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.

My travelogue posing as an educational blogspace is almost finito.  I will now conclude everything  I have learned about the Middle East in the following paragraphs.

C’mon!  You knew it wasn’t true.  Instead, I’m offering three sets of exchanges with folks I met in my last few days traveling.  The connecting theme is, if you haven’t already guessed–Baghdad.  Reader beware–I am not an expert on the Iraq war, so these are only observations of my conversations.

Going to Baghdad

At the campsite at Wadi Rum a few days ago, an energetic man about my age approached me as I was writing and asked, “Are you Dutch?”  His face fell a bit when I told him I wasn’t.  He had mistaken me for an airline attendant when he looked at me (curiously, this happened to me twice in Tel Aviv as well… I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t miss my calling).  He used to work exclusively as a tour organizer for KLM Airlines (recently purchased by Air France).  He made good money, he said, and he loved the people he worked with.  I guess he was hoping to relive a memory at the sight of me. 

In any event, Air France no longer flies routes that the people he worked with travel.  So, thanks to globalization and other forces, he no longer has a job.  He described conditions in Jordan as difficult if you didn’t have the right connections (he used an Arabic word which I translated to the Spanish palancas–somehow it carries more weight in Spanish).  So he sought work in Dubai, and no luck.  Then he went to Baghdad to interview with the American Embassy.  They offered about $1300 US per month plus living expenses (a pittance compared to what Americans would make, and he knows it, but it’s better than the $500 US he would earn in Jordan).

Mario, as he called himself, was perplexed abou whether to accept the post.  He had a private conversation with an embassy driver in Baghdad who described how four Filipinos were killed in the “safe” caravan the embassy assured him he would travel in.  We talked a few times about his job possibilities between jokes he shared about politics.  He looked so serious, and he seemed to be searching my face for some reassurance.  I didn’t know what to tell him.  After sleeping on it, I decided that, statistically, he probably wouldn’t die, but he was sure to know others that would if he stayed on long enough.  I asked him how he would cope, and he said he planned to both lose a lot of weight and drink plenty.  I wished him well.

Leaving Baghdad

Last night at the Amman airport, I had a bit of time to kill and paid for some Internet time.  A younger man in a suit with kind eyes seemed not to understand how to work the computers, so I told him he could have the remaining time on my account.  Turns out he has recently left Baghdad himself, an Iraqi.  His dad he said, was killed by militia there.  I didn’t know what to say.  I wanted to express sympathy and say that I knew what it was to lose a father, but then I thought that I had no idea what it was to lose one that way, so I expressed condolences for the war and his loss.

Mustaffah, as he introduced himself, said he wasn’t bothered and was trying to work for the US military.  He had spent several months under some sort of UN protection in Beirut and was hoping to be trained in the US.  Inshallah (God willing), he said.  I couldn’t understand how his eyes could be so bright with the future he might be facing.

Taking a break from Baghdad

I don’t know the last man’s name, but I spent almost nine hours next to him on my flight from Frankfurt to DC today.  I asked him if he was on the Amman flight, as there were several men in their casual army clothes with high and tight haircuts on my first flight.  Nope.  He had flown in from Kuwait.  “Oh, not so bad,” I offered.  “Nope, I came from Baghdad,” he answered. 

He’s working with the engineers who are trying to rebuild the country.  “Everything we build, the Iraqis blow up as soon as we finish,” he said.  He seemed discouraged and would be returning to Baghdad in two weeks.  He had been in the first Iraq war and has done several tours, waiting out for three more years to finish his 20 year career.  He was exhausted and slept a lot.  He flinched incessantly through his sleep, and I wondered what toll these wars have had on him.  He said his next tour is to Afghanistan.  Hardly any better, I thought.

I’m struck by how many lives are affected (even terminated) by this war.  Somehow looking at the “Faces of the Fallen” (all US soldiers killed in the wars) in the Washington Post isn’t the same as hearing the real stories on the ground. 

Maybe you know that Indiana Jones was shot partly in Petra, Jordan.  You can’t go to Petra and not get that little piece of trivia.  So I began to fancy myself the adventuresome type, scaling mountains like an ibex, a newfound spirit of the adventurer.  Please note that you’ll hear more about this in my next post (which is still on my Vista-haunted laptop… I want a pound of Bill Gates’s flesh when I hit US soil again and sort out all the necessary patches and conflicts for my lack of wireless access while abroad).

We spent the day in the desert at Wadi Rum, a mountainous desert area where after looking for just five minutes you’re convinced the world is fundamentally good.  We watched an amazing sunset atop a mountain peak where rocks shifted beneath our feet as we climbed–no matter for the adventurous type who feels she has claimed the desert to herself.  We then came back down for dinner of grilled chicken and lamb.  The camp was great–clean and quiet.  I watched a fire burn for a few hours and then turned in for bed in the tent which had just enough holes to spot some starlight.  I woke in full daylight and got ready for breakfast (this meant putting on the previous day’s clothes and a quick brushing of the teeth).  We were in a hurry, as we were going to take a morning camel ride through the desert.

In preparation for the ride on the camels, I decided to do some research.  I remembered first a conversation I had had with a religious studies professor from the Fulbright seminar who described a book she had read, written by a woman who did research in the desert and had to buy three camels to complete her travels.  “Nasty beasts,” was the description that stuck with me.  So I asked our driver, Isa, about what the camels were like.  “Well, they are very intelligent, and they always remember who hurts them.  Very different from horses.  You’ll see.”  With this I felt ready enough.  Indiana Jones wouldn’t need more. 

We found our guides at another campsite… Two eight year olds in scrappy, torn clothes.  I thought about child labor laws and then remembered it was Friday, a day of rest in Jordan.  Surely these children otherwise attended school.  That was why they knew at least five words of English to be able to convey concepts like, “Up,” and “Good.”  Besides, the arrangements had already been made, and backing out would have put these two in more of a bind upon returning home.  They stood next to the two camels who were waiting for us.  Camels wait by resting on all fours, their long legs tucked neatly under their bulbous bodies.  The saddles are woolen layers of blankets with two large wooden prongs on the front and back of the saddle to hold on to–no stirrups.  I sized them both up and noticed that the white one looked cranky.  Sure enough, the boys told me to take that one.

I did my best Dog Whisperer approach and talked to the camel.  I think even called him Habibi (Arabic for “my love”) to let him know I meant no harm (I figured it knew Arabic after all these years in Jordan).  I put one leg over the high back of the camel and rested myself evenly on the saddle.  Within a few seconds, I was up, about six feet off the ground, realizing this camel was nothing like the horses I’ve with some degree of confidence in the past.  I was confident my dog whispering had done the trick, so wasn’t really afraid.  My husband mounted his camel, and we began.

The first small hill we ascended and descended, and my camel let out its awful cry which sounds like a woman learning she’s been widowed.  One of the boys rushed over and gestured for me to pull on the underside of a strap of the saddle.  This caused a great deal of dissonance for me.  The camel was screaming, angry, I was on its back, I tried to pull, it screamed harder, the boys were both saying lots of things in Arabic in a hurried pace, the next thing I knew, the camel collapsed itself beneath me, and I was still on top.  I was pleased I had weathered its descent so well.  I guess this is where the Bridget Jones inside me started to take over.

Well, I was a little jarred, but not dissuaded from continuing.  The boys gestured for me to dismount, which I did quickly.  They retied and restrapped the saddle in about two minutes’ time, and they gestured again for me to get back on.  “It’s ok, sure?” I asked, not as confident as the first time I had mounted.  The boys nodded their heads up and down eagerly, black tufts of hair on their foreheads like green traffic lights. 

But maybe my camel somehow sniffed out my lack of confidence, or maybe it remembered that I had hurt it.  Just as I tentatively slipped my right leg across the saddle, he bolted upward before I was on the saddle.  My mind raced between pulling myself, willing myself, to the top of the saddle and jumping off.   I knew the jump would go badly, so I tried to pull my flesh toward the top.  I pulled, neared the top at about six feet.  Then my mind knew that the course had shifted dramatically, and I thought in a flash second, “Land as squarely as you can,” for I was in a freefall for the cracked earth (God’s version of cement) beneath me.

Boom.  It was like a nuclear explosion when I hit the ground.  In my head, the world stopped as the breath left my lungs.  I wanted to wretch from the pain.  The camel screamed and screamed, and I had no words.  I thought, “Is my back broken?”  but then I moved.  I laid on the ground for a few seconds, contemplating the pain, then summoned the strength to sit up.  One of the boys came over with a puzzled expression.  My husband was stuck atop his own camel, unable to come to help.  The pain was so intense, but I was glad also to be alive.  And glad that my back wasn’t broken at all.  I stood up and then doubled over from the pain.  The boys were chattering between themselves, and  I assured Rob I was ok.  Then the boys tried to talk to me, and I gave them one of three words I know for “enough” in Arabic, “Halas.”  They backed away.

I stood up fully and let the air enter my lungs again, the pain beginning to dissipate now.  Not only was I ok, but I was going to get better, I thought.  I think the boys could read my face, so they then spoke to me in Arabic, trying to convince me to continue the ride.  Here’s what I imagine they said:

“Come on, it’s ok.  We fall off our camels all the time!  See this bruise on my arm?  That’s where I actually chose to dive off my camel for the fun of it.  Don’t worry!  You don’t look stupid at all!  If you get back on, we won’t tell anyone how ridiculous you looked, all arms and legs in the air for those two seconds before you hit the ground.  Besides, think of the story you’ll have to tell.  You can’t make this stuff up!”

Their arguments were persuasive, but the source of wanting to ride again came from the way I was looking at my camel.  I both hated and feared it, and I didn’t want to leave the desert with that kind of feeling toward camels.  I know it’s foolhearty, but I chose to continue.  My husband and I traded camels, and we made our way through the desert for the next hour.  I even took my camel without the help of my guide, climbing dunes and circling mountains, looking down of sundrenched sandy valleys. 

We ended up at the Dead Sea in the early afternoon.  My back was sore, and I have a perfectly centered bruise marking the exact landing of my fall.  We set up spa treatments here at the Movenpick, and that proved to be the best remedy for my fall.  This is the best spa I’ve ever been to, a complex of pools and water treatments with a pool on the hillside that looks straight at Israel and the Dead Sea.  From the edge of a pool, I watched the sun set on the mountains of Israel (the opposite experience of seeing the sun rise on Jordan about a week previously), and felt that, again, all is well.

I’m trying to find a positive way to describe the dissonance I feel from today’s experiences as I transitioned from Fulbright participant in Tel Aviv to tourist in Amman, Jordan. I rode along the highway in Tel Aviv and looked for one last time at the garbage dump that has been rehabilitated to a land mass and remembered Al Azhar Park in Cairo as well as the goofy comments from one of the Fulbright seminar participants who claimed that she heard one too many times about the dump. This was on the heels of counseling a young Israeli hotel worker who helped me with my bags that he should do what he can to try and make the relationship with his girlfriend in Guatemala work (after also recommending my favorite town ever for vacationing to him—San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico).

At the airport I got to have the conversation I had practiced with a friend about the Lebanese stamp in my passport. “Why did you go to Lebanon?” “To go to a good friend’s wedding.” “And what was her name, and do you know anyone else there? And do you have any other activities there?” I tried to act natural while finding myself feeling like some sort of criminal who really had something to hide. I remembered my friend’s admonition that making jokes about military activity would land me in jail, so I practiced my poker face. Not surprisingly, I was selected out of the line for a second security screening.

I waited in line and watched individuals take from two to ten minutes in the special screening. I was escorted to a side screening table. Imagine Macy’s the day before Christmas, and you’ll get a sense of the level of activity in that place. We started with the first of four bags (two of them handbags). Inside a large plastic crate I looked at the contents of all my electronics equipment, a morbid, threatening spaghetti of cords, each piece touched once, twice, by a special wand which I gather was testing for radioactivity. I thought, well, this shouldn’t take too long—just a couple more minutes.

The minutes drug on as we started the second bag. “Don’t touch the bag I’ve just checked at all,” I was warned. Eventually three others took turns looking at the contents of my next bag. They were not happy that I hadn’t told them in advance about the books I had been given in Egypt as gifts. I was supposed to have declared them, apparently. So we searched through the first large piece of luggage. I took out every item of clothing and separated out my books. All those Arabic sounding authors and titles related to Egypt and Arabic. Pages were touched, flipped through. I couldn’t resist and asked if they’d like some of the recipes in the Egyptian cookbook I had bought. The one long-haired woman who seemed to be in charge of my investigation smiled back, so I hoped I might finish the check, which had drug on for over an hour, soon.

After the fourth painful bag (couldn’t I get a chair!?!), I was told I would get another check. I was escorted by my female investigator (mercifully, she was female), to a sort of changing room. Luckily I was wearing very thin clothes which provided easy access to all body parts. I was told to take off many components and then frisked in ways I didn’t imagine possible. I stood there wondering what the folks who have been profiled upon entrance to the US must feel like and reminded myself that it was good to go through this humiliation to be able to empathize with them. What else could I say to myself to offer any comfort? So, after this hour and a half of interrogation, looking, touching, I was freed.

I took my Royal Jordanian flight, the only female passenger of ten on the way to Amman. The male flight attendant sat next to me and described his four marriages all over the world. I hoped he wasn’t campaigning for the fifth. Maybe I shouldn’t flatter myself. Upon entering the Amman airport, I noticed the long gazes with which I was greeted. Like so many parts of the Middle East (excluding Israel), folks are constantly checking each other out. I reminded myself that it was time to get used to a new culture and that I needed to suck it up. My friend from Beirut (she flew in) hugged me at the customs boundary and whisked me off to her hotel. Somehow I didn’t have a hotel reservation (oh boy), and she luckily didn’t mind sharing her room with me. I also thought my husband was coming in tonight, but was wrong (it’s tomorrow).

So we went to a Western style bookstore where I looked at hundreds of political titles. Naturally, there were several titles related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. All of them sympathetic to the Palestinians. I picked them up, read their first few pages. One book was full of political cartoons—insulting, many of them—correct only insofar as the author’s narrative was concerned. All I could think was, “Whose narrative is it today?” We walked for miles through Amman, and my world spun around me as I realized these streets look so similar to Jerusalem and not Cairo (I had expected the reverse). I’m just managing expectations here. We’re listening to Arabic music videos, interrupted briefly by the Muslim call to prayer on the broadcast, about to have dinner at a Lebanese restaurant.