Constructing Kasun, Educator

I’m going to climb a small mountain in less than an hour in order to watch the mountainous rocks at Wadi Rum change color.  I spent the afternoon in the desert looking at mountains, springs and a canyon.  I feel a bit guilty about taking a four wheel drive vehicle to do it, especially after yesterday’s snorkeling in the Red Sea.  Preserving the environment, like in the US, is often an afterthought here.

Let’s step back a day to the Red Sea.  Same crystalline waters you’ll get in from the
Egypt (or Saudi or Israeli) side.  You walk out and see all body parts clearly beneath you, all the way until you can’t touch any longer.  The Red Sea for Jordan is a tiny stretch of land where their only port is located, Aqaba. 

I was hesitant about Aqaba.  I was afraid we’d get the same neon glitz I found in Sharm El Sheikh.  I didn’t want to have people begging me in for kebab or a water pipe along the sidewalks.  Well, no worries.  Aqaba is largely built for Jordanians (as far as I could tell).  The restaurants did something I admire—they fed people, and they fed them well.  The décor at these places isn’t about a full sensory experience where the music moves rhythmically with the lines of paint on the walls.  On the contrary, these places are open-air, utilitarian establishments where bream, hummous, shrimp and beer flow freely. 

The not-so-nice side of Aqaba?  I’m sorry to say that when we snorkeled at the Royal Jordanian Diving Center (so close to the Saudi border we could have walked), part of the reef was littered with thousands of cigarette butts, old tires, and floating Dorito bags.  I felt like a human pariah leering at the fish, feeling badly for those rainbow colored creatures having to navigate around the rubbish of my homo sapien sisters and brothers.  Additionally, where you take the water from Aqaba proper, you have a complete view of a rusty tanker in the bay as well as the other industrial equipment you’ll find at any port.  I guess it’s yin and yang.  Not Sharm El Sheikh glitter gulch, not Eden, either.I couldn’t report in without a few words on Petra.  As you know, Petra was just voted the 2^nd Wonder of the World this summer (sorry I’m missing the reference—just Google and you’ll see it’s true).  Petra was home to the Nabateun kingdom around the time of Christ for about three centuries.  They levied taxes on traders who needed to take their caravans through on trade routes and ruled a fair amount of the geography in the Middle East.  Enough history (according to our architect/guide… I suppose others might have other histories… narratives, whatever).  The point is that they built their ceremonial centers and tombs inside the rocks, including an amphitheatre.  There are hundreds of structures worth looking at, all carved into the stunning red, brown and white stone facades, the labyrinth of rock you have to walk through to discover it all.  We hiked up 800 stairs to get to the monastery at the top (the highest point in
Petra) at midday.  I love midday hikes.  Who needs a sauna?  Once we hit the top, we saw the gray monastery carved into a mountainside atop a small plateau.  We sipped a cool lime soda and listened to a man sing along with the melancholic sounds of his oud (a stringed instrument that sounds like an old sage and a young lover all at once) from a small cave about the monastery.  Then we walked up to two different lookout points where we could see various parts of Jordan and Israel.  What do you say about such views?  Breathtaking?  Awe –inspiring?  Yes and yes.

A few general words on Jordan.  It’s majestic.  Its deserts are otherworldly.  I imagine myself turning into the hollowed-out crevices of the rock formations here, wanting to bake in the sun and cool under the moon each night.  It’s quiet, alone, peaceful.  It’s hard to imagine there is a world of violence just a hundred kilometers away.  Additionally, there’s a fair amount of money floating around Jordan.  My friend from Beirut explained that there are a lot of foreign donors to
Jordan (multinationals and the US) trying to help Jordan institute “rule of law.”  I was surprised to see a pretty highly developed infrastructure.  Furthermore, people here are optimistic about their futures.  It’s nice to travel in a country where people expect good things for themselves and their children.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, the mind needs a break), I don’t have the kind of data I could supply about Egypt and Israel.  What I’m sharing comes straight from anecdotes and my old friend, the Lonely Planet Guidebook.

Being in this part of the world feels a little odd without the tribe from Fulbright.  I realize we had to disband, but continuing on my journey without them feels a little strange.  Who to call for a chat to try and understand the income inequalities here?  Who to discuss the troubles of the Bedouin with?  Who to discuss what we learned in Egypt—that there are no more nomadic Bedouin when I’m looking all around me at them here?  Who to take my breakfast buffet with and converse about Middle East politics?  Who to be absolutely silly with when things get too serious?  I don’t mean to romanticize them, but they are amazing individuals, ones I hadn’t planned on getting to know so well but now miss a lot.  I guess we all adjust.

***

Here’s a short poem I’m working on from my observations here in the desert:

Desert Wind

Lift the sand from the callouses

Of the Bedouin worker’s feet.

Wick away the drops of sweat

From the shepherd’s sunburnt skin.

Shift the dunes of dark red sand

Toward a solid granite mountain.

Whistle through the leaves of a single fig tree

Nestled against the source of a quiet spring.

Sanctify the small, inconsequential thoughts

Of a lonely pilgrim seeking your comfort.

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