Aurora University trustee in Egypt during protests
Myron Resnick witnessed his share of protests during the three years he lived in London.
And when the Aurora University trustee heard news of the protests in Cairo during a January vacation to Egypt, he first assumed the efforts would be short-lived and insignificant.
“We presumed it was a typical, staged demonstration,” said Resnick, 79.
But by Jan. 27, the third morning of his trip, Resnick and the rest of his group of 42 Americans affiliated with the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago knew the protests were more serious.
Not run by a single leader, but organized over social networking sites, Resnick said the protests took on a true grass-roots nature with Egyptians from all walks of life participating.
Resnick detailed his trip close to the protest zone to about 35 Aurora University students and faculty members Tuesday at the school's Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action.
The vacation began with one normal day touring Tahrir Square and an Egyptian art museum, he said. That night, the first protests took place in the square and soon after, they escalated.
“We were awakened by a column of 12 tanks that rolled by our hotel followed by about 12 troop carriers,” Resnick said.
The arrival of tanks past the hotel in Giza, about 15 miles away from downtown Cairo, signaled the army had begun patrolling streets, setting up checkpoints and imposing a curfew.
Resnick said tour guides told his group traveling to Mt. Sinai and the pyramids — their destination for the day — would be impossible.
“Our group, while not in any danger, was concerned as to ‘What next?'” he said.
Aurora University senior Jesus Favela, who spent some time in the military, said it was interesting to hear about the Egyptian military's tactics, and he was surprised to hear the army did not rely heavily on guns.
Still, the military's presence kept the travelers at their hotel all day Jan. 27, Resnick said.
They climbed to the hotel's roof, from where they could hear and see some actions related to the protests. Travelers talked with Egyptian bartenders and tour guides about their thoughts on the protests against longtime President Hosni Mubarak.
“You have old friends and old enemies with a new playbook. You tend to get the flavor of that when you're into it and too close to it as we were,” Resnick said. “But we didn't really know what was going on.”
After parts of eight days, the travelers boarded a plane sent to Cairo by the Israeli government and flew out of Egypt. But in getting to the plane, Resnick said his group faced its only real danger: a mob of 25,000 foreigners crammed into the airport, all trying to get out of Egypt as soon as possible.