Reflections on the Road: Thankful in the Nile Valley

Six years have passed since that morning, but still today, when I come across that dusty and tattered book now tucked away in a box in my room, I remember.  The book, Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, is a Russian novel, and it had been bought in America.  But in looking at it today I think neither of Russia nor America.  Instead my thoughts drift back to the Nile Valley, and to the two young sisters who call Egypt home.

Four months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, I traveled to Egypt.  After several days in Cairo - where on more than one occasion taxi drivers, after expressing sorrow for the attacks in New York and Washington, refused to accept payment from me - I traveled by train to Luxor, the ancient Egyptian capital twelve hours to the south.  I was traveling to Luxor to visit pharaonic ruins.  But I was also traveling to read my book.

During my first day in the city, which is spread out along the eastern bank of the Nile, I took The Brothers Karamazov to the Temple of Karnak.  It wasn't long before I discovered a cubby hole amidst fallen and crumbling pillars and settled down to read.  My eyes pored over sentences like, "For the mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for," and at some point a sixty-year-old security guard stopped by to ask what I was reading, and to offer a cup of tea.

At dawn the next morning I boarded a ferry bound for the opposite bank.  Scores of other travelers were boarding as well.  But while they were venturing to the Valley of the Kings - the location of the burial chambers of numerous pharaohs, including Tutankhamen - or to the stunningly located Temple of Hatshepsut - the 3500-year-old mortuary temple built by a prominent female Pharaoh - I was heading someplace else, someplace slightly off the beaten track. 

Having been to Luxor before, I remembered that near Hatshepsut's Temple several trails led up the mountain against which the temple was built.  At the top, I would be free of the throngs of tourists and in command of a spectacular view of the Nile Valley - a perfect place to read my book.

Stepping off the ferry, I hitched a ride with a local farmer to a dusty village about a mile from the temple, where I would begin the hike to the mountaintop.  But before I commenced the actual ascent, two girls skipped out of a house and pulled up beside me.  Basma, age ten, and Na'ama, age eight, asked my name.  And then, in a world so often interested in money, Basma immediately said, "Ana mish eayza filus" - I don't want money.

In tourist-saturated towns like Luxor it isn't uncommon to be approached by local children wanting money.  But what Basma said was true: the sisters didn't want money; they simply wanted to be friendly and join this lone stranger as he walked through their community.  I was sort of thankful, perhaps selfishly, that the girls had no large house, no satellite television, or any other costly thing that might have led them to ignore a passing stranger.  Partly because of their simplicity they could see me.  They even felt an interest in joining me.  For free, they said, they would show me the best way up the mountain.

Basma, clad in a yellow jacket which she had yet to grow into, asked to carry my backpack.  I handed it over.  As she walked with the bulky burden - in addition to the book, it held four liters of water and a bag of trail mix - the bottom almost dragged the ground.  In my clumsy Arabic we chatted about school and family, and the girls asked how things were in America.  Their company was delightful.

Before long we reached the point where the trail began its ascent.  Here the girls needed to turn back toward home, but before they did they made me promise I would stop by their house to say hello once I was off the mountain.  I gave them my word.

Forty-five minutes later, sweaty and coated in dust, I reached my destination.  From my perch I looked down on both the temple and the neighboring village, and I couldn't help but recall the terrorist attack that had been carried out here, right next to Basma and Na'ama's village, on November 17, 1997.  Armed with guns and knives, members of an outlawed Egyptian Islamic group slaughtered sixty-two people inside Hatshepsut's Temple.  Among the dead were thirty-five Swiss tourists, four Japanese couples on their honeymoon, and a British five-year-old, her mother, and her grandmother.

It is no secret that the individuals we encounter, be they good or bad, affect the way we experience a landscape.  It is also true that the venues in which we choose to read a book affect the way we encounter an author's words.  Hundreds of feet above the valley, I opened The Brothers Karamazov once again and soon read another of Dostoevsky's wonderful lines, "Above all, love little children, for they are sinless, like little angels, and they are there to arouse our tenderness, to purify our hearts, and in a sense to guide us."

Taking a break from the text, I let my gaze fall onto the village below.  I smiled.

I was thankful that on this day I had encountered not those who were violent and hateful but two curious children who took an interest in a stranger.  Basma and Na'ama probably weren't angels, and I'm sure they weren't sinless.  But I suspect that in some small way, even though time and distance now separate us, they will continue to guide me in the years ahead.

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		Joel Carillet, Gather Travel Correspondent
	Joel's column, "Reflections on the Road," is published every other Thursday to Gather Essentials: Travel. His articles, based on extensive travels in Asia and the Middle East, seek to shed light on humanity, both our own and that of others.   They aim not merely to entertain and inform but also to develop a sense of connection between the reader and the world. Joel's writing and photography have appeared in several magazines and newspapers, including the Kansas City Star and Christian Science Monitor.  Currently he is seeking an agent for a book manuscript entitled Sixty-One Weeks: A Journey across Asia. When not on the road, he happily calls Tennessee home. Keep up with Joel's article series by joining his network, or subscribing to his content.