A Glimpse of Culture

Part 3

When Jamila opens her eyes, she first thinks that they are still on the ship, but when she looks around she finds herself in bed at home surrounded by all the books she got from the library. She removes the book that is on her chest, she sees a drawing of Hathor like the one she saw in the temple and on the other page a picture of the temple. When she looks closely, suddenly the picture winks at her. She blinks multiple times trying to figure out if all she saw was a dream or real. Then she hears her mother calling her to wake up. Jamila wakes out of her room and she finds her mother making breakfast like every morning, but this time she is making foul. "Is that foul?" she asks.

"It's called 'Sabah Elkheir', and yes your father craved it from your talk yesterday and asked me to make it for breakfast." he mother says. "Your father and I thought we could take you to the MET museum, I think it has a temple there that could help you with your project."

"Sounds good." She gives her mother a thumbs up and goes back to her room to get ready for school.

At school, Jamila tells Anna about everything she saw in her dream. "It's a message from the beyond." Anna tells her, but Jamila tells her she doesn't believe in such things. When she goes back home, her parents take her to the museum. There she found the temple of Dendur and it's not as big as Hathor's temple. And the drawings on the walls are not clear and the colors are gone.

For the rest of the week, Jamila worked very hard on her presentation making sure she wouldn't miss anything she saw. She asks her mother to make some dishes for her friends to taste. She also handcrafted a crown that looks almost like Hathor's and asked her mother for a gold dress and some accessories to look like her.

It's the day of the presentation and everyone is wearing clothes from all over the world. And of course Anna came wearing her colorful saree. "Oh My God, you look like a goddess!" Anna compliments Jamila and takes her hand and twirls her around. "Told you you have amazing heritage, you just needed to find your way towards it. Let's go rock these presentations." She takes Jamila's hand and then enters the class like they are about to rule the world.

"I see that you have found more interesting things about Egypt, Jamila." The teacher says when she sees her. "Since you were the first one up last time, how about you begin today too." Jamila stands up, takes a deep breath then goes to the front of the class and delivers the best presentation she has ever done. She told them about the temple and Hathor. Also the food Egypt has and passes out samples of the food her mother made. She talked about some of the traditions they have and the weddings on the Nile. She didn't fail to leave out a single detail from what she saw with Hathor. By the end she invites them to visit Egypt and goes back to her seat proud of what she has just accomplished. "Very well done." Her teacher says and moves on to the next student.

When Jamila arrives home, she asks her parents to take to Egypt and they promise her that hopefully in the summer they could go. She goes to her room and brings out the books about Egypt and starts to create a list of all the places she wants to visit in Egypt. When she opens the book that has Hathor's picture, she finds a note that says: Till we meet again. Can't wait for our next adventure. She looks at the paper back and forth, wondering if it's really from Hathor. She then puts it in her diary wondering if it really was all a dream or was it a 'message from the beyond' like Anna had said.