The eyes of the world are on Egypt, but few of us can communicate with the outside world.  Today is day four of the internet blackout so I have asked a friend in England to post this for me.  Our mobile phone service was resumed on Saturday but we can’t send or receive text messages.  Normal life in many ways ceased on Friday, after the battle of Kasr-El-Nil Bridge.  Since then, those who can have been raiding their supermarket shelves, stocking up on supplies. Public bakeries have already introduced rationing – no more than 10 slices of bread (Balady bread  – a little like pitta bread – part of the staple diet here) per person.  The banks are closed and few ATMs are working.  There are road blocks all over Cairo at night, manned by the men of each neighbourhood, to deter looters, after the police all but disappeared after Friday.  Few shops and no businesses are open. There is a curfew every day, roughly from 4pm to 8am (today, it began at 3pm).

And yet somehow, we have simply resumed a new kind of reality. My neighbourhood, Zamalek, home to many of the foreign embassies here, is a privileged one – because we are an island, we have not been hit with the looting and chaos that has engulfed much of Cairo for the last two nights. Instead it is eerily quiet, especially during the curfew hours, although yesterday that was punctuated by the sound of two military fighter jets flying low over the city. We go out during the day to re-stock, get some fresh air, meet friends and neighbours and get a feel for what’s happening. Otherwise, we are glued to our TV sets – for me Al Jazeera English and the BBC mainly. The government has shut down Al Jazeera’s Egypt office, so many Egyptians are restricted to the state news service which is broadcasting a completely different version of events. But somehow, despite the attempted blackout, we are all absorbing information, almost through osmosis.

This morning, I went to Tahrir again with some friends (Downtown is just across the bridge from us – about a ten minute cab ride). The demonstrations over the last two days have been peaceful, mainly because the riot police have disappeared – unlike on Friday, when this heart of Cairo became a war zone.  I went on Friday with a group of friends to witness the demonstration and we ended up taking shelter in one of the big hotels, overlooking the Nile and Kasr-El-Nil Bridge on one side and Tahrir on the other. Riot police swarmed the streets and thousands of demonstrators battled them on the bridge for nearly three hours, despite the water cannons and rubber bullets and what seemed like an endless supply of tear gas. Plumes of smoke and gas almost obliterated the Cairo skyline from where we stood. When the demonstrators finally pushed through just before sunset, the police seemed to scatter.  That night, there were fires all over Downtown, from the ruling party headquarters, just down the road from us, to over-turned cars and police vans, and even the Mugamma – the ugly but iconic monolithic government building that looms over Tahrir.

Today, a few police have reappeared but it is the presence of the army and its tanks that dominate Tahrir. By the time we arrived, at around 11am, there were already thousands of demonstrators encamped in the Square. We made our way through an army checkpoint with no problems – from what I could see, they were doing nominal checks only. The atmosphere in Tahrir was electric, almost festive. The army is not feared here, unlike in many other countries, and they have already said that they will not fire on the people. There were people from all walks of life, young, old, well-dressed, poor, many carrying hand-written signs – one in English simply said “game over”. Tahrir was bathed in sunlight once again – it has been beautiful weather for a revolution. Every now and then, spontaneous chants would break out in Arabic – “The people want the president to fall”, “Go away, Mubarak aren’t you ashamed?”

At one point, we spotted a young doctor and asked him about the makeshift hospital in a former mosque we had heard about behind the Square, and whether he would take us there. The soldiers manning the checkpoint near it were reluctant to allow us through at first but relented. The ‘hospital’ is tiny, manned by volunteer doctors and stocked with a limited supply of mostly donated medicines. They told us they had performed emergency procedures for those overcome with tear gas or hit by rubber bullets or tiny lead pellets, before sending them to the local hospitals.  One doctor told us that they had seen at least 13 dead in there since Friday. Today, the room was mainly quiet, apart from the sound of the Azan nearby, marking the midday prayers, that floated through the air.

Outside, we spoke to a number of the demonstrators who gathered around us. Many are worried that their message is not getting through to the outside world and they are eager to speak to foreigners. Some had been there since January 25, last Tuesday, when the protests began, which seems like a lifetime ago now. They are all, to a man, upbeat and determined to keep going until Mubarak stands down. They sense that the momentum is with them now. But they disagree as to what should happen next – if they think about it at all. Perhaps that is a reality that can’t quite be comprehended yet. There was no particular love of ElBaradei, the closest thing to a leader the opposition can claim. Nor is there any love for Omar Suleiman, the new vice-president Mubarak hastily announced a couple of days ago. One man mentioned Ahmed Zewail, Egypt’s Noble Prize winner for Chemistry, to me as his choice of leader.

There is much more to write but I’m running out of time. These are uncertain times for Egypt but there is also tremendous excitement in the air – a sense that history is being made and that an awakening has taken place. More than anything, there is a sense of pride amongst my Egyptian friends and all those I speak to – perhaps the one thing they feel was lost most under the current regime – and I am happy to be here to share that. I don’t know what the future holds – tomorrow marks the one week anniversary of this revolt and a million people have been called to join the march from Tahrir towards the Presidential Palace. At the moment, they are united with one common aim – to remove Mubarak. If, or when, that happens – it is difficult to believe that he can last much longer – the real struggle will begin. In the meantime, we watch, we wait and we hope.