How to dismantle a terrorist bomb

It's a sunny, Friday morning. Blue skies. Billowy, dreamy clouds meandering about. Birds singing. The whole bit. I am in the front room of our flat reading the morning news, the morning sun streaming in. It has been a quiet morning in Cairo.

Just before 10 a.m., I feel a soft thud, as if someone two floors down has slammed a door. There were people mucking about downstairs earlier, so I imagine the noise could be them. Still, there hasn't been any commotion down there for at least an hour. 

Could it be? No way. Not again.

It IS Friday, though; the day when protests happen throughout Cairo. Protests usually occur in the early afternoon, just after the noon prayers. Two weeks ago, on another Friday morning, a few explosive devises detonated throughout the city, killing several police officers and wounding scores more. One of the city's popular museums, one particularly well known for housing treasured artifacts from Cairo's medieval history, was almost totally destroyed. 

Surely, not again. 

And then just a couple of minutes after the first, I feel another thud. Strange, but I don't panic. Two weeks ago, I did. Not this time. Instead, I calmly open my Twitter app. Sad really. I suspect that two bombs have just detonated near enough to me to feel them, and yet I am calm. Can this be right? Is this how it is supposed to work?

My application opens to the bloop-bloop-bloop of a continuous Twitter feed on #Cairo. Two small bombs have exploded near a military checkpoint on one of the bridges that connects Giza with our suburb, Ma'adi. A reporter for one of the local news agencies happened to be crossing the bridge when the first bomb exploded. He is tweeting from the scene, reporting a number of injured police officers and a lot of broken glass. He says that the devices were small, nothing like the car bomb that exploded two weeks ago. It is difficult to say from a tone deaf tweet, but I am inclined to think that there is more than a hint of relief in the reporter's updates. 

So on this bright, Friday morning, I ask myself a brutal question. When is it okay to stop being scared of the bombs?

Sadly, there is nothing novel in this particular question being asked. Loads of travel blogs tell me that Laos is the most bombed country on earth, so I am certain that millions of Laotians have at some point in the past, asked this very question. I know folks in the UK asked this question in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I can imagine that some of current residents of Baghdad ask this question every day. 

The question is a first for me.

I get a sense that quite a few of my colleagues at school have already answered this question. Some stop being scared a long time ago. They taxi downtown to clandestine clubs. They take photos of gathering protestors at Tahrir Square. They cycle through military checkpoints on their way to neighboring suburbs, suburbs that have suffered through recent protests and clashes. They plan their weekend travels based on the same Twitter reports that compel me to stay indoors. If there is trouble in Giza, then they go to Festival City and Ikea instead. They think me crazy for allowing my routines and patterns to be altered. They say that the odds of being involved in an incident are still astronomically high. 

Some of my acquaintances however, have answered the question and have behaved in exactly the opposite fashion. A teaching couple that began the year with us have already evacuated, breaking contract, never to return. Others are counting the minutes until they depart in June, moving on to other international schools in other locales far safer than strife-riven Egypt. Some of my colleagues have cultivated a deep mistrust of Egyptians, and they seldom leave their houses.

I am of the opinion that anywhere measured in double-digit kilometers near an explosive device set by terrorists is too close. If I can feel the crump of a detonation, then I have chosen poorly. If I can hear the crackle of gunfire, then it sucks to be me. My blue-collar, lower-middle-class, small town American upbringing simply did not prepare me for frenzied teens toting RPGs and extremists in galliabayas burying IEDs by highway checkpoints. 

But by the same token, I do not see these teens and extremists behind every neighborhood tree and corner. I do not think twice about walking to and from school every day, nor do I worry when I stroll down to the shops for groceries. I think your average Egyptian simply wants all of this horseshit to stop so that he or she can get back to work and provide for the family. Dana and I dine in local restaurants. Egyptians tend to smile and say hello to us every single day. We return the smile and the greeting. Average folks in Egypt are pretty much average folks anywhere. 

So much for taking the middle ground. 

But taking the middle ground may not be so helpful on a day-to-day basis. If, for example, on a Friday, Dana and I are invited to a downtown, Cairo restaurant, do we go?

Do we?