"To the Nile"

Son of the old moon-mountains African!
Stream of the Pyramid and Crocodile!
We call thee fruitful, and that very while
A desert fills our seeing's inward span.
--John Keats

6,825 kilometres. A brisk walk along the water this afternoon was in order to break from homework. It's about ten degrees cooler along the Nile, and a nice breeze at times. It has been especially hot, and humid the last few days here. Weather.com however claims the temperature will sink to about 95 in the coming few days. Yes! But back up on Monday.

The Nile seems untroubled, away from traffic and people. And yet I began thinking this very same river is currently floating through the Sudan a few hundred miles south of me. And in an attempt to stray from the melodramatic hyperbole I could dive into, it's a strange feeling this river I pass each day innocently entangles me elsewhere.

Beginning in Lake Victoria, then Uganda, through Tanzania, Sudan, and into little old Egypt and my backyard. A single body of water connecting and tying states in vastly different realms. Dr Kamel, the member of the Shura council I mentioned earlier, spoke to Egypt's interest in "mediating" the conflict in Sudan. Not merely out of the idealism in acquiring peace, but to ensure the safety and maintenance of the Nile. I'm not a geologist or water specialist or anything, so I don't precisely know what he meant. My guess is it's intertwined with the fact Egypt would rather not see Sudan balkanize. Because serious territorial battles in the Sudan will materialize in obtaining strategic water access, ports and fertile land on its banks? This could potentially mean conflict spilling over Egypt's border, where tensions run high to begin with at present due to floods of refugees from Sudan, as well as a yellow fever epidemic in the region.

Egypt is drawn and quartered. As the aforementioned tie to Africa attests, its relations with the US, the Mediterranean, and alas, the Middle East. The Egyptian ambassador to Iraq was kidnapped in Baghdad two days ago. Egypt is the first Arab nation to send an official diplomatic envoy to Iraq. And the poor guy arrived there less than a week ago. I don't know where the situation is headed. I can't see insurgents converting his beheading into a streaming Windows Media Player clip any time soon. Murdering another Arab? Actually, maybe he's worse off, one of their own. Egyptians are very frustrated by this. There is hope. The Iraqi embassy is two blocks from the dormitories, on the east bank of the Nile, and we've witnessed its transformation the last month as it was repainted and repaired, an Iraqi flag flying all the while.

And the Keats sonnet? Respect the praises you sing and truly embrace and appreciate that which is before you? I don't know. It was the best I could I find. Longfellow has a Nile poem, and made numerous mentions to the river, most kind of, I keep writing, deleting and re-posting, let's say "Longfellow-y". And Shakespeare gave his props too in some plays. But I still think he's an imposter.