Egypt trip one

My first journey as a widow took me to Egypt. A cradle of civilization and the country my dearly departed had made plans to see at one point but had never gone.  A terrorist attack on a tourist sight and the young age of his children had caused him to postpone his journey.

My travel there caused me to draw, sketch and paint in a near desperate frenzy. I learned the pyramids are limestone and surrounded by fossil rock. 

I stood on the shores of the Nile while the sunset call to prayer echoed in the valley of the kings. 

I ate a meal with a family in Aswan who had decided their son would not go to school beyond 6th grade. The young man, as the male of the family was expected to support his parents as they aged and any higher education would offer him the potential to leave Egypt for work in other Middle Eastern countries. That was the course his father had chosen in life but he had other siblings who relieved him of parental responsibility. 

 It was only after returning to Wisconsin at the end of January that I came to realize the similarities between worlds halfway distant on the planet.