Nine months pregnant and preparing for the arrival of her third child, Marcia Lynx Qualey had hoped to have her third child in Egypt. However, the revolution that is underway in Egypt put paid to her plans. She, her husband, and their two sons had to be evacuated in one of the chartered flights out of Egypt. Despite her nerve wracking journey and the jet lag, Marcia found time to chat with me about her experiences in Egypt.

Marcia Lynx Qualey is a literary critic who has made Cairo her home. She was born at Midway Hospital in St. Paul and grew up in Minnesota. Siddiqui: Tell me a little bit about yourself and your family and what made you consider Egypt as a place for studies/work? Qualey: We moved to Egypt in 2001 after I fell in love with the country on a visit to a friend. I cannot quite explain the feeling, but I remember looking up at the Cairo sky and feeling: I must be here, I must be here, this sky is my home. Siddiqui: What was your experience like in Egypt in terms of your interaction with the general population and also from an interfaith relations point of view? Qualey: No country is perfect, and Egypt has had problems with sectarian tensions, certainly in part fomented by the Mubarak regime (divide and conquer). As to my feelings about the Egyptian people: I try to believe that all people on this Earth are equally good---or have equal bad and good---but my heart nonetheless insists that the Egyptians are the best. I have weathered moments where people said I was crazy for insisting on life in polluted Egypt, corrupt Egypt, the Egypt of insane traffic and not-so-nice inflation. The Egypt of a growing gap between rich and poor. Trash fires, crop fires, crazy edicts from the Ministry of Education. But now, everyone who's looking can see what I see: Egyptians are---all told---an incredible, brave, funny, imaginative people. With the occasional baltagi lunatic on a camel. Siddiqui: Please tell me about your experience during the early part of the revolution before you were evacuated. Qualey: When I walked in the January 28 protest and shouted, along with my neighbors, for the removal of Hosni Mubarak, it was the most exhilarating moment of my life, bar none. I was weeping. I was shouting and weeping. I felt a tremendous fear being lifted off all of us. I was nine months pregnant, so I couldn't keep up with the marchers in the long haul. But I wanted to run after them. Siddiqui: What factors do you think sustain dictators like Mubarak in the Middle-East? Qualey: I'm a literary critic, not a political scientist, but it seems that $1.3 billion in military aid is certainly a help Siddiqui: What is your assessment of the current situation in Egypt and what future do you see for a vibrant democracy in Egypt? Qualey: It's tricky, of course, and I don't believe in making predictions. But I don't see any way for us to go at this point but forward. We must reach for all of it: democracy, justice, freedom, unity. As Santiago Gamboa said of writing a novel: "The writer should, at the beginning, imagine a huge novel, because writing is a process of loss: the writer dreams of a cathedral and finally achieves a provincial church." We must dream as big as we can. We must dream of the biggest castle ever built. Siddiqui: How was your journey back to Minnesota? Qualey: The main trouble we had on the way out of Egypt was my advanced state of pregnancy. And then, upon arrival in Minneapolis, Homeland Security did pull us aside. They left me in a wheelchair with the two boys and took my husband off into a room. Apparently, they wanted to know what we'd "learned" about Islam during our time in Egypt. I guess they thought we were coming back with some new religious concepts---which we weren't. However, if Homeland Security would like to worry about something, they are free to worry about how I've adopted the radical Egyptian ideal of just and popular democracy! Siddiqui: Any plans to return to Egypt in the near future? Qualey: I don't think commercial airlines will let me fly at the moment, so we have to wait until the baby is born - and I believe about six weeks old - to fly.