Volkhard Windfuhr, 74, has been living in Cairo since 1955. He joined SPIEGEL as its Middle East correspondent in 1974. Since then, he has reported on the major crises in the region and met and interviewed nearly all Arab leaders, including the three Egyptian presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. In an essay for SPIEGEL, he describes the changes that have taken shape in Egypt in the decades he has spent in the country.
I am among the oldest in the crowd to cross the Nile Bridge and enter Tahrir Square this Wednesday morning. I have lived in Cairo longer than nearly everyone else who strolls along peacefully beside me: women, men, young people, old people, educated and less educated, workers, preachers and engineers. We talk about this and that. I know their language. I know their jokes. It is also my language, and they are my jokes, too.