After two semesters of refusing to permit students to study in Egypt, the Office of Overseas Programs is now accepting applications for students to travel there in the fall of 2012.

The programs were temporarily cut after two Washington University students were evacuated from the country following riots in late January of last year.

Mark Beirn, associate director of Overseas Programs, noted that the decision to accept applications does not necessarily mean the University has agreed to send students to Egypt in the fall. As of Tuesday afternoon, he has had two students approach him about the program. He told each of them that while they could apply, they should identify a backup country as well.

“We have told students that have expressed an interest…that we can’t guarantee that the programs will be in a position that they will be able to run next fall…nor can we guarantee that Wash. U. would endorse or permit their participation in these programs even if they were to run, given the conditions in Egypt,” he said. “It’s just an uncertain and unknown environment right now that can be very volatile.”

Last January, two juniors in the College of Arts & Sciences studying in Cairo and Alexandria were evacuated from the country following protests against President Hosni Mubarak that turned violent. That week, the U.S. Department of State ordered all non-emergency personnel and their families to evacuate the country as soon as possible.

As recently as last November, three American college students who had been studying at American University in Cairo were detained for several days after being accused of taking part in a string of political protests.

“There’s no red light for Egypt right now, but anyone who applies to go to Egypt needs to know that the situation could change,” Beirn said. “Circumstances can change, as we saw, overnight or over the course of a week or a matter of hours. We’re monitoring the situation closely; we’re following State Department advisories—[from the] Overseas Security Advisory Council—and information we get from our partners onsite.”

A new faculty committee convening for the first time next month will ultimately make the decision of whether to allow the program in Egypt to continue. The provost will lead the International Travel Oversight Committee and look specifically at global travel conditions to ensure student safety.

“These things are reviewed on a case-by-case basis,” Beirn said.

Members of the University community were supportive of its efforts to restore the programs.

“I understand the concern of parents and University administrators to keep our students safe…However, I do think that there [are] enough positive developments to reconsider accepting application for next year,” Associate professor of Arabic and Islamic studies Hayrettin Yücesoy said. “The political process seems to be moving ahead and we do not hear violent outbreaks [are happening] in places where our students are going to be most of the time.”

Junior Sara Fichman-Klein hoped to go to Egypt last summer to build on her Arabic minor, but said her application was returned to her two days after she sent it in. She noted that programs in Egypt are especially important because people there speak a different dialect of the language.

Regardless of her disappointment, though, she said she was pleased that the office was reconsidering its stance on programs in the country.

“I’m glad they’re at least keeping an open mind…because Egypt is a very important Arab country to visit and I wish I’d had the chance,” she said. “Actually I know people who went to Egypt in the summer and they had no trouble whatsoever.”

Beirn said balancing the benefits of having students study abroad with considerations for their safety is an ongoing struggle.

“It’s complicated. Students are more interested now than ever in going to the Middle East, and I think the events of the past year there have really inspired interest,” he said. “It’s important for us to have these opportunities available but we have to do it responsibly.”

Beirn noted that while the committee will be working hard to prevent a repeat of last year’s student evacuations, the University remains prepared to assist students in returning to the U.S. should unforeseen situations arise.

“Instances where we’re not allowing our students to remain in the country, we will request that they return and work with them to facilitate that return. We haven’t had to do that too many times. We haven’t had any cases where students have refused to return home,” he said. “I think students recognize that our decisions are made with their best interests at heart, and that these decisions aren’t made easily or lightly.”

If you really think about it, how safe is the rest of the world? Can we truly trust that we will be safe in other countries? Unfortunately, the answer is invariably no. No matter how hard we try, no matter where we are, we will never be entirely safe. But this shouldn’t stop us from trying to gain new experiences and trying to understand the rest of the world.

If the crises in Japan and Egypt have taught us anything, it is that the situation in relatively “stable” countries can degrade so quickly that nothing we do will ever be entirely secure.

The time we spend in other places can teach us more about the world than just about anything that Washington University can offer. Even countries like the United Kingdom or Germany, nations people would normally call “safe,” have something incredibly valuable to teach us. How different is German or English culture from our own?

And I think that if something bad is going to happen in a country, you can learn more if you are there. I can only imagine being in Egypt during the revolution, or in Japan to watch a nuclear crisis unfold. I have always believed you can learn more about a culture that is under stress, and situations like those help you to understand them even better.

Besides, the dangers that have arisen in the past few months are extreme examples. It isn’t as though these are things that happen all the time, and assuming that every country you go to will have a revolution or a natural disaster is like assuming that you will be shot every time you go outside.

Moreover, the U.S. isn’t safe from danger either. It isn’t like an earthquake in San Francisco or a hurricane in New Orleans can’t happen. Natural disasters happen everywhere; going to a different part of the world isn’t going to change the constant danger you are in.

I think the important thing to remember is that we live in a world that is getting more dangerous all the time. We can see it exploding around us every day, and that isn’t going to change in the near future. So we should just learn to accept things as they are, and not let danger stop us from learning as much as we can about the rest of the world.

Every country that we can travel to has something to offer, something to teach us. Whether that be about the culture itself, or how it responds to crises isn’t important. We are students, and it is our job to learn, so if we have the opportunity to do it, we should. If things are dangerous, so be it. The benefits still outweigh the risks. When it comes down to it, I’m going to be studying abroad, because I want that experience, no matter how dangerous the country of my choice might be. And you should do the same.

The WELL (The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) was one of the first social networking websites, started back in the ’80s. The idea was to give people a way to communicate through their computers. The original creators realized that there was money to be made if this “social networking” thing could ever take off. Eventually it would, and sites like Facebook led the way.

Last week, the rule of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt was toppled. In 2003, Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship that had lasted since 1979 ended. But there’s a distinct difference between these two changes of power. One was done with weapons and soldiers, the other with tweets and online posts. Many of the organizers who planned the protests of the Egyptian president used Facebook and Twitter to send messages, videos and information to the people of Egypt.

These protests captured the attention of the world, and not solely because of the issues of economics and corruption that the Egyptians were fighting. In an attempt to squash the protesters, the government shut down much of the Internet, including social networking websites, hoping the protesters would finally give up and go home. It didn’t work, and it seems that now other “dictator ruled” countries are starting to finally feel the pressure of the online movement. Iran is facing similar strong protests from its own people who have been suppressed for generations.

The revolution in Egypt isn’t very different than when kings and queens were overthrown in previous centuries. People felt they had seen enough and wanted something different. The winds of change are blowing.

Egyptians decided they wanted change, and they did it with relatively little violence. There were clashes between opposing groups, but the country’s military never intervened. Imagine ending global corruption without warfare. It’s still a long way away, but what we’ve seen recently is just a small taste of the true power our generation has.

I wonder if Zuckerberg was surprised to learn what his creation helped to achieve. I’ll bet he thought it was fun to create a way for people to get together. Maybe he sat in his dorm at Harvard and wondered if this idea would ever make money, or even help him meet girls. Either way, I doubt that in those early days he would have ever thought that his ideas could help oppressed people topple a corrupt leader. But Facebook helped do just that, just a little while ago. Like I said, Mark Zuckerberg is a lucky guy, especially to have an impact like that.

Paul Goedeke | Student Life

Junior Parsa Bastani tells students about his experiences in Alexandria as part of a panel on the current political climate in Egypt on Wednesday night.

On Wednesday night, around 80 students gathered in the Danforth University Center Fun Room to hear 20-year-old Amin Abu-Hashen participate in a panel about Egypt’s current political climate from Cairo.

The panel came less than 24 hours before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would not relinquish power.

Senior Nick Wilbar, co-editor-in-chief of the Washington University Political Review (WUPR), met Abu-Hashen, an Egyptian citizen, while studying at the American University in Cairo (AUC) last spring. Abu-Hashen was called from Cairo using Skype.

Wilbar joined Abu-Hashen and juniors Sarah Rangwala and Parsa Bastani as members of the panel, co-hosted by both WUPR and Controversy N’ Coffee (CNC). Rangwala spent last semester at AUC, and Bastani returned early from a semester abroad in Alexandria at the Middlebury School in the Middle East last week after the U.S. Department of State issued an order for all American citizens to leave the country.

Bastani offered the perspective of an American spectator before Abu-Hashen shared his experiences as a participant in the recent protests, which began Jan. 25.

The protesters’ grievances include various legal and political issues related to the government of President Hosni Mubarak, including police brutality, state-of-emergency laws, lack of free elections and free speech, food price inflation and low minimum wages.

Abu-Hashen said that most Egyptians he knows genuinely despise Mubarak, and that the protests have been inspirational for many citizens; however, he said that the violence has been difficult to stomach.

“It’s very tough to hear of people’s homes being forcibly broken into,” Abu-Hashen said. “It was very unsafe for a couple of days.”

Abu-Hashen said that he had also personally witnessed police using Molotov cocktails, a type of gasoline bomb, and civilians beating up the police in droves.

On Wednesday night, Abu-Hashen predicted that Mubarak would relinquish power. However, Mubarak announced in a speech Thursday afternoon that he would not leave office, enraging hundreds of thousands who had gathered in Tahrir Sqaure in Cairo to celebrate his resignation.

Mubarak also announced in the speech that he will delegate some authority to Vice President Omar Suleiman.

For the panel’s organizers, Abu-Hashen’s perspective—and the format of the event—allowed for a different kind of conversation about Egypt and the Middle East.

“It allowed us to talk with people who were there, Egyptian kids who participated in it,” Wilbar said. “Parsa stood to shed a lot of light on it because he saw it happen, but these Egyptian kids actually participated, they saw how meaningful it was to watch it unfold.”

Students who attended the panel found Abu-Hashen’s testimony meaningful.

“I’m a political science major, and especially after coming back from abroad, I try to stay more aggressive about international issues,” junior Michael Fletcher said. “Egypt is obviously a big deal. I didn’t realize how unsafe it had gotten…I knew protests were going on, but I naively thought they were more peaceful than this.”

Senior Nicole Lopez, who spent her junior year in Jordan, agreed.

“I’ve been dying to talk to people about this because I love the Middle East,” Lopez said. “You’re watching Tunisia, then you see these

massive protests in Egypt. I don’t have much contact with people inside of Egypt, so it was really exciting to hear what’s actually going on on a ground level.”

The uprising has generated conversation about Egypt among pundits and academics alike, including Ahmet Karamustafa, a professor of history at the University.

“The spectacular popular uprising is the clearest evidence that the autocratic rule of Mubarak and his associates is doomed,” Karamustafa wrote in an e-mail to Student Life on Thursday afternoon. “The cosmopolitan people of Egypt have shown that they are way ahead of their moribund regime. No matter what the outcome, it won’t be business as usual again in Egypt.

Audrey Westcott | Student Life

The Egyptian revolution is part of a much larger movement that has seen protests in Tunisia, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Algeria and threatening oppressive dictators throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. It all began in Tunisia, where a 26-year-old found his street cart confiscated by local police because he lacked a permit to sell produce in the street. Unable to meet with corrupt government officials and too poor to afford bribing them, Mohamed Bouazizi decided enough was enough. On Dec. 17, the young man burned himself in the streets in front of a government building. He died 18 days later and the protests soon followed. Tunisians sent President Ben Ali into exile following a twenty-three year reign and the rest of the region became engulfed in flames as well. Over a dozen people have since lit themselves on fire elsewhere to protest oppressive and unresponsive governments. Bouazizi’s mother responded by saying, “I have lost my son, but I am proud of what he did.”

It is still unclear whether the revolutions will yield positive results or if more oppressive rulers will fill the void. What is clear though is that the United States is determined to be a winner, but can only come out as a loser. As people of differing backgrounds, economic statuses and religions all unite against a common cause, the United States continues to funnel billions of dollars to ruthless dictators. In Hosni Mubarak’s 30 year reign as President of Egypt, our government has funneled billions in military assistance. This was seen on the streets this past week, as US taxpayer funded tanks, planes and weapons were used against the protestors. The Egyptians have awoken, but the United States continues to follow the same foreign policy of intervention around the globe. Rather than allowing Egyptians to choose their own path, our government has played a heavy role in determining their political future.

Immediately following the revolutions, Vice President Joe Biden said that Hosni Mubarak was not a dictator, but instead an ally of the United States. Protestors held up tear gas canisters used against them with the label, “Made in the U.S.A.” As Egyptians enter their second week of protests calling for a new leader, our government has endorsed its support for newly appointed Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman. This course of action is misguided and can only lead to further unintended consequences down the road.

Despite popular belief at home that ours is a nation “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” our track record in the Middle East and the Third World is horrendous. Rather than allow for local populations to decide their form of government, the American empire has been in the habit of supporting U.S.-friendly dictators around the globe for too long. This short-term solution creates artificial stability, but costly long-term consequences. Following decades of an oppressive U.S.-backed dictator in Iran, the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 still has lingering effects today. Should we continue to support Mubarak and his friends, this fate is likely in Egypt.

The protests by angry citizens throughout the Middle East have done more to spread democracy than the American-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Time will tell whether this is a repeat of 1989 or just a temporary breath of freedom. Eventually though, citizens will have enough of their governments, just as Mohamed Bouazizi had enough in Tunisia.

The United States must return towards a Jeffersonian foreign policy of “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none.” The billions of taxpayer dollars pumped into governments around the world, including Egypt, need to be shut off. Our military, located in over a hundred countries around the globe, should be brought home. We need to accept that our involvement in areas around the globe creates resentment and anti-American sentiment. Regardless of our intentions, malicious or altruistic, our presence and influence is not needed to bring peace and stability. In fact, the uprisings are in spite of our presence and support for their dictators. Today, protestors are tossing the shackles off from decades of prolonged oppression. We must make sure we are not forging the shackles.

Courtesy of Pathik Root and Robert Joyce

A protester carries an Egyptian flag in downtown Alexandria during riots on Jan. 28. Parsa Bastani, a WU junior, witnessed these riots.

Three days earlier, Bastani was on a bus in Alexandria, Egypt listening to gunshots as he and 23 other American college students were transported from one airport to another, long past a state-imposed curfew, to get on a chartered plane out of the country.

While studying at the Middlebury School in the Middle East, which is based in Alexandria, Bastani had found himself in the middle of violent, nation-wide protests against the 30-year rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“The whole week, I just couldn’t process my emotions or what was going on around me. I had an emotional overload,” Bastani said. “Everything just felt so real.”

The protests in Alexandria, which started on Jan. 25, accompanied riots in Cairo, Suez and Ismailia. Bastani said that his classes were canceled beginning that day as over 20,000 Egyptians gathered in the city center to protest Mubarak’s regime.

The protesters’ grievances include various legal and political issues, including police brutality, state-of-emergency laws, lack of free elections and free speech, food-price inflation and low minimum wages.

The Egyptian government cut off Bastani’s phone and Internet that same day.

Three days later, Bastani and his classmates were instructed not to leave their dorm. Bastani and a friend broke the rules and walked to the city center, where police were using tear gas to contain over 10,000 protesters.

Courtesy of Pathik Root and Robert Joyce

Protesters in downtown Alexandria, Egypt, rally against the government. The riots, which Wash. U. junior Parsa Bastani witnessed, ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak following violent complaints about legal and political issues.

Bastani and his friend realized that they were in danger and headed back to their dorm. But as it grew dark, they had to run across train tracks and down alleys to avoid being arrested for missing the 6 p.m. curfew.

“People would come running at us in tears telling us, no, go the other way, the government’s coming,” Bastani said. “We didn’t know what to do, we thought maybe we’d have to sleep in a dumpster, we had no idea.”

After hours of wandering the city, the two made it back to their dorm.

The next day, the program’s coordinators told the students to pack their essentials. The dorms were no longer safe, and the students were transported to a different apartment in the city to be evacuated the next day.

Bastani said that neither he nor his fellow students one could sleep that night. From the balcony, he saw army officers kill a group of protesters after they accidentally fired at the military.

On Monday, Bastani and his classmates went into the street to wait for an evacuation team sent in by Middlebury College. After several hours, the evacuation team had not showed up. One of the program’s directors paid an Egyptian bus driver in cash to take the students to the airport.

At the airport, they found that their evacuation had been delayed: The plane, they were told, would come tomorrow.

“People were trying to contact senators, the state department, anyone they knew, just applying pressure and hoping someone would respond,” Bastani said. “This whole time, shots are being fired at the airport, and the State Department hung up on us.”

The problem, Bastani said, is that the United States wasn’t evacuating its citizens from Alexandria—only from Cairo. Bastani watched as Mexican, Canadian and Pakastani citizens got on flights chartered by their respective governments.

The group found a backup flight to Prague, but it arrived at an airport 20 minutes away. One of Bastani’s program directors paid an airport employee in cash to arrange for two buses.

It was on these buses, after curfew with the shades pulled down, that members of Bastani’s group realized they were actually being fired at.

Bastani said the rest was easy: The students got on a plane, arrived in Prague and were put up in a hotel by the U.S. Department of State. From there, he flew to New York, and is now back in St. Louis—his hometown—to figure out the rest of his semester.

Bastani was told that he could complete the semester at Washington University, but thinks that he will return to the Middle East next week to study in Morocco.

Courtesy of Pathik Root and Robert Joyce

A soldier from the Egyptian army stands on a tank in downtown Alexandria last Friday. The military was sent in to control the riots that began Jan. 25.

Bastani said that he hopes that the revolution will create change throughout the region.

“People [in Egypt] are fending for their lives,” he said. “They’re so passionate and they’re trying so hard to get the very rights we take for granted here.”

Michael Robinson Chavez | Los Angeles Times | MCT

Chaos has enveloped Egypt in the wake of massive protests and widespread violence against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. The political unrest in the area has forced the evacuation of U.S. nationals, including students studying abroad from Washington University.

Junior Parsa Bastani was studying in Alexandria at the Middlebury School in the Middle East, which is based at Alexandria University. He is on his way back to St. Louis from Prague and is contemplating various options for finishing out the semester.

Junior Allegra Skurka, studying at Cairo University, flew to Athens this week and plans to finish the semester in Jordan.

Protests against Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president since 1981, began in Cairo last Tuesday and turned to violent riots as more than 250,000 Egyptians took to the streets.

The protesters’ grievances include various legal and political issues, including police brutality, state-of-emergency laws, lack of free elections and free speech, food-price inflation and low minimum wages.

Standing on a balcony at a friend’s apartment near the city center, Skurka was close enough to feel the effects of the tear gas initially used to dispel the riots.

“It was [a] moment that brought me to reality, that the U.S. and my rights don’t travel with me wherever I go,” Skurka wrote in an e-mail to Student Life. “I wouldn’t feel the sting of tear gas if I were in the U.S. I was in a country whose citizens don’t have the right to stand up for themselves and who are being repressed by the very body that is charged with protecting them. Egyptians call it state terrorism. No one should have to endure that.”

On Monday, the Egyptian military declared that it would not fire on protesters. Mubarak and his family have allegedly since fled to London, and Mubarak has declared that he will not seek re-election and will leave office when his term ends in September.

Organizers of the protest were inspired by similar events in Tunisia, which succeeded in ousting Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years of authoritarian rule.

On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department issued an order for all non-emergency personnel and their families to evacuate the country immediately. After EgyptAir canceled approximately 75 percent of its flights, airlines from around the world arranged about 85 flights to ferry those visiting Egypt to safer nations.

Skurka flew to Athens on a flight chartered by the U.S. Department of State.

“The decision was made to evacuate on Sunday, but we were not able to get secure transport to the airport for our chartered flight until Monday,” Skurka wrote. “It was much worse for the people who were trying to catch commercial flights out of the country as opposed to chartered evacuation planes.”

Bastani could not be reached for comment.

“We are very relieved,” Priscilla Stone, director of Overseas Programs at the University, wrote in an e-mail to Student Life. “Middlebury College and AMIDEAST, who were hosting these two students, did a very good job under trying circumstances in evacuating these students and keeping us and the families informed of their progress,”

2010 alumni Adina Appelbaum and Marcus Walton, studying in Egypt on Fulbright scholarships, were both out of the country when the protests began—Appelbaum in Morocco and Walton in Tunisia. Both have been reported safe.

Senior Toby Shepard, who completed a program at the American University in Cairo last spring, expressed relief at the students’ evacuation and concern for the Egyptian friends she made.

“On the one hand, I’m really excited for Egypt and for all of the Egyptians because this is a really important historical moment for them, and the possibility for real change is sort of exciting and infectious,” Shepard said. “On the other hand, as reports of the number of protesters who were killed has gone up, I’m nervous for my Egyptian friends who I know are still there.”

Photos Courtesy of Jennifer Smith

Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt lies in the eastern Sahara. A sample of alum found in the oasis is believed to have relation with blue pigment used in Egyptian pottery during the New Kingdom.

The blue in the pottery was a much paler blue than was found in many of the other blue paints from the area. Similar paints have been found across the New Kingdom, which lasted from 1550–1079 B.C.E. and spread from Egypt to the Middle East to Sudan. Therefore, archaeologists wanted to see if this sample in fact contained the same elements as the blue paint or if it was used for other purposes. Smith’s main field is geology, so she was asked to help investigate.

“I was just asked to figure out whether the material that was being mined…was something that was being mined to create the blue pigment,” Smith said. “We were really just trying to see if it was possible that the material we had in the Oasis could be used to make the blue paint.”

Photos Courtesy of Jennifer Smith

Paul Kucera, an Australian student co-author on the blue pigment study, makes notes and measurements on one of the mine shafts in Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt.

Her findings, along with the contributions of Colin Hope and Paul Kucera, a student at Australia’s Monash University, contributed to archaeological research in the area. Many archaeologists are currently examining the trade networks in the region of the oasis. Confirming that this sample contained the same composition of the blue paint allowed them to determine whether certain trading items passed through the area.

“It was a mark of who was in contact with who in the past,” Smith said.

It also furthered archaeologists’ studies of the Dakhleh Oasis specifically.

“If our oasis was a place where you could find what was needed to make the blue paint…it was another valuable resource that they could have controlled [there],” Smith said.

Smith returns to this oasis yearly to learn more about the region and has been working there for over 10 years. She mainly works on understanding how the area has been affected by climate change and what the area was like in past periods. One particular issue that she has worked on has been to find out how humans have affected the area through exploitation of resources and migration.

“I really think that this interdisciplinary research that my team and others do trying to put together the ways that people interact with their environment in the past […] is an important thing to be doing,” Smith said.

Recent news has reported the return of stolen artifacts and artwork such as painted reliefs from an ancient Egyptian tomb by the Louvre and the thousands of treasures that have been smuggled out Afghanistan during wartime by Britain.

However, the cry for the return of significant artifacts to their home country still remains unanswered. Some examples are Turkey’s request for the Knidos Lion and Nigeria’s request for its Benin bronze heads. For the country that holds these priceless treasures, the justification for keeping the artifacts usually includes points about how they are representative of world culture and do not belong to any country, or that the quality care these ancient works receive ccould be matched if they were returned.

Most recently, Egypt’s request for the return of the iconic bust of Queen Nefertiti from Berlin has come to the international stage. The request was made by Zahi Hawass from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and coincides with the reopening of the Neues Museum, which has lain in ruins in the heart of Berlin since World War II. Another factor that impedes Egypt’s quest is that Farouk Hosny, Egypt’s culture minister, lost an election to head UNESCO, the United Nations culture agency. If the bust was stolen, it seems that Egypt has every intention to get it back and let its relationship with Germany sour in the meantime. Although the truth about what happened when Nefertiti’s bust was found in 1912 has been lost in history, the conflict must nevertheless be resolved today.

But unfortunately, it seems that an issue like this—political agendas aside—comes down to the answers to some hard questions. For example, is there a clear distinction between art and artifact? Can either be owned or traded for? Who has the authority to speak for something that represents an entire culture and, more importantly, who is an individual to decide to give it away? Does an historical artifact belong to a specific country, or rather, does it belong to all as a record of the greater journey in human civilization?

Although I do not know the answers to all of these questions, I do believe that Germany has a unique opportunity to set the tone in this coming age of global understanding and equality by doing something completely unprecedented. By returning a symbol of history, culture and art back to its homeland, Germany would acknowledge Egypt, and by extension other countries facing similar issues, as counterpart curators of world history.

Kemi is a freshman in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at imekkemi@gmail.com.