A Refectory Thanksgiving

Happy Turkey Day, Yanks. For the first time in my whole life, I wasn't with my family for Thanksgiving. And it's a shame, really, because Thanksgiving is hands-down my favorite holiday. Think about it. You stuff yourself apoplectic, drink yourself blind, fight with your relatives, watch idiotic football, and think, for one day in the whole year, about how good your life is. One of my Canadian colleagues pointed out that Thanksgiving is a celebration of genocide. I said, "Save it for Columbus Day, pinko!"

Right. So how did I spend my Thanksgiving this year, you ask?
I went looking for God.

No need to check your URL bars, my friends. I signed on for a faculty trip down to the Red Sea coast to visit the monasteries of St. Paul and St. Anthony. We stayed overnight in Ain Soukhna, a (reputedly) up-and-coming resort "town" south of Cairo on the Red Sea Coast, north of Hurghada.

I can't decide if I'm astonished or revolted (or astonishingly revolted, I suppose) by Egypt's construction boom. On the one hand, I'm knocked flat by the hubris of building entire cities out of the desert, de novo. Cities in a place with no water? No problem, say Egypt's hordes of engineers. I have to admire that kind of chutzpah. The problem, of course, is that these cities are being built without any sort of environmental or economic conscience. I can't help but think that golf courses emphatically do not belong in the middle of the desert. And that coral reefs are beautiful and precious, and, say, shouldn't be destroyed by sewage effluent. Silly me. So imagine my surprise when we drove by several enormous wind farms down the coast near Ain Soukhna. The wheels were actually turning, and ostensibly, power was being responsibly manufactured. Well done, Egypt.

St. Paul's and St. Anthony's are the two oldest monasteries in the world. According to legend, St. Paul, the first hermit, withdrew into a cave in the desert where his monastery now stands. After 90 years of being fed once a day by a raven bearing half a loaf of bread, St. Paul realized he was going to die. Simultaneously, an angel spoke to St. Anthony, another hermit, who crossed the desert and the mountains to find St. Paul, just in time to witness his death (the bird brought a whole loaf of bread that night). Anthony realized he couldn't possibly bury Paul on his own, so God sent two lions out of the desert to bury Paul. That, of course, is the short short version of the story. The two monasteries themselves have some of the oldest monastic paintings in the world.

It was a long drive down the coast; I met the bus on campus at 7:30 am on Thursday (ugh). We made it to St. Anthony's a little before noon. I absolutely love the desert, and so I was thrilled to be back in the middle of nowhere. It was marvelous to be out of Cairo, to be in a place with silence, and clean air with the slight alkaline tang of a vast collection of nothing. Dust, sun, rocks, monks, a few buildings, and the occasional flock of pigeons. We were the only tour group there.

We had this amazing guide, Brother Maximus, whose English was spotless and who was absolutely hilarious. I confess, I had not thought to find comedy in the monastery, but there it was. We checked out the chapels and the excavations on the grounds, as well as some of the tools of daily monastic life.

After a rather outstanding lunch, most of us chose to make the ascent up the mountain to St. Anthony's cave. I checked my guidebook as we were heading up the hill, and my heart dropped. Apparently, the summit consists of 1200 stairs. I was not happy to hear this, given my experience with the Incas. Even in November, the sun was blazing, and it was a long, hot slog up to the top. I can't imagine tourists doing this in the summer! But slog I did, and though I don't think I'd ever need to do it again, I was glad I'd made the climb.

The cave itself was, well, a cave. (Shouted up the last flight of stairs: "Hey, guys, how is it?" Shouted back down: "It's a cave!") Very small, with a very twisty, dark passage leading down into a niche that's been (somehow) outfitted with an icon and a small altar. Pilgrims leave notes written in the cave. Before the descent, I shared with the group some chili & highland whisky chocolate I had brought with me from Germany. Thanksgiving, indeed.

The hotel, The Dome Marina Best Western (yes, I'm not joking) was decent but obviously recently constructed. It was right on the ocean, though, and dinner was quite good. I turned in early, as did most of the others.

The next morning, we were up bright and early to make the trek to St. Paul's. Given that it was a Friday, the place was absolutely packed with tourists and pilgrims. I enjoyed St. Paul's much less, probably due to the crowding. I did manage to get myself blessed (take help where it's offered, I reckon), and for reasons that are still not quite clear to me, I ate a lot of bread. More paintings, more chapels, more olive presses, and a cave converted directly into a chapel. No stairs required.

The best part of the trip to St. Paul's, by far, was this photo op. This young man had just gotten himself a toy machine gun at the monastery gift shop (again, I'm not making this up), and was gleefully firing it while his mother took his picture with Jesus. Check out the look on his face!

We returned to the hotel, had lunch, and then horsed around on the beach for a few hours. It's amazing how relaxing that still can be for me. Plenty to see - there were lots of jellyfish on the sand, shells, snails, barnacles, crabs, and sea urchins. I had a very good time. Eventually it was time to get back on the bus and head back to Cairo. I was very glad I'd gone, as strange as it was for me to spend Thanksgiving away from my family. At least there were palm trees.