In Their Own Words

A good friend of mine from Cairo, an Egyptian, sent me an email describing her voting experience. I found it inspirational and wanted to share it on the blog. When I requested her permission, she responded with enthusiasm. She wrote "I would love to tell the whole world how things went and very proud of it too." So I am doing my small part in bringing her statement to the "whole world"!

"Went to the elections in Heliopolis and on the way to where I was going to vote, seen long lines of people standing in front of the schools where the voting boxes are. When seeing this I was full of pride. On reaching the election place it was so crowd for some where standing even from 7 a.m. although it was to start from 8a.m., also heard that people went after finishing their dawn prayer to stand in lines. It took me about 2 hrs and half to reach my box. But it was wonderful talking with people & joking, I didn't feel the time for I was kind of studying what was going on & everybody was very happy  to come & vote although quite a number was their first time. In the line you could see all different backgrounds standing and anxious to vote. They had women in different places than men and it was fine, did not feel anything against it.There were women from different ages, single & married, in their early pregnancy & at their end, nuns & completely veiled, unveiled women like me & with the normal veil, healthy & very sick, lots of senior citizens and girls reached the age of 18 to vote & taking pictures showing their inked fingers (prove of voting).  It was really  very crowdy & full  from early morning till 7p.m and because of that in some places they had it going till 9p.m. There was no discrimination of any kind at all between the different sectors of people for they were all EGYPTIANS. It was really a wonderful experience and really very proud of it as lot of people are also."

Someone had just written to me that seeing  the long lines with people spending hours waiting to vote was "so sad", that people in the U.S. didn't know how good they've got it. I agree that Americans don't know how good they've got it. But I find this eagerness to vote and to expend untold hours trying to do so inspiring and heartening. If only Americans felt this way about voting! Thank you, Lamia, for this testimonial to the Egyptian people!