After a tough few weeks of school, some friends and I decided to spend Thanksgiving weekend in Dahab, a beach town on the Red Sea. The overnight bus ride there took about ten hours, including security checks. Bleary-eyed, we stumbled off the bus and were told to get into the bed of a waiting pick-up truck, which would take us to our hostel. I’ve reached a point where I don’t even question requests like this, so I grabbed my backpack and hopped in. After the dark bus, the bright sun and strong wind were welcome. The road was just as bumpy as Cairo’s highways, but we were wedged in so tightly that nobody bounced out of the truck.
We snorkeled in the Blue Hole, a reef with amazing coral formations and schools of silvery fish. On Thanksgiving, we splurged on a meal at one of the seaside restaurants. To be truthful, I was a little homesick for the Windy City (and for mashed potatoes). It was strange not to be surrounded by my family and twenty-odd cousins, but I still felt like I was at home. I had food and friends, and isn’t that what this holiday’s supposed to be about?
That night we climbed Mount Sinai. I may or may not have hummed the theme from “The Ten Commandments” to keep myself going. It was bitterly cold on the mountain, and freezing at the top. We rented dubious-looking blankets and huddled together, waiting silently with the other tired climbers as the sky faded from black to blue, then to pink. I tried to make my hands work long enough to snap some pictures of the sunrise, which made numb fingers and skinned knees seem negligible.
The men who guided us up were encouraging during the climb, with warm personalities despite our cold surroundings. They spoke little English, but we got along fine in Arabic. One, named Ahmed, spoke very good English; I asked him how he learned. “I didn’t go to a business school, or a language school,” he answered. “There’s nothing like that for Bedouins. But this is our business, and we learn languages from tourists.”
Farther towards the bottom of the mountains, little boys scramble easily over the rocks and jump unfazed across small canyons. I got separated from my group on the way down and was guided by Hozn, who was probably about ten. He waited patiently for me to walk down the slope while asking me about my favorite Egyptian foods. He then educated me about the rivalries between Cairo’s football teams, but confided that his favorite teams are the Spanish ones. “When I grow up, I’ll go to Barcelona and see them,” he said confidently, tossing me a piece of British toffee from his jeans pocket. I really hope he does, and I’m glad that I could spend part of my Thanksgiving weekend with him.