Desert Monastery to dinner with a family

I skipped the camel ride to St. Simeon Monastery this morning and rode the bus out into the desert to join the group. The monastery was constructed on the West Bank of the Nile in the seventh century, rebuilt in the 10th century, and was home to St Simeon and many groups of monks. It was destroyed by Saladin in 1173 so that Nubian Christians could not use it as a refuge. Some paintings still remain.

We took a boat ride to the island temple of Philae, center of the cult of the goddess Iris. This temple had been moved to save it from the rising waters of Lake Nasser. Notable were the Temple of Iris (courtyards with granite lions and walls covered in ancient gods and goddesses) and Trajan’s Kiosk with 14 stone pillars.

Our boat took us to a local Nubian restaurant high on a hill. Lunch for me was chicken with potatoes in tomato sauce. Nubian bread was very thin, somewhat doughy. Then we had a few free hours which I spent watching boats on the Nile and enjoying the sunshine and breeze.

This evening in groups of five we visited a local family. Our family consisted of Fatima, her mother, and her nine-year-old son. Fatima was university-educated, spoke three languages, worked as a security guard at the airport. Her mother had been a teacher of chefs

at a hospitality school. She cooked dinner for us and it was fabulous. The son attended a Japanese-Arabian school taught in both English and Arabic and was heavy into games and finding information on his iPad. Fatima’s father had been an engineer on the Aswan Dam project so he had been given their house for free. A good evening.