But somewhat to her surprise, what began as a solitary sojourn has morphed into a kind of floating artists' colony and mutual collaboration society, gathering members for days or weeks at a time.
A mix of undergraduates, doctoral candidates, and Harvard Divinity School HDSstudentsnthe the group had been at the Kumbh Mela, Allahabad's massive religious gathering, for several days already, and had been studying elements of the festival under Eck's guidance for months.
But across the Nile to the west near Cairo University, where several thousand of Mr Morsi's supporters have been gathering for two days, protesters were left dumbfounded by the announcement.
Before the Benisheik attack, the Islamists had been gathering for several days, and military officials were aware of it, asserted Mohammed Benisheikh, a lawyer whose brother was shot in the leg in the violence.
Presidents, prime ministers and other government officials are gathering for five days of discussions with captains of industry, bank bosses and heads of non-governmental organisations.
On the anniversaries of these two epic failures in Iraq and Libya, anti-war activists are gathering for four days of actions from March 18-21.
Of course, a small group gathering for 2 days cannot possibly cover the spectrum of topics relevant to this important field; however, even in this small venue one could not escape the reality that recent research developments in this area are largely incremental and lacking the groundbreaking progress that will be necessary to realize the therapeutic potential of stem cell research.
If not for the lockout, players would have been gathering for media-day events across the country on Monday.
"If we had the momentum, we'd still be in the game," Mr. McCain said this weekend on his campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express, where more and more of his family and senior staff members are gathering for these critical days.
