For two days, Russ Francis listened to an empty dial tone as he tried to call his brother in Egypt. As unrest erupted in his native country last Tuesday, Francis watched it unfold from thousands of miles away in Gainesville.

When he finally heard from his family in Cairo on Thursday, he was surprised at how calm they were. Their country's future, he said, was of highest concern.

"They are in fear, in fear of what's going to happen," said 69-year-old Francis, who came to the United States in 1969. "...They don't know what is going to happen because the situation is changing."

After a week of protests calling for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian leader announced Tuesday that he would not run in September's elections.

Demonstrators say they will not call off their historical protests until he resigns.

Gainesville resident Fiesal Elkabbani, 65, moved from Egypt to America in 1970, but he said his heart has been in his native country for this last week.

"In historic moments like this, I guess you wish you were there," he said. "This is probably a once-in-a-lifetime situation. But we're excited. We're very excited."

Despite confusion and anxiety, he said, he's felt a strong undercurrent of optimism.

"It's been worrisome days. It's been difficult days. But in the meantime, it's very encouraging days," he said. "Finally we see a nation coming up and saying, ‘We want to have freedom again.'"

As mobile phone service in the country worked intermittently for the last week, Elkabbani was able to reach his family on a land line phone. There's excitement in their voices, he said.

"It's a concern, but in the meantime, jubilation that something is finally happening and it can turn to be good," he said. "Of course, we are anxious because sometimes things don't happen the way you want them to, and things can turn anxious at any day."

On a basement television hooked up to a satellite dish, Francis has watched the news unfold on Middle Eastern channels such as Al Jazeera and AlMasria, the headlines scrolling across the screen in Arabic.

Francis, a former professor of chemistry at Cairo University, said he remembers the country as a peaceful place where he as a Christian never felt strong religious friction. But as poverty grew and the unemployment rate skyrocketed, he has known it was just a matter of time before the citizens began to protest Mubarak's regime.

He has strong hopes for what his country will look like once the streets quiet.

"I hope that they get a government which is secular, where religion is not a part of it and that it is for the people," he said.

Both he and Elkabbani said it's been moving to watch the population rally with no sign of religious conflict.

"Since Friday, there was no security at all, not one single policeman in the street, and not one single instance between Muslims and Christians," said Elkabbani, a Muslim.

"... Here is the real Egyptian people, that everyone is together and trying to form a country and not allowing all the fanatics to take over again."