondering if State Security will come to arrest me.
I told her "Be wise Mona, don´t get yourself in anything reckless"
But I wasn´t worried, I saw that the invitations were on Facebook.
"We will do the same as Tunisia" "A revolution on so and so date"
I felt it was a sort of a joke. Not that I took it lightly,
but felt it was like the Khaled Said protests that we hear a lot about
and we tried to join them in Alexandria and Cairo.
I didn´t expect anything more.
Mona was going with very high hopes, because she had been participating
for three days, kind of warming up. I wasn´t there.
I was just the mother worried for her daughter who is going to demos.
So on January 28th I took part for the first time.
People were chanting "freedom, human dignity" and stuff like that.
Fine, I didn´t say anything.
We started at the Mustafa Mahmoud mosque,
through Batal Ahmad street, there were a lot of people.
They started chanting "the people wants to overthrow the regime"
My daughter Mona was next to me, a young girl with her mother.
I told her "Hush, don´t chant that"
She look at me. For me it was the first time I hear this chant.
And I was startled, thinking if they´ll beat us or kill us.
The overthrowing of the regime is a big thing.
So she looked at me, she didn´t understand since she was living
different stages. I was still new and fresh.
I don´t know if she ended up chanting, but I remained silent.
Till the end of January 28th I almost didn´t chant at all.
Except when riot cops started to move on Asr El-Nil bridge
I then started to shout and swear.
They had 4 amroured cars with 3 or 4 rows of police in front of them,
dressed in black. They moved towards us, the birdge was full of people.
They were moving as if they were a machine, a moving robot.
A machine pushing in front of it the big mass of people.
It was as if they were a black giant walking wall.
As if those in front were not humans.
They were moving as if the street was empty.
My mom first went down on January 28th, I had been protesting
since Januray 25th. So I had experience.
I was telling her what to do and when.
At first I was leading her, but when the teargas started,
I couldn´t see anything, she was holding me and moving me around.
When the gas got really heavy she took me in her jacket.
At some point we went to the front and met someone we know.
He was hurt badly, bleeding from his face and his body covered with blood.
He is tall, so since I´m tall too, I supported his body.
Even though I´m a woman and he is a man, but the others were short.
Till some people came and said they´d talk him to an ambulance at the other side of the bridge.
Mona and I know this person, he was Mona´s teacher at school.
Mona collapsed. She was scared and crying really hard.
I remember I held her and told her not to be afraid.
She told me "he is going to die"
I told her "No, he is fine"
I had seen his injury, his elbow was hurt and some around his eye.
But he was conscious and he knew what he was saying.
But this terrified her.
People around us were shouting at me, telling me to take her home.
They felt I was a harsh on her, telling her that he will be fine
and that she should pull herself together.
I felt then that if I had taken her home, she won´t be able to continue.
And she needs to continue, and she has to know that
people will get hurt, people will fall, people will die.
But if we don´t continue it won´t work.
If I get scared and transmit this fear to her, she won´t be able to continue.
And she is the one who has to go on, we are old
and thanks to God it´s enough that we´ve witnessed this day.
I was in the security committee in (Tahrir) square
I was even at Lazoghli
We were in charge of checking people on the entrances,
to see if they have weapons or the like.
I felt this was humiliating. When I was the one being searched it was totally fine.
When I was doing the searching, it was uncomfortable to open their bags.. touch them.
A big part of my participation was outside the square.
Bringing things to the people there, Mona was more the one participating.
When she would be in the sqaure, I´d feel she is happy
and that she feels safe among the people.
The real problem was me at home not being able to sleep.
During the Shafik sit-in there was attack on the church in Sol, Atfih
We heard that there were lots of people, and things were tense (at Maspero)
It was a bit strange for me, surprised that the Christians are organizing protests
So I went there (to Maspero) and there were lots of people.
People who looked like it was their first time at a demonstration.
People were like "Some were chanting here, others there. What shall we do?"
And I was like "just go and join"
So I sat there, and met lots of people.
At first I got some weird looks.
First because I´m a girl and it was already late at night.
Second because I´m veiled, so people thought "what are you doing here?"
"You must be an infiltrator"
But I spoke to many and then went back to sleep in (Tahrir) square.
But after that, when they started the sit-in there (at Maspero)
They had women in the middle and men on both sides.
With ropes dividing them. I felt that was strange.
At first I was with the men, then they told me "go with the women"
So I felt if I say no, being a veiled woman, it will be too confusing for them.
And I didn´t want to do anything wrong.
So I went to where the women were.
When I was passing under the rope separating men from women
my veil fell off, and there was a moment of clarity.
I joined the women and the veil went back on my head.
Concerning my daughter sleeping in Tahrir, this was of course
a revolutionary decision. I think.
This is from the effect of the revolution on our way of thinking.
I´d remind her that during the Shafik sit-in I took part without any problem.
But after that the March 9 sit-in was evicted,
followed by another sit-in that was forcefully evicted by the army on April 9
I wanted to join the sit-in and she didn´t allow me.
She started telling me that I was a girl..
I was confused, asking her "how could you say this to me?"
Very confused. I told her "You never said this before"
She told me "we live among people who think this way, and we have to live by their rules"
I was really really upset with her. Very upset.
We spent a day upset at each other, then I came to her,
and asked her if she really believed in what she told me.
She said "of course not"
I want to say something really important,
it is not to remind her because she doesn´t really know it.
The Mona we knew before January 25th no longer exists.
Mona became a totally different person after January 25th.
Mona before Jan 25 was a very shy person, she couldn´t talk to people
without planning it really well before. "Shall I talk or not?"
And most of the time ended up not talking to them.
She used to do Karate exercises to build her self-confidence
Stuff like that, but now she is totally different.
Now she is a person who knows what she wants, who knows
where she is going in life, and has enough convictions and arguments to defend what she believes in.
This is a transformation that wouldn´t have been possible in such a short time without a revolution.
I see that the arguments between us have to do with the youth wanting
everything quickly and the way they see it. Without flexibility or compromises.
This coming period, the youth who took part in the revolution, not just Mona,
have to slow down and decide what they want to accomplish
and plan 1-2-3 steps to get there and how to get there.
Not just go "Nah, we don´t want this" and that´s it.
It will take some time and they should accept this.
But this is all part of growing up.
O.k. I agree we are asking for a lot of things,
but I´m not saying we want to build a city in the desert in 3 days.
I´m sure this will take time, but there are stuff we demand that don´t need time at all.
Like demanding freedom for the detainees. So free them.
Of course I tell her. I do tell her.
I see that she should know, because Mom and I are friends
we tell each other everything.
Because the way she is not entitled to prohibit me from something without a valid argument,
I should tell her everything I´m doing so she knows what she is prohibiting me from.
I think that the revolution starting... no not that.
I think that if we remain silent after all those people had taken to the streets, and in the end nothing changes;
is much worse than if no body had protested in the first place, and we were still waiting for them.
Unfortunately, we are leaving behind a very complicated task to our kids,
not easy at all, but in God´s will they will do a good job! The job we couldn´t do.