Felucca on the Nile
You leave the dock at Heissa around 4:30, when the heat has eased and the river has taken on its evening color. Our captain — a Nubian sailor from the island, with thirty years on this water — raises the white cotton sail by hand. There is no engine. There is wind, current, and the steady creak of wood. For the next three hours you drift past Elephantine Island, past Kitchener's Botanical Garden, past fishermen mending nets on the bank. The sun moves toward the dunes of the West Bank. Hibiscus tea is poured from a small clay pot. Dates are passed around. Nothing is rushed.
