June 30th Part 2

The situation in Egypt is getting increasingly tense.  Today (Friday) is the Muslim holy day.  It is typical for there to be protests on Fridays as people go to the mosques in the morning, listen to whatever the imam has to say, and then go out to protest in support of what the imam said.  Since there are already big demonstrations planned for Sunday and people are getting all worked up over that, today saw very large protest turnouts as well.  In preparation there have been tanks put out in the streets at all the entrances to our neighborhood:

While I am sure that part of the reason the tanks are put there is to make us more safe, in a way it makes me feel less safe.  Do they really think heavy weapons such as these will be needed?!

This afternoon the Embassy decided to offer optional evacuation to the families.  The few families that are left in Cairo (most go home for the summer) seem to be eager to leave given the option.  We don't know exactly why this decision was made, but it does seem to indicate that there is enough anti-American sentiment floating around to make it unsafe for us.  My husband and I won't leave until the evacuation is mandatory, should it reach that point, because we are scheduled to be leaving so soon anyway.  We certainly hope it won't get to that point— for our sake as well as the Egyptians!