Elisabeth Thoburn is a humanities professor at Washtenaw Community College who is witnessing and writing about the unrest in Egypt as it unfolds. She's in the Middle East right now on sabbatical.

Courtesy of Jakob Skogheim

When Elisabeth Thoburn began planning a four-month journey across the Middle East, she imagined the leg of the trip spent in Egypt would be uneventful.

After all, with weeks planned in Israel and Iraq, how exciting could a few pyramids really be?

But days before her departure, Egypt suddenly dominated the world’s headlines as protesters there called for the ouster of its president, Hosni Mubarak. The U.S. State Department issued travel warnings, Americans were evacuated from the country and the threat of riots loomed. (Thursday, the uprising entered a volatile new stage when Mubarak said he would transfer power to his vice president but would not leave office.)

But instead of altering her itinerary, Thoburn, a Washtenaw Community College humanities professor on sabbatical, headed straight for a hotel less than a mile from Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the protests and riots.

Thoburn has now left Cairo, where she stayed for four days, and must watch events from the south of Egypt. But she's in the country until the end of the month and plans to go back.

On her blog, Elisabeth-Thoburn.com, she relates her experiences and travels, and there she explained her rationale for visiting Cairo despite the danger. During riots that followed the assassination of Benzair Bhutto in Pakistan in 2007, Thoburn was staying in Lahore, where there was some risk of violence.

But, she said, the media portrayed it as if “the whole country was burning” while most of Lahore and much of Pakistan was actually going about everyday life.

She figured the same was likely true for Cairo and Egypt, and called various embassies to get a better handle on the situation. Her last call was to the hotel where she would be staying.

Thoburn inquired about safety, and a clerk there assured her the area was safe. She asked how she would get from the airport to the hotel since her flight landed after curfew. He said the hotel would send a cab.

“You will be fine, honey!” the clerk assured her.

And that sealed decision to go.

“I don't believe in reacting hysterical to an internal uprising that was obviously not targeting tourists,” she wrote.

Thoburn said she wants to focus on what the media isn’t showing, namely the lives of everyday Egyptians. Several posts are dedicated to trips — or attempted trips — to Tahrir Square, but there is little discussion of the riots or clashes. Instead she keys in on the challenges of traveling through Cairo under such conditions and the general mood of the city.

“I look for the human aspect and for the wisdom ‘on the street,’” Thoburn wrote in an e-mail. “I would not throw myself into the middle of riots for the thrill of it, but I went to the square when common sense told me that it was safe. I also look for what the media do not tell us — the non-spectacular and "little" things. To me they add up to a much more real picture.”

Roaming through Cairo's streets didn’t come without its tense moments. There were interrogations for Thoburn and the other guests at the hotel where she stayed. Groups of civilians and soldiers patrolling the streets interrogated them and deleted pictures of tanks from Thoburn's camera.

She wrote about the paranoia some Egyptians had of foreigners, who who were blamed for inciting the unrest.

“We were foreigners and people did not know if to trust us or not,” Thoburn, who was born and raised in East Germany, wrote in the blog. “Usually, reaction was divided. It helped that we were neither Americans, nor Iranian, nor Israelis — all countries which were blamed to have instigated this revolution.”

In Tahrir Square, Thoburn and her companion had a chance meeting with one of the protest’s young organizers. That organizer told Thoburn she fears the West has abandoned the protesters and supports the Mubarak regime. Thoburn, who explains that the girl’s face is all over the internet, fears for fer life if the revolution fails.

Several days ago, Thoburn left Cairo but is continuing to blog from the south of Egypt, although her writing has taken on much more of the travelogue tone that was expected before the sudden turn of events in Cairo.

Even in a small town in the south of Egypt, however, there are still protests, and Thoburn said she expects to return to Cario and Tahrir Square.

“In 1989, when the Berlin wall fell, communism was toppled, the cold war came to an end — I was in Ann Arbor,” she wrote in the blog. “I missed my revolution. I am grateful that I was allowed a glimpse today into the Egyptian revolution, that I was able to meet some of its participants, and to witness a slice of history in the making.

“Perhaps, that’s why I am here.”

Visit Elisabeth Thorburn’s blog at Elisabeth-Thoburn.com.

Tom Perkins is a freelance writer for AnnArbor.com. To reach the news desk, call 734-623-2530 or e-mail news@annarbor.com.