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Glen Ellyn man flees unrest in Egypt

Vince Hayner thought he would find adventure when he took a wanderlust leap about three weeks ago from his Glen Ellyn home to Egypt.

The 30-year-old had a loosely laid plan to seek work as an English tutor, travel the country, and stay with an uncle who lives in Giza, about 12 miles southwest of Cairo.

When he flew into Egypt on Jan. 12, Hayner didn’t realize it would be less than two weeks before the country would be engulfed in civilian protests calling for the ouster of 30-year President Hosni Mubarak. And the political unrest quickly put an end to his journey, sending him home Thursday.

“There was widespread dissatisfaction with Mubarak, but at that point he didn’t seem to be a topic on everybody’s mind.” Hayner said. “There was nothing to suggest to me with my limited exposure that people would start to demonstrate.

“The only hint I had came while talking to a friend of my uncle about the recent uprising in Tunisia, and he wondered if similar things would happen in Egypt.”

By Jan. 25, thousands of peaceful protesters had organized in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Even then it seemed life in Egypt might be navigable for a suburbanite. Hayner visited the Egyptian Museum near Tahrir Square with little trouble the next day.

“There were police present but it wasn’t a problem,” he said.

A trip from Cairo to the Sinai Peninsula during the next three days took Hayner away from the political action, but even there he and his travel companions were affected.

“We heard on Friday (Jan. 28) things were getting messier in Cairo and there would be a curfew at 4 p.m.,” he said. “We were hoping to do some diving Saturday, but decided to try and get back before curfew.”

They didn’t make curfew and arrived at his friend’s home near Cairo to face a few army checkpoints. Still, Hayner said it was “surprisingly easy” to get back in.

But other things had changed, too, as the protests continued and violence erupted when apparent pro-government thugs entered the mix.

So far, nearly a dozen deaths have been reported.

“Outside every building walking outside every street, you’d see everyone with really long sticks, and some people with short swords and knives kind of guarding the building,” said Hayner. “If you didn’t know what was going on, you would have thought it was thugs. But there were a lot of people guarding their neighborhoods against looting.”

That night Hayner and friends watched from a balcony as people ran from warning gunfire.

“It was a tense situation,” he said.

Hayner returned to his uncle’s for the rest of this week, facing a 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. government curfew that he describes as “almost house arrest.” And when the U.S. State Department issued a warning earlier this week urging U.S. citizens to come home, he knew it was time leave.

“It think that was the last straw,” he said.

Departing for Glen Ellyn on Wednesday was fairly easy, Hayner said, and he feels his time in Egypt was safe under the shelter of his uncle’s home and family. Still, he doesn’t plan to return, even when the political climate calms.

“I had the family there to watch over me,” Hayner said, “but I think trying to find work with what’s going on would be difficult.”