So my dear Gouda’s corpse was saved from the fire that ate up Rab3a and its hospital and what seems like infinite bodies. His friends managed to take the corpse along with hundreds of others to safer, nearby mosques. I went after AbdulRahman Gouda to Al Iman Mosque in Makram Ebeid right after noon prayer: around 1pm. The street was fairly busy. People were mostly MB’s, but also some dressed like villagers, others “in style”. Mothers were seated on chairs at the mosque gate, red faces drenched in tears. Friends, family were quickly coming crying, collapsing, obviously just informed. People were kept out on the surrounding streets because the mosque was packed with the corpses. Close friends and volunteers had locked the doors and blocked the huge staircase to control the flow of family desperately trying to reach their kins. I couldn’t get in as I was not a direct relative or journalist. The mosque, I learned had no working AC’s just fans. A distant, unbearable smell of rot was there whenever I got too close to the gate. Bodies had been lying there for around 24 hours in perfect August temperature. Every now and then, men would carry big chunks of ice into the mosque to keep the corpses cool. A volunteer was distributing medical masks on kins who would later enter the mosque. It seemed like some nice guy donted 3 brand new fans – the boxes rushed inside. The whole west fence was covered with lists of names and addresses of the victims. There were exactly 20 posters with an average of 20 names per list, do your times table. Finally, I had found Gouda’s best friends who were there since the morning. AbdelRahman, I found out, could not be taken to Zeinhom morgue because it was packed, it would take too long before we could bury him. (They had also heard about officials there blackmailing kins to change the reports.) We were fighting time – not that anyone cared about the curfew at 7pm. The only alternative, my friends figured, was to call up a doctor to come to the mosque and write up the death certificate there. They thought, to hell with an autopsy report at Zeinhom that will take hours and probably end up being forged. We sat for hours waiting for the doctor to arrive and finish his work. We also had to wait for the Public Prosecution to come over and issue the burial permits. While waiting, a few coffins came out every once in a while. There were at least 25 hearses parked outside. Morsi posters filled the place. An outsider would take a bird’s eye view at the people there and think it was frickin AL Qeada camp with all the beards, and galabiya’s. I never felt safer. Strangers offered rounds of free water, juice, crackers, sometimes hot meals. Men would almost always apologize or bow if they stepped on my toe or pushed me by mistake. They were calm at first, confused and sharing endless almost identical stories about how their guy was sniped before their own eyes, how they were showered with live bullets as they tried to get out, and how women were bullied. One man suddenly screamed and threw himself at a younger man crying hysterically because the guy didn’t answer his calls and he thought he had died. I heard many calmly but surely vowing that peace was over. A few were cursing the rab3a platform for misrepresenting the sit-in. Others were acknowledging that they had lost and that it was insane to fight a whole country. There was only foreign media, whose journalists were not bothered, but had a very hard time working. Either because Egyptians were typically offering their statements or were too skeptical of the blonde who will surely twist facts. I offered to translate for Paula from RT, the poor woman had been appalled by what she’s seen in the mosque. She couldn’t speak. It was packed by now. We prayed Asr, and a general funeral prayer, after which things took a slightly different turn. Chants started. Angry chants that literally shook the buildings towering us” الشعب يريد اعدام السفاح..الداخلية بلطجية.. يا نجيب خقهم يا نموت زيهم.... and of course, more sophisticated pro-morsi, pro-Islamist chants, that were usually divided. Not to mention the stronger vengeful threats that “peaceful” had expired and “we meet tomorrow”. The PP must have been in a rush because at around 5pm, corpses started rushing out, one after the other. Swarms of people gathered at the main gate. I am telling you – and God be my witness – for the one hour I had been before Gouda came out, there were exactly 10 seconds between one coffin / corpse and the next (some bodies were not in a coffin). At one point I was getting a nervous breakdown.. Corpses just won’t stop coming out. And this is what it looks like: the staircase packed with masked volunteers clearing the way. Door opens, corpses rushes out carried by more men than it can take with some woman following (mom/wife). Volunteers swiftly spray at the body with air freshener, too generously at times, to cover the odor. The body would come out, in one piece or more, wrapped in white kafan, stained with blood at the head or chest, with one or 2 big blocks of ice on each corpse. Chants got louder every time a body came out. Women followed their martyrs with the famous Arab celebrating hail “zaghrooda”. Big machos were crying like babies and cursing with rage. It was a charged scene. After being charged with scenes from the mosque, and what seemed like an infinite stream of corpses and trails of broken hearts, these people are on fire now. They will take revenge. I don’t blame them. My sentimental story about burying Gouda in Ghoreyya, is irrelevant now. I just wanted to point out a number of kind residents (ahl el ghoreya el ged3an) who could not choose another time to pick a fight with us outside the mosque for contaminating Al Azhar, said an old man, and murmuring "to hell with you and your boy" “" في 60 داهية انتم وابنكم"
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 03:11:01 +0000
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