Nader Habib shares a spiritual moment I was told it would be different to anything I've ever seen, but as night turns into day I am still spellbound. This is one of the sleepiest villages in Egypt, Ruzaiqat near Luxor, it is long past nightfall -- but it feels like the liveliest place on earth. With something of the atmosphere of a Mediaeval caravan crossroads or a Spanish pilgrimage site, the faithful have congregated around the Monastery of Saint George, turning a significant portion of the village into a huge camping site -- their makeshift residence alongside the monastery walls. Yearly, thousands of devotees converge on Ruzaiqat on this one day of the year to celebrate Mar Guirguis, as the saint is locally known. The festival marks the building of the first church dedicated to this great martyr of Christendom, all the way north and east of Luxor in the Palestinian city of Al-Lodd. People of all ages mill around the monastery. They munch, they smoke, they talk. A deaf-mute tattoos the arms of small children with icons of the saints. Crowds periodically charge into the book and souvenir shop, emptying it of merchandise. My host leads a tour of the unpaved grounds, explaining that the tents are divided into sections corresponding to their residents' hometowns: one section for pilgrims from Esna, another for Assiut, still another for Armant. Eventually, on the invitation of Talaat Riyad, a teacher I have just met, we make our way into Esna. Riyad is the owner of the tent, and he welcomes us at the door as he would at his own house, ushering us into a reception area where one of his children, tired out by hours of play, is already falling asleep. It is 11pm, but Riyad offers us tea. "The night," he explains, "is only just beginning." He refers, of course, to tonight -- the Big Night, the night before Saint George Day, for which people prepare for up to 10 days in advance. "The process is tightly administered by the monastery," Riyad goes on. "The church sets a date for people to arrive long in advance. And because it's a tradition that goes back centuries, everyone knows exactly where their tent will be pitched and who their neighbours are going to be. It may be a makeshift town, but it's not a chaotic one." There is a ritual to the procedure: first you place your belongings on the site, then you offer your prayers at the church, and only on your return do you pitch the tent. Size varies according to needs and resources, but in Riyad's tent, at least, there is, besides the reception and a sitting area, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom of sorts. Families bring along supplies, down to rice and pasta, but they can buy fresh vegetables at the monastery, where a slaughterhouse was founded to meet the pilgrims' meat needs. Capitalising on the sudden, enormous demand, any tents double as groceries and bakeries, the latter offering fresh bread. A kafuffle signals a quarrel just outside, but Riyad is calm. "An apparition," he will eventually explain: at this time of year the saint, as Riyad's sister Gamila confirms, often takes on the form of "doves of light"; sometimes he appears as a flock of bird-people; others, including Riyad's mother, have run into Saint George in person. Gamila's grandmother told her the following story: "At the time, the fields all around were planted with sugarcane which would grow thick and high, allowing criminals to hide within and rob the pilgrims of their belongings; this was easiest on nights when the police didn't operate at all. One night the priest in charge came to tell us to be extra cautious, as usual, since there would be no police that night. But we had just seen a police officer by the cane field. 'I just saw a police officer,' I told him. 'That,' the priest replied, 'was Mar Guirguis.'" Later that night, when I look up, I will see a white bird larger than a dove and it will look like it is glowing -- a peculiar light emanating from within its body. Was that bird Saint George? My companions had absolutely no doubt. Gamila says she spends the day attending mass and socialising with friends, many of whom she only sees once a year. "You don't have to go into the overcrowded church to hear the hymns," which, together with sermons and instructions, are transmitted through loudspeakers dotting the camp site. Before mobile phones were invented, the monastery radio was essential for bringing people together: for a modest fee, so-and-so could broadcast a notice announcing they would be waiting for such-and-such at a given time and spot, usually the bookshop. "Some people still use the broadcast service even though they have mobile phones," Gamila says. "It's fun." But 20 years ago, as Riyad butts in to explain, there were many difficulties besides the lack of a means with which to communicate with friends and relations in the midst of overbearing -- resident crowds. The trip from Esna -- now a half-hour drive -- took up to three hours on un- or inadequately paved winding roads. "And because the trip was so hard, we only made it once -- now you can go home every night if you want to." The last leg of the journey required people to walk or ride. "It was muddy," Riyad remembers, "and very scary at night." Water was scarce: "We used to get water from a well inside the monastery or from a canal nearby. There were even water carriers. Now there are tanks with faucets all around the tents, as well as tank-bearing trucks." Where there were only candles and kerosene lanterns, there is now electricity. Only sewerage remains an issue, because the infrastructure of the monastery does not support thousands of people at any one time. "We have our own make- shift bathrooms in the tents," Riyad points to an arrangement involving a deep hole with wooden scaffolding on top of it. "It works," he adds. The festival is an occasion for gathering, the camping site a meeting place. Indeed, there are pilgrims who come from Sudan, the Netherlands and Italy. "They like to come back at this time of the year to see their friends all in the same place. Coptic students like Maria Dawoud are exempt from school: "For a week we don't have to go to school. We stay here and have fun. But it's not usually a problem because teachers do revision until we come back." Nor do Muslims miss out: Riyad's Muslim friends, for example, will usually spend time with him at the tent. "Those who don't come to celebrate Saint George come to shop at the big market nearby." The monastery, he added, provides a 24-hour clinic and pharmacy, an ambulance ready to convey emergencies to Armant or Luxor, police and fire brigade facilities. "A fire once broke out in a tent," Riyad remembers. "Within seconds there were policemen, firemen and medical staff at the spot. They managed to prevent a likely huge disaster."
