At Night in Tahrir Square, Cairo Protest Gives Way to Poetry and Performances (NYT)

[struggle4progress]

By ANTHONY SHADID
Published: February 6, 2011

... As the night unfolded, vendors ambled through peaceful streets, past couples holding hands and men still wearing bandages from their fight with government supporters trying to overrun the square. “Tea for an Egyptian pound!” one cried. Volunteers handed out bread sticks. “My man, eat it!” shouted Ahmed Khater, to a gesture of polite reluctance. “Just take one. We came for you.”

Down the street, men took their seats on the wet pavement, to a performance of colloquial poetry by a man in a wheelchair, speeches by a brawler draped in an Egyptian flag and slogans led by Mohammed Mahmoud, a 16-year-old with a knack for words ...

She walked by box after box of bandages, lotions, disinfectant, inhalers, intravenous solution and even insulin — what she called “nearly a pharmacy” — provided by donations and organized by Dr. Khalil, who is a secular Muslim, as well as her veiled counterpart and a young Christian. Men healing from the clashes slept under lean-tos next to the tents the women used ...

As dawn approached, youths typed away on computers, perusing Twitter and Web sites of Arabic satellite channels by way of Internet connections unlocked from apartments surrounding the square. Men waited for two hours in lines to the square’s sole bathroom in the Omar Makram mosque. Two tents were set up for lost and found ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/world/middleeast/07square.html?partner=rss&emc=rss