Honking horns unite for the eye of the world is unknowingly upon you!!!

Being back in the land of such history is both a joy and a calming reminder of the challenges in life... It is extremely nice to be back enjoying a "one-on-one; comfortably living in someone else's personal space" relationship again. Very nice. And alas, the heavy air of constant automotive/locomotive noise, humans yelling, arguing or praying (over the loud speaker), and the lamentation of a nation STILL wrapped in its own oppression have settled back in my head and heart albeit with a shroud as opposed to a hammer.  My visions are not as narrow, nor as closed as they were when I left last autumn. But the comfort of my initial landing is slowly dissipating, and I now find it a bit of a struggle each day to ignore the discomfort and anger that exists outside my personal place and space. Yet, life in Nepal awaits, and although its poverty is beyond the state of Egypt, it's people and their faith in the present and future hold that space gleefully above and beyond  with its air of peace and progress.

From the simplicity of the Quitbay Fortress, as a protective domain of the King of Egypt built some 5 hundred years ago with the Med at its doorstep...

to the transforming eye of the Buddha, built roughly about the same time, gazing majestically and vividly over the many buddhist pilgrims who walk in prayer, in song and in laughter around the temple every day...

I ask you: Where would you find your sense of peace in the world? The sound and smell of the sea certainly invites and calls me in its presence. Yet it is the air of the nation and the hope of its people that have truly captured my soul and erected a land worth spending more of an extended duration than that beheld...