I started this a long time ago, back in Jordan, and haven't had time to write much since then. Now I've been a couple of weeks in Palestine and Israel. I plan to stay in a West Bank village about the size of Stigler called Jayyous until November 25 or so teaching an English class for a group called Project Hope (www.palhope.org), but mostly just lazing around drinking tea and smoking nargili and chatting with folks. Jayyous is a close-knit, family-filled village, and it's Ramadan now, kind of like Christmas vacation, so it's very laid-back. Foreigners come in and out a lot learning about the occupation, filming, photographing, buying olive oil, etc. I will write about that when I can. Here's the rest of Jordan.
It should be noted that life has been easier since I left Egypt not only because I'm in a new and less touristy country but also because of a change in my attitude. I began wearing a ring that I got free with a Lord of the Rings bookmark. It's a big hunk of gold metal with Elvish writing on it and has fooled many people even on close inspection. I also wear long pants and a loose, light, long-sleeved shirt even on the hottest days. At first I had been stubborn about changing my dress habits (tank tops and baggy shorts) because I wanted to be accepted for who I was and exercise a freedom I thought women should have. Besides that, at the camp where I worked in Russia, people ran around in bikinis and hot pants at all hours of the day. I found it hard to wrap my head around the fact that I was wearing the same clothes as before, but suddenly I was the half-naked one.
Slowly my attitude began to change as I realized that, one, I was a guest here, and it my place to do the accepting and respecting of other ideas. Two, I was getting very tired of old men staring at my knees and young men following my shoulders around like greyhounds. Besides that, if a guy from eastern Europe walked down the streets of Palo Alto in Speedos because it was OK to do that in Vargas, Bulgaria, no one would get past it enough to take him seriously. (Just kidding, D.)
Most people have been kind to me even when I told them I was American. But in the interests of neutrality I often introduce myself with an alternate citizenship. Marwan's uncle Mahmoud was telling me about the history of the region when we went to visit the old caravan sarai, a place where one could change horses and have a rest along the caravan routes. It's now a flashy restaurant for wealthy locals. He said many years ago, Turkey was "like Napoleon, like Hitler," occupying and controlling Arab nations, often with a brutal hand. Later came the British and French, who carved it up and divided it into spheres of influence. I said, "And now America." He shrugged as if to say, "You said it, not me."
On a certain level most people recognize the difference between a people and their government. But the fact is, I pay taxes to that government. And things so brutal have happened and are happening because of the power and will of my country that I can't blame people if their feelings are running high and I am seen by a minority of people, even on the most unconscious level, as an enemy. As a married, fully-clothed Australian, life is more relaxed.
Unfortunately, I am a terrible liar. The first person I told that I was Australian, he said, "Where in Australia?" I said, "Uh... Canberra." (Pronounced completely wrong.) "Oh, the capital." I didn't know whether it was or not, but I smiled and nodded after a suspicious hesitation, and later started talking about my uncle in Oklahoma. Murat kept having to elbow me and shake his head.
I stopped writing last time on Saturday, October 11, when I arrived with Murat the Turkish-German and Marwan the half-Palestinian German at a camp built by a Caucasian-Jordanian man and a British-Jordanian woman. We had just watched a gorgeous desert sunset and were heading back to the main tent, well-built and tastefully-appointed with a fire pit in the middle, and took tea and talked until dinner was ready. The long hungry day made the roasted chicken, onions, and tomatoes with yogurt salad and bread particularly savory. Afterwards we walked in the light of the almost-full moon and saw about five shooting stars each as we took in the ghostly landscape.
In the morning we had breakfast and then walked out to the stables where the woman owner was just about to let her Arabian mare out of her small corral and into the bigger one. She was velvet gold-brown with a giant head that, from a distance, hid the massive size of her body and made her look almost like a pony. Her chest was enormous and breathtakingly powerful. In her bigger cage, she bucked and reared and rolled and played, sometimes running full-speed at a fence only to stop abruptly half a foot from it. It was pure joy to watch her, and as we did we talked to the owner about her plans for the future of the place.
I had planned to go to Dana Nature Reserve next, but there was no bus to it. Murat and Marwan's driver, hired by Marwan's Palestinian-Jordanian uncle, said if I went to Aqaba with them for one night, they could drop me off at Dana the next day on their way to Amman. I'd already done Wadi Rum twice, so why not Aqaba? Besides, I'd only seen the Bedouin camp last time.
They were staying at the Radisson, so I rented a mattress on a rooftop in town with some other backpackers for 2 JD. Two Jordanian Dinars is about $3. Murat and Marwan and I hung out at the small, exclusive, rather unpleasant Radisson private beach until it was cool enough to go out and explore the town. We got dinner and ended up at a cafe by the water at sunset. We drank endless Turkish coffees and talked for hours as the lights of four countries danced off the black water around us.
The next day I decided to give up on Dana and head to Amman with, both to make things easier for them and because I learned that things at Dana are way overpriced. I couldn't handle anymore heartbreaking loveliness with a huge and undeserved pricetag at the end. Besides that, I get the feeling that transportation between tourist sites is an expensive nightmare in Jordan on purpose to keep tourists in place and bolster the taxi industry. And I was in no hurry to leave the lovely company of Murat and Marwan.
We took the Dead Sea route and watched Wadi Araba, the southern divide between Israel and Jordan, and then the shining blue Dead Sea pass by. When we arrived in Amman I had the business card of a hotel where journalists covering the war in Iraq liked to stay, given me by the Irish woman in Wadi Rum, and it seemed like the place to be. The manager was a droll and charming Palestinian named Fayez, trained as an electrical engineer, the kind of guy you'd expect to see patiently explaining something obscure but important on CNN while Geraldo nodded uncomprehendingly.
We sat down in his office and had coffee and talked for a couple of hours. Marwan noticed a stuffed white wolf wearing a flak helmet on top of one of his filing cabinets. He took a couple of pictures and asked where it came from. Fayez said a couple of reporters had nicked it from one of Saddam's palaces and brought it to him as a gift. We didn't ask about the helmet. The reporters had made him promise not to sell the wolf, but he wistfully mused that he could probably get a few tens of thousands for it on E-bay.
Murat and Marwan had to leave soon to meet up with some of Marwan's family, and I stayed at the hotel and talked with some journalists, freelancers, and activists who were active in Iraq, Palestine, etc. The hotel, the Al-Saraya, arranged expeditions to Iraq, mostly for journalists, but tourists were welcome as well. I was tempted for about half a minute. After all, it's not often you get to see first-hand a people your government has effectively demonized, a country in complete chaos, and the sites of ancient Sumer and Babylon. Some journalists, though, told me the violence was still too random. Besides that, as a citizen of the country that bankrolled and armed Saddam and then bulldozed through a lot of civilians and infrastructure to throw him out when it pleased them, it seemed rather vulturish to wander in as a tourist.
It is difficult to describe what happened that night as I talked to those people, but I remember thinking that my trip to the Middle East was finally getting interesting. It is nice enough getting irie with Bedouins and looking over the beautiful, haunting stone skeletons from ages long past. But now I was learning about real and terrible, unimaginable things going on in my world right now, things our governments try to shelter us from. I was hearing stories that I'd naively hoped were confined to history and/or... I don't know, but I hoped it wasn't people very much like me who did such things.
As I heard more and more, my palms began sweating and my heart beat faster, I was almost shaking. My view of the world, which had been teetering precariously on the edge of something anyway, tipped over and crashed, and a vacuum was created. I knew that to fill it was going to be difficult, painful, and exhilirating. Usually when my worldview crashes, during the period that follows, the way I see and relate to the world can change so much I barely recognize myself. For me it is one of the most exciting things in the world, though one of the most humbling and exhausting. It has always been well worth it.
The next day I took a cab to the UN headquarters in Amman to try to track down an Irish friend of mine who works for the UN and was stationed in Iraq. When I was unsuccessful, I came up with the brilliant idea to simply call his cell phone. He answered. We talked for about 12 minutes and $25, enough time to say we were both OK, he wouldn't be in Ireland this winter, and he was finally able to sit down again after being shot when his convoy was ambushed near Bosra and his ass was sticking out from behind the too-small rock he'd dived behind. An Iraqi took a potshot at it, and he got to spend some quality time getting acquainted with a hospital pillow. The base, mostly full of U.S. Marines, had also been shelled the day before, but thank God no one was injured. It was coffee break time, and the mess hall wasn't hit.
I met up with Murat and Marwan and Marwan's uncle Mahmoud the next morning. Mahmoud was a funny old charmer, spoke enough English to be opinionated, and I was never clear about his occupation, but it was obvious he was a well-connected and respected man. He drove us and another German friend of Murat's to the Dead Sea, where we floated around like Weebles in a bathtub. We also coated ourselves in mud and waited for it to dry, then rinsed off and took a shower. The water was muddy, slimy, and revoltingly bitter, and it stung the hell out of one's eyes, but somehow from far away it shone a lovely shade of blue. It's shrinking by the year now because of irresponsible water use, plus cosmetics companies are constantly nicking its "therapeutic" muds and minerals. We left just as a scandal was being created as a foreigner decided to walk around topless.
After that we climbed Mt. Nebo, Moses' supposed burial site. It was there that he looked across the Jordan River at the Promised Land. On a clear day one could see Jerusalem and Jericho. It wasn't a clear enough day, but it was unforgettable to think of the legendary (mythical?) tribe, after their 40 years' exile, looking out over the land they figured it was their right to conquer and occupy. As I was reading the Bible this summer, I often wondered what books other people wrote, tribes and races that were wiped off the face of the planet in the tides of history. What were their ideas about rights to land and spirituality? How the world would have been different if they had been a bit better at avoiding being killed and thus been able to survive and publish things?
In any case, I understood by then why it took the Israelites 40 years to get through the Sinai. After spending some time in Bedouin villages, I'm surprised it only took them that long.
In the next couple of days, at the hotel in Amman, I met two guys who were doing work in Palestine, and their stories blew me away. They also didn't fit in my worldview. I hadn't planned on going to Israel or Palestine, but I couldn't go by without learning about these things for myself. I felt it could teach me a lot I couldn't learn any other way. And again, when one finds exceptionally good company, sometimes it seems right to keep it for a while.
They invited me to come to Petra with them on Friday. That's the reason for the subject line. My itinerary in Jordan looked something like: Aqaba, Wadi Rum, Petra, Wadi Rum, Aqaba, Amman, Petra, Amman... I think I may be the only tourist to see every major site in Jordan twice. It was good, though. I got to hang out with some great people and see things with different eyes each time. Petra the second time was completely different. Instead of gazing at the main sites, we went wandering off to the caves where people actually lived. The colors of the rocks, wispy wavy reds and blues and whites, and sometimes bright yellows, some of them woven together to look like anatomy charts of muscles and veins, some of the columns striped and melty-looking, looked like something Dr. Seuss might have dreamed up on acid. You could see the soot clinging to the ceiling from centuries of cooking fires, and some caves were still used as stables. Once we got away from all the haram tourists, the place almost seemed sacred again.
Yusif, a British Muslim, and Steve, a Canadian with a background in medical training, were only in Jordan to renew their visas so they could stay in Palestine for three more months to do their work. I followed them back in. An Arab member of Israel's Parliament, the Knesset, helped the boys get across the nightmarish border, which seemed greedy for excuses to keep people out. In Amman, I met a Japanese nurse and a British human rights worker who were going in to volunteer and help out the Palestinians. Both had been refused entry for the flimsiest of reasons. I was grilled uncomfortably, too. I felt nervous, so I said I was just going to see the holy sites. He asked which ones, and I said,
"You know, the Sea of Galilee, Jerusalem, Nazareth..."
"Why Nazareth?" His voice was harsh and demanding, and there was no humor in his face.
"Oh, you know, that's where Jesus was born and grew up and..."
"He was what?!"
"Er, no, I don't mean born..."
"Where was he born?" He looked at me with grave suspicion.
I wanted to laugh, but instead I just smiled expansively and said with a friendly roll of the eyes, "Bethlehem." Duh.He relaxed. But man. It took me a while to.
We visited the charming Knesset family for a couple of days near Nazareth. The son, Amar, had studied at Cambridge, and that's where he met Yusif. We headed straight to the West Bank after that, where I visited Jayyous and Nablus, and then I saw Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, the Golan Heights, and Tel Aviv. I also met up with some friends in Haruzim, north of Tel Aviv, and Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv. It was good to see both sides of things, but there is a lot more to learn. Living in Jayyous is delightful, but of course sobering because of the situation, the Wall, the land confiscation, the roadblocks and checkpoints, etc. I'll write about that when I can.
Meanwhile my email account has been about 40 years in the desert, so please write.
Love always,
Pam