We met Mona this morning on the “city side”.
Today we are going to the Kalabsha Temple and the Nubian Museum.
One thing I have been meaning to write about is the weather. Rain is rare in Egypt in general. More rare in southern Egypt. Surprisingly one day we had a few clouds and a couple of drops of rain. Otherwise it has been sunny every day. We have had a couple of hazy days. The air temperature, even down here in Aswan, is not too bad but it is quite hot in the sun. Much nicer than New England this year!
To get to the Kalabsha Temple we took a car and then a boat. The temple was built by Emperor Augustus and was the largest free-standing temple in Egyptian Nubia. Both the Romans and the Greeks built temples to show the Egyptians that they honored their gods. This temple is dedicated to Horus or as the Nubian call him Mandulis. There are three other small temple ruins on the same island, two of which are dedicated to Ramesses II, one of which still had some paint on the walls. All of thes temples were moved as a result of the installation of the high dam.
Here are pictures.
We returned to the mainland via boat and then drove to the Nubian Museum. Mona escorted us around the museum, describing many of the items. It seems that the Nubian culture has a lot of overlap with the Egyptian culture which makes sense since the people were intermingled for a long stretch of time.
After the Nubian Museum Mona took us to lunch. The restaurant was on an island in the Nile. We have been having interesting discussions with Mona and lunch was no different. She is very open and honest. Here’s some of what she told us.
- She thinks the revolution was a bad thing. She thought that Mubarak was good for the country. He brought stability and reform. In her opinion the Muslim Brotherhood worked for at least 5 years to create the conditions needed for the revolution. They stirred up the young people to rebel against Mubarak’s authoritarian regime. After they were in power Egyptians realized that they were going to be bad for the country. As an example she sited their desire to get rid of the historical sites because they violate Islamic law about creating images of living things. Of course that would have been devastating to the tourism industry.
- She likes Sisi. She is ok with Egypt being ruled by the army.
- I asked about being a woman in Egypt. She doesn’t feel any professional discrimination, but she is a strong woman. As a wife and a mother, she feels a lot of pressure. Her husband, and most men in Egypt, come home from work and do NOTHING. They doesn’t help at all around the house or with the children. She has to do all the cooking, buy his clothes, iron his clothes, etc. Typical boys have similar expectations and if mom isn’t available, they expect their sisters to wait on them. She says she raised her son differently. I’m sure her future daughter-in-law will appreciate that.
- She descripbed the Egyptian people as being very flexible, especially when it comes to religion. Egypt is 90% muslem, mostly Sunni, but they are very accepting of all religions. They have incorporated traditions from other religions into their lives. For instance, many of their superstitions come from the old Egyptian religion. They also celebrate Christmas, since for them Jesus was a prophet.
After lunch we returned to the hotel and relaxed for awhile. That evening we went up in the hotel’s tower, (see below) had a drink and watched the sun set. Here are pictures of the sunset.
Then we crossed the river and met Matt and Lindsay for one last dinner together. We were excited to learn that Matt will be giving a lecture at Amherst College in February so we will see him again.