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It's 1 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 29. I'm listening to Arabic chanting coming from loudspeakers about a block away. I assume it is from a mosque, and someone is chanting the Koran to calm the neighborhood.
I've already been out on the street with our apartment manager ("bo-ab"), Shabaan, to check out the makeshift barricades (branches, logs, flower pots, blocks of concrete) that have been set up to slow possible looters.