Giving Thanks

Summit on Mt. Moses
Originally uploaded by hazy jenius.

I am so behind on my blogs my head just spins at the thought of back-blogging, so I'll start with the here and now. Yesterday Ahmed, my Egyptian "husband" (there is no boyfriend/girlfriend relationship in Islam. We say we're married so people will respect me and the police won't arrest him.) and I decided to tackle Mt. Sinai (Moses Mountain.) For me, making the hike up the famous mountain wasn't as much of a pilgramage as was something I HAD to do before leaving Sinai. For Ahmed it was one of the last days we had to spend together before I left for the rest of my Middle East journeys (I'll be back to Dahab in a few months in Sh'allah.) I've climbed heaps, and done a sunrise summit of Mt. Fuji, so Mt.Sinai was relatively easy. For Ahmed things were a little more difficult. Although there are hundreds of tourists that come to Mt. Sinai and the St. Catherine Monastary very few are Egyptians. Ahmed was hassled and questioned very thouroughly as to what his intentions were by the guards. More difficult than getting him in the gates was getting him up the mountain! Ahmed had never been hiking before, and he certainly hadn't ever dealt with cold like this before. Add that to the fact that we started the hike around the time when he should be sleeping soundly and you get one very unhappy camper! About 30 minutes into the hike he said he wanted to go back down. Going down was next to impossible, as the path was packed with Jewish and Christian pilgrams, Russian toursits bussed in from Sharm El Sheik and loads of crapping camels with Bedouin guides offering "helpa helpa". With much coaxing, and a little bickering, we finally made the summit. It was bitterly cold at the top, but the sounds of prayers and hymns and the sight of the sun peeking over the vast landscape beneath warmed both our bones and our hearts. True, it was terribly touristy and a little trashed, but it was much more peacful and serene than the circus that I found at the summit of Mt. Fuji, Japan. The mountain itself is an unparalled work of nature, and it's easy to see why so many found this place a pathway to God. As far as Thanksgiving goes, I didn't spend it eating turkey with cranberry sauce, but I did find plenty to be thankful for. I gave thanks to the beauty of Sinai and the hospitality it's people have granted me for the year that I have lived here. I gave thanks for finding someone as lovely as Ahmed to help me accept and understand the culture and religion and people of Egypt. Finally, I gave thanks that I have the ways and means of having such wonderful experiences all over the world. I consider myself very lucky on days like these, and that I am forever thankful.