It was 7 a.m., and it was time to get some updates from Egypt.

To change things up this time, I called my contact, Mohammed, in El-Mansoura. He agreed to allow me to use his first name.

"How are you, Jamal?" he asked, catching his breath.

"Sorry if I sound tired. I have a cold, and I've been on patrol all night and doing my part," he said. "We are taking matters into our own hands to make sure everyone feels safe."

According to Mohammed, what is happening in Egypt will go down in the history books. Egyptians—Muslims, Christians and followers of other faiths—are all uniting under one banner to ensure that their country remains safe and that its people can sleep in peace.

"People in El-Mansoura have grouped up and made patrols to ensure law and order is enforced," he said. "not the way our previous government did, but with fairness. We even have people who have whistles that are controlling traffic, just as the police did before us. Also, I wanted to remind you of the video I have. If you see it. you will cry. It's that good."

I can't wait. I was helping Mohammed smuggle video out of the county last week before the government shut down all internet traffic in and out of the country.

The key to this revolution succeeding is Egypt's military. Should it choose to side with President Hosni Mubarak, there will be widespread massacres and arrests across the country. If it chooses the revolution, Mubarak will be removed from power.

"We have formed a list of demands to our president," Mohammed said. "Think of it the same way you would as your own revolution but a modern version. It's a constitution of sorts."

I listened intently (note that this is a translation from Arabic to English):

"We, the Egyptian people, ask our president, Hosni Mubarak, to surrender. We will do whatever we can to make Egyptian people—Muslim, Christian or whatever their faith may be—free. We will fight, no matter the circumstance, for our freedom. We will make the police, the army and any other forces fight against you.

"The Revolution demands the following:

1. We need a democracy with political change.
2. We need our freedom, and we don't care what the price is.
3. We need social fairness.
4. Egypt will become the center of the Middle East and a beacon for all that is Arab.

"What the people want immediately:

1. We want to limit presidential terms to five years. Each term has to be gained through election, and a person may not run for more than two terms.
2. We want fair elections. All past elections have been frauds.
3. We want to lift emergency law and remove it from our laws. This is one of our biggest demands.
4. Remove all political prisoners from the jails.
5.  Mubarak, and all his relatives, cannot run for any government office. Mubarak may remain president until October 2011.
6. We want to design our own government.
7. We want Mubarak and his government to reveal and show us a detailed list of where all of our taxes have gone.

"This is our request. It is our last request, and we will not leave the streets until every demand is met.

"We will stay in the streets until the system breaks down. Any country that hosts Mubarak will be our enemy."

A bold statement to say to the face of a tyrant. I applaud Mohammed and the Egyptian people for the courage they had to finally overthrow a dictator who has been in power for nearly 30 years.

I asked Mohammed if working with Mubarak in forming a new government that eventually would replace him would be a good idea.

"We need someone to restore order for a short while," he said. "What he did to us was dirty, offering us security or freedom, and he will always be hated for that. But he can restore the order we once had; if he doesn't, we will do it again just as we've done over the past few days. What took Tunisia a month and a half to do we Egyptians did in three days. Believe me, he will agree to our demands."

He also had this to say:

"I just want to say, before you use my name in your article, write that I'm an Egyptian. Don't write my name, write that I'm an Egyptian," Mohammed said.

After arguing with him for about five minutes that there are millions of Egyptians in the country, he relented and asked that I only use his first name. But he wanted to make sure everyone knows he's Egyptian and proud of it.

On the Ground in Sharm El-Sheikh

I said my goodbyes to my Egyptian friend, Mohammed, and made the next round of calls to my mother and sister, who are in Sharm El-Sheikh, which is nestled at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula.

"Hi, honey," Marianne Durrell said. "Erica and I are fine here, and everything is safe so far."

We had our usual chats about what's been going on. Lately, I've been updating her Facebook page because her friends back here across America are worried about her and my sister. I've alleviated their fears and gained the nickname "The Communications Center."

"I was watching BBC and CNN, and what they are putting on TV is just lies," she said. "They are trying to make it look much worse than it really is. There was a gunshot in Sharm, and that's all it was. I turned on my TV, and BBC was claiming that it was a bomb that went off. That's a scam. It was a gunshot, and they try to jazz it up by saying it was a bomb."

As we continued to talk, I learned that my sister went to the nightclubs of the city, and everyone was jamming out to music and dancing. The DJs performed as usual, and the city was relatively normal.

"I didn't feel any danger when I went out with a few Egyptian friends," my sister Erica Willett said. "We had a blast, and this city is still the party city of the Middle East, protest or not."

Durrell also scouted the airport for me and reported that units of the MFO (Multination Force and Observer) was deployed in the airport.

The organization is an independent security operation formed by Egypt and Israel to ensure security in times like these. Armed with heavy assault rifles, they ensured the safety of all passengers returning home.

"Everything here is still normal," Durrell said. "Sure some people are scared, but some are saying, 'Screw it, we are here anyway; we might as well have fun,' and Sharm has always been considered 'that other place' to Egyptians anyway. But what I do see is that many of the Egyptian workers have gone back to their home cities to be with their families. The Egyptians who have stayed are like brothers to me and always make sure I'm safe."

Prison Escape Outside Cairo

Over the past 24 hours I've been in contact with Barbara Franks of San Diego, who e-mailed me about a friend in Egypt she met through a Facebook online poker application.

"Joe [he did not want his name to be revealed] is a wonderful person," Franks said. "His dream is to come to the United States and start a new life here for himself and his family.

Franks then gave me Joe's number in Egypt.

"He's so isolated where he's at," she said. "He's about 40 kilometers northwest of Cairo. Give him a call. I'm sure it will raise his spirits, and it'll be nice for him to talk to someone else. He practically lives online, so this must be hard for him."

I dialed in the digits. The sound of the ring was different from the other rings I heard in Egypt. I've dialed so many international numbers now that I can identify the country by the sound of the rings.

"Allo [Arabic for hello]. Who is this?" he asked.

I told him that I was an American from Patch.com and that his friend, Franks, gave me his number to check in on him.

"Thanks so much for calling, Jamal," he said. "I've been lonely here, and I'm doing what I must to protect my family."

I asked him about the situation in his city, Al Minufiyah, the birthplace of former president Anwar Sadat.

"Everything has been quiet here," he said, "until the prisoners escaped from a nearby prison. About 8000 of them escaped and are hiding in the city."

Perhaps it was a good idea that he took my advice about barricading himself inside his house. With 8000 convicts out on the street, I don't think it would have been safe to go out.

"I think this revolution should have been done a long time ago," he said. "Everything now depends on the army. If they side with us, the people, we will have the freedom we want. If they side with Mubarak, Allah help us all."

Joe will be leaving his city to join the rest of his family in Cairo, a 40-kilometer trip. He's eager to get out and away from the criminals who have escaped.

He still has a glimmer of hope to get out of the country.

"I applied for the U.S. green card lottery," he said. "It's my dream to go to America. I want to create a new future for my family. I really hope I'm selected."

So do I, Joe. So do I.

HAM Radio Operators Attempt to Contact Outside World

After I was done chatting with my family and friends in Egypt, I did a little research to see what other people are doing for the country.

I stumbled upon We Rebuild, a group of net activists who try to circumvent Internet blocks and help people in countries with massive Internet security bypass it.

According to the website, Egyptians are have been using HAM radio (known as amateur radio) to contact the outside world. Here are some of the communications found so far:

Received messages

• [2011-01-28 10:50]

"internet [not] working, police cars [burning]"

• [00:30 UTC 7078.70 - 7079.88 kHz]

[today] marks a great day [for] egypt

"net time, [...] dark skies, bloody [moon]" 7079.55 kHz

"airports [being shut] down" 7080.23 kHz

"2 miles—no, [1 mile] away" 7080.23 kHz

"have you been [able] to get a hold [of an] american?" 7080.23 kHz

"have you contacted [anyone] yet?" 7080.23 kHz

"americans, the americans" 7080.23 kHz

"everything is happening, everything we thought" 7080.23 kHz

"I got a contact [from] Germany" 7080.66 kHz

"alert to Germans" 7080.66 kHz (very faint)

"tomrrow [should] be interesting..." 7080.66 kHz

The website also stresses to not interfere with the frequency being used.

According to the radio report sent out, Egyptians are looking for an American to talk to. So far they've contacted a German but no Americans.

If you have a HAM radio, please e-mail me at jamal.patch@gmail.com, and we can set up something to intercept some Egyptian radio signals.