Early in the morning on Saturday December 6th, I began my adventurous holiday by taking a taxi to the border of Jordan with some MCC folks heading to Amman. I would be off from work the whole week in honor of Eid-il-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, a big festival for Muslims worldwide which celebrates the end of the Hajj (Pilgrimage to Mecca) and which commemorates Ibrahim's (Abraham's) binding of Ishmael (it's not Isaac in their tradition). All Muslim families with the means to slaughter a sheep, goat, or camel in remembrance of Ibrahim's faithfulness and God's mercy. I decided to wander across the river Jordan to hang out with another SALTer, Justine, who also had off for the occasion. So to start, I had to make the long trek from Jerusalem to the Allenby Bridge which is in the West Bank and is the only route that Palestinians can take out of the country and the only way they can get anywhere else. They travel across the bridge into Jordan and then take flights around the world,as they cannot go from Tel Aviv's airport.
So, I had a visa to cross from this bridge which is the quickest way geographically to Amman. It requires some transit to the border, a wait and a huge exit tax levied by Israel, 150.5 shekels (like $40). Then you have to take a bus across a barren military zone of like a kilometer which costs about $4 despite the short trip--it's a monopoly, the only way you can get to the other side. Then your passports are collected, you go into the Jordanian control area wait for your name to be called and get your passport back. Then it's a big negotiation to get a taxi/bus/serveece into Amman at a decent price. I was fortunate to travel with three veterans of this process and had no trouble. I even started a scarf knitting project on the bus.
You Have Cheddar Cheese?!?!
From the moment I entered Maryanne's apartment (she's with MCC Jordan) I felt right at home. She has a really nice apartment with three bedrooms that she has basically decorated from scratch. It's beautiful and she had tons of Christmas decor waiting. While I waited for Justine to arrive after her school let out, I watched Maryanne cook some Cheddar Broccoli soup. Wow--I found out that they have real cheddar in Amman, like from the US! The cheese in Bethlehem leaves much to be desired and is so expensive! This was just the first of many revelations I had regarding the very western amenities available in Amman. After Justine came and we were happily caught up on our lives since September, Maryanne drove us to a Chinese/Indian food restaurant where the menus were only English. I had some tasty Tofu stirfry (my first tofu since the states) but they definitely were not as generous as a Chinese place in the US. Next we went to one of the twelve or so Starbucks in Amman, a huge place with many levels, a stand alone monument to American coffee. I had a Caramel Frappuccino--major yum! Full and feeling broke after such extravagance (which was available at American prices) we headed home satisfied.
In Search of Sheep Slaughter
Sunday is a work day normally in Jordan, but because of the Eid, this Sunday was declared a holiday by the King. No one was really working, except MCC. Justine and I slept in until around 9 am and then had a delicious pancake breakfast. It makes a huge difference to have hot water for dishes and showers. Our plan was to wander around and see what was to see. I wanted to find some ritual sheep slaughter but there was none to be found. We stopped by the MCC office for business reasons (Justine needed stuff) and wound up eating falafel with them for lunch. There we discovered that Eid was to begin on Monday, not Sunday, and so sheep killing would be commenced tomorrow. We also became a little panicked regarding the public transportation that might not be available on the first day of Eid. Our next stop was "the balad" Downtown where we might peruse some nice shops.
"Are you with US or THEM?"
The Balad was a busy place as people were preparing for the big holiday. We met lots of shopkeepers and told them that we were teachers, Justine in Irbid and me in Bethlehem. This helped as we tried to bargain but not too much. Justine's Arabic is swell though. She bought a couple of scarfs and I went to a (pirated) DVD shop and purchased 6 for 5 JD, like $7. What a bargain compared to the Bethlehem which is around 15 shekels or 4 dollars per DVD. At one of these streetside vendors, my remark about working in Bethlehem inspired quite a conversation. The man said that he was in fact, Palestinian, from Nablus or somewhere. I had heard about the large number of Palestinian refugees in Jordan but it was interesting to actually meet and talk to some. But the talking was abruptly over when this man questioned me edgily, "Are you with US or with THEM?" Mind you we've already been speaking Arabic to this fellow, so he knows we're not Israeli ( I mean it's unlikely that we're Israelis working and living in Area A in the West Bank). But I was really aggravated by this question and I asked, Who's US? I mean of course I'm with "us", as in humanity...who can be against "us"? No sorry, I'm with "them" the evil ones. Frustrated by this stupid mentality of us/them which I have not really encountered so bluntly anywhere else, I suggested we head back up the hill home. We stopped to pick up some groceries for our journey to Petra to munch while we hiked (to avoid the expensive park places). At home we watched Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy--one of those things I don't get here--and later we watched the movie Everything is Illuminated which I bought at the shop.
Shibabilization
Much of the attention Justine and I had been attracting reminded me of how things are here in the West Bank where groups of guys (shibab) go wandering through the streets and then encounter a woman from outside their community, only to stare, make comments or whistle, etc. We coined the term Shibabilization to describe the phenomena. This Shibabilization would follow us from Amman to Petra, to Wadi Rum and back to Amman. Monday morning we woke early and headed out in search of a taxi for the ride to the bus station. There was such a tremendous noise arising from the city's many mosques, a cacophony of calls to prayer for the Eid, that we were sure there'd be nothing happening all day. But pleasantly surprised, we managed to hail a taxi with little difficulty and even used the meter! Wow, meters in taxis! What a great idea! Unfortunately we paid a bit more than we should have due to miscommunication about our destination. But then we managed to catch a minibus down to Petra for only 3 JD each, practically the local price! A three hour bus ride with not a few shibab and mostly locals. I busted out my knitting project which certainly seemed to hold every man's attention for the remainder of the trip, including a creepy 'special police' man that was sitting behind us asking us our marital status and for Justine's phone number.
We arrived midday to Wadi Musa and found our hostel with little difficulty after standing around looking lost for a few minutes (several pickups full of shibab offered to take us but where I don't know). It was too late to consider paying entrance to the Petra park so we instead explored a bit of Wadi Musa (the town outlying the historical Petra ruins) and shopped at some souvenir joints on the road. We walked down to the Petra visitors center and found out that there was a 'Petra by Night' program that evening so we bought tickets and planned to come back for that. After a fabulous buffet dinner up at the hostel, we got a ride down to this event at 8:30. It was packed with hundreds of tourists. As it turns out, we were merely supposed to walk through the initial path guided by luminarium candles. Then whewn we reached the Treasury building, the most famous site in Petra, we were seated around a big open space filled with candles and we listened to some enchanting music and drank a cup of tea (plastic cup). It indeed was a profound experience, especially since I hadn't seen any of Petra before in the light. At the end, we decided against a taxi, which for sure would have ripped us off, but the walking plan wasn't brilliant.
Kings Go Free
Bright and early Justine and I woke and prepared for a FULL day in the Petra ruins. So we again took a ride from the hostel down to the entrance gate. The guidebook stated that foreigners could expect to pay 21 JD for a day pass, residents paid 1 JD, and "only King Abdullah goes free." Justine had not been given residency status yet so she was planning to present a letter from her school in Arabic saying "Please admit Justine King as a resident to this site because she volunteers full time with our school for blind children". When we got up to the line, it seemed suddenly that everyone had arrived. Justine pulled out her letter and handed it over. The man stared at it and began to read line by line through an entire page about this school. He looked up and asked her in Arabic if this was a school for the blind and deaf or just blind, out of genuine curiosity. Then he picked up the phone, made some call and the people behind us started grumbling about how long Justine was taking. She asked, so how much do I owe? And the ticket man replied in a cute way, nothing! nothing! This is so wonderful! A school for the blind! And Justine, astonished, asked, well, do I need a ticket for the gate--and the man said, no, no! I have already called down there, he's expecting you!
Just like that, the King went free.
I paid 21 JD.
I'm Jack Sparrow
The sites of Petra were more spectacular than can be expressed in words or pictures. There were so many beautifully carved tombs, facades, temples, etc. and the natural landscape was itself stunning. The rock is brilliantly red, pink, yellow, purple. And to be so close to it all! This is no museum with a do not touch sign. At Petra you can climb on or around anything, sit in the seats of the amphitheater or pose with an inscription. I'm not sure how good that is for preservation, but it sure was fun. I think it was well worth my money. One major route through Petra requires a bit of a hike off the evenly paved portion and onto some well worn but precarious steps and mazes up to the top of the mountain where a huge Nabataean monument called the Monastery juts out from the side as if an independent structure--though it too is carved into the rock. It doesn't look like a monastery, nor was it ever used as one, but apparently some crosses were later carved into the back of the temple and the nickname stuck.
Part of the atmosphere of Petra was the persistence of certain Bedouin boys/young men to nag passersby to take a donkey ride up to the monastery, or a camel ride around the main area, or horses to take you back to the entrance. They would yell "air conditioned taxi!" as you hiked past. I was unfazed, and Justine informed me that riding on a camel/donkey for so long would probably make it difficult to move the next day. Besides, I trusted my footing on the steep ascent more than that of those skittish donkeys. Maybe I was wrong about them. But it was a good workout. Anyway the men were looking sort of cute and I tried to figure out what it was about them--then I got it! They were wearing eye liner! With keffiyehs and scarfs tied around their head and dark dirty hair, and with their eyes thus emphasized, they looked alot like Jack Sparrow, or Johnny Depp posing as a pirate. It was nice. But by the time I figured this out it was too late to get a good photo without utterly embarrassing myself. So you'll just have to imagine.
Married to a Bedouin
While I imagine most of those Petra guys' flirtatiousness was related to their desire to make some money off of us, I did sense some sort of boldness over the week from Jordanian guys towards us like there was a really good chance that we'd say yes and consent to marry them and hang out in the desert for the rest of our lives. Only on the way out of Petra did I realize why some of them might have this idea about western women. A book was on display entitled "Married to a Bedouin" billed as a true life account of a woman's life with the Bedouin. She appeared Dutch. I unfortunately did not get a good look at the story because I was afraid it would indicate an interest on my part in marrying a Bedouin. But after seeing that, I never wondered how those guys got the impression we wanted to get hitched. Just to see how we'd feel about living the bedouin lifestyle, Justine and I signed up through our hostel for a tour to Wadi Rum for a day with an overnight stay in a beduoin camp including dinner and breakfast.
Wadi Wasta
So we woke up at an absurd hour after sleeping off our long day in Petra and we hopped on a mini bus with three other foreigners from our hostel to this Wadi Rum tour. The three were teachers in an English immersion school in Cairo and they would more or less be companions on this journey, whether they liked it or not. There was a man inside the bus with no apparent purpose except to speak English to the tourists and extort money out of them as we careened into the desert in the middle of nowhere. We literally saw him take money from us, separate his portion and place it in his pocket and then count up the rest to give the driver. On the way from Wadi Musa to Wadi Rum (a desert national park) we were stopped by highway patrol for having too many passengers--two more than there were seats. They apparently fined the bus 30 JD for each and boy was our filching hero pissed! He jumped out of the van and went over to the cop car flailing his arms and screaming all kinds of apparent obscenities while we looked on, terrified!
Praise God the policeman wasn't too upset by what our guy called his mother, and what gestures he made (including showing the bottom of his shoe) and soon we were rolling onward while he continued shouting about how he intended to come back this way and give him a piece of his mind...well he said something more like "I'll kick his ass." He told us that he said to the cop "if you're a real man, you'll meet me in the desert, one on one, tonight." A showdown. The guy was still stewing when we arrived in Rum Village, the Bedouin town inside of Wadi Rum. The views were stunning! The sign outside the door said "Bedouin Meditation Camp" and I thought maybe this was where we'd be staying. There was a GIANT pot of tea produced after a while and I asked for the bathroom and found that it was very much like the ones I experienced with CPT in the south of the West Bank. No TP and no sitting.
This discouraged me from drinking much of the 10 Liters of tea from that kettle, even though it was tasty. Our traveling companions appeared to be five friends from Japan who were visiting Jordan together and three friends (two Brits and one American) who teach at an English immersion school in Cairo for rich kids. The ten of us were on the tour booked via Valentine Inn which appeared to be a strange conglomerate of people who knew each other rather than a seamless operation by one organization. We were all befuddled by the lack of clarity about our plans. The teachers were extremely wry and dry-humoured for the entirety of our trip and we couldn't stand their standoffishness. But, it became easier for me throughout the trip to relate to the American. I think the others were sorely disappointed by the accomodations in Wadi Rum.
Anyhow, the man "in charge," Zidane, came out and told us we would soon be departing on a jeep tour (two cars, five persons each plus a driver) and then this random western woman with a scarf over her head told us to be prepared for the toilets in the campsite to not have toilet paper or flushing capabilities. We were to flush manually with a bucket of water. I was totally intrigued by who this woman was. We asked her where she came from and she said she had come for a visit in November and just stayed! After comparing her with my photo of the woman who married a bedouin, I concluded that she was different. But we saw her later at the campsite. Meanwhile, the jeeps arrived and we struck out, Justine and I with the three Cairene teachers and the five Japanese friends on their own. We picked a car with major engine issues--it was overheating constantly and I'm sure other things were wrong. It would never ignite when we tried to start it up again after every stop. The boy driving kept pouring water inside the hood.
Somehow we did make it around to various stops. There was Lawrence's Springs, a spot where T.E.Lawrence might have watered his camels. There was a canyon where we saw inscriptions of all kinds of things, petroglyphs of camel herds.There was a stop for running up and down a sand dune and one for resting and eating lunch/drinking tea heated on a small brush fire in the middle of nowhere. There was also Lawrence's house (supposed) and more Nabataean inscriptions. At the lunch dining spot Justine and I hiked off in search of a crevasse some place to use the bathroom in and we finally found a tiny sliver of a cave with barely room for a person. We took turns guarding for the other but I had a horrible time trying to situate myself in that rock. Experience of a lifetime! I also appear to have lost 17 JD (20$) from my pants' pocket as a result of that endeavor, a fact which saddened me greatly. Money is tight as a volunteer. After that we went and hung out with the two 'guides' whose guiding technique was stopping the car, leaning out the driver's window and saying "go look over there." They were pretty sweet boys and they liked our attempts at Arabic with them. We had "Bedouin Whiskey", or tea, with them and we continued on to our campsite.
We arrived all of the sudden, as a few tents emerged in the barren desert and it seemed seriously, like a mirage. I had to adjust to my normal land-legs and we were shown to our spots by the drivers. While the 8 were put together in a huge open 'dorm' tent, Justine and I were invited to share a partitioned space by ourselves. Justine said, wow, we must have some 'wasta'! Wasta is a word that I didn't know or use before this trip but it is a concept that I have learned much about through observing society here. It's a derivation of 'middleman' literally but figuratively means knowing the right people, having influence and pull. So it seems that we curried favor by using our Arabic and being beautiful and thus were able to get more private quarters. Sweet!
The wind really picked up as the afternoon waned and we became chilled to the bone after the sun went down. I missed the sun setting by accident. Eventually we started to wonder where our dinner was going to be, as there didn't seem to be an obvious meeting place. Justine and I ventured out and straight away discovered the group tent with a fire going in the middle. The Japanese tourists were already there. We were offered more tea. I had a few cups, even knowing I'd have to walk a ways to the toilets. There was one with a seat there, but it still took manual flushing. We waited and chatted and waited. The Cairo teachers arrived complaining about the lateness of the food. We waited. Around 7 it seemed that things were about ready. The woman from before showed up again! I saw her preparing some of the food or helping with it, and I saw her cleaning the bathrooms. She appeared not to know much Arabic and I didn't see her with any potential husbands so it's still a mystery to me.
With a flourish, the Bedouin guys lifted something like a metal rack of chicken, potatoes, and whole onions out of an underground oven pit thing where they had been roasting, and brought it into the tent. Chicken, vegetables, rice and pita were the menu, ordinary but tasty, especially after a long day in the desert. We ate while being entertained by a cute oud player. After we finished, I made Justine move closer to the guy so we could hear him better. At some point, the guy realized that we could understand some/much of his songs ('habibi music'--romantic ballads) and it seemed he got a little embarrassed. I guess he's used to showing off and singing whatever to the crazy foreigners. But then, he got his gumption back and began to sing about us! He asked us in Arabic what we were doing here and then started incorporating these things into the melody. Yaa, hilwaat, min Irbid wa Beit Lahem, like this. I was giggling like crazy and between the two of us we just went into hysterics over being serenaded by a Bedouin. He complemented Justine's Arabic and seemed impressed she'd been here only 4 months (I'm impressed too!). He said, "I think after a year you will speak just like us" (or something to that effect). I took this to mean he wanted to marry her :)
Later on in the evening, the head honcho invited us out to "a cave". Not knowing what this was about, we decided to check it out, with others of course. A short walk through the deep, deep sand under brilliant stars and an incandescent moon took us to an orange glowing cave, more a deep indentation than a cave really, where a bonfire was roaring. It felt to us like a very Christmasy scene...the sand looked and felt like snow and the cave was reminiscent of nativity creche scenes on Christmas cards. I found myself humming "Good King Wenceslas" as I walked. There we rested around a warm fire and chatted about various things. It was a little disappointing not to have marshmallows. After offering Arak, a regional alcoholic beverage, Zidane informed us that really "the bar was closed" (the bar was never open!) and that we had tea. Somehow though, maybe on your 50th cup of tea in the day, it starts to have an inebriating effect.
After that it was off to bed, a cot with a heavy blanket. I slept with all my clothes still on and couldn't see a thing in the tent. I woke up with a very cold nose! After a lackluster breakfast of leftover bread and jam, we packed up and headed back to Rum village. The second jeep was having more problems with its wheel, and in the end the folks in that car were stranded for a while until we could be dropped off and the other jeep taken back to get them.
Shuu ya9ni 'screwed'?
Ya9ni, or yaanni, is a frequent expression in Arabic, used the way we use 'like' or more, 'I mean...". In the company of Justine I was using Ya9ni quite often in my speech--my English. "Shuu yaanni..." would be a way to say "How do you say..." We were waiting with great anxiety for the bus to retrieve us from Wadi Rum and drive us back to Petra--hoping that the angry guy didn't get arrested the day before. He had insisted that we pay him 13 JD before he left us the morning before in order to assure us of a ride back to Amman the same day. We didn't have any idea whether there would be a bus after 7 am in Petra going to Amman (the usual time of day for this single trip) so we had no choice but to trust this creepy guy to get us back to Petra and then Amman. At 5 JD for the trip to Petra, it meant we were paying 8 JD to get back to Amman--5 more than the way down! I said to Justine, "Shuu ya9ni screwed???" I was so angry at that guy for being a slimy crook--but what can you do? In the end I was so relieved to see him that next morning because it meant that at least my 13 JD hadn't gone the way of the cop.
So, we had a ride back to Amman! I was pleased. I started working on knitting my Jordan scarf. The angry guy noticed and was extremely impressed by this. He started demanding to buy it from me and asked how much it was. I said it wouldn't be finished. He said, but I want it for my girlfriend. He offered 2 JD for the whole thing! How rude! The yarn alone cost like 8 JD! I told him I wanted at least 30 JD for it (to cover the lost 17 plus the rip-off 13 for the bus) but he wasn't going for it. Instead, he CALLED his girlfriend on his cellphone and handed it to me! I stumbled through some Arabic, eventually saying "Huwwe majnoon" He is crazy! and giving it back to him. Justine was surprised that he actually would openly have a girlfriend since it's not really appropriate for the culture. But it's still a mystery as to who I was talking to. But the knitting exchange appeared to really loosen him up and make him a more pleasant person for the rest of the trip. I'm chalking that up to 'wasta' too. (I should note that technically speaking we are far too liberal with the term which really refers more to nepotistic behavior)
When we arrived back in Petra, we were dropped off at the bus station and it seemed that there were a reasonably large number of minibuses around at 11 am--convincing me that we would have been fine on our own finding a bus. But there was no way of knowing. Our guy handed some money to the driver (probably 5 JD or less out of the 8) and we found a seat inside. And waited and waited for it to fill up. We were the only foreigners on the bus but there were some women. I didn't bring out my knitting.
Eventually we made it back to Maryanne's house in Amman.
Wrapping Up
Thursday we mainly vegetated and caught up on showers and sleep after our Bedouin experience. I'm still getting sand out of my shoes! Friday we had a big breakfast of eggs and pancakes and went to see if the Bylers needed any help with their Christmas party. Then we went back to Maryanne's, where we met Hinke, a Canadian Mennonite representative who has been in Nazareth and who soon plans to relocate to Amman to study Arabic. She was also staying at Maryanne's. I bought some cheddar cheese to bring home with me. Justine and I went to visit a HUGE market in the area which on Fridays opens to sell used clothes and shoes, etc. So many clothes. It was like a giant Goodwill. Actually...I found a tag on something that said it was from Goodwill! It seemed to be mostly western brands and styles so I figured that they were some relief clothing shipments that were being resold so people could get what they really wanted, money--not ratty American handmedowns. But Justine managed to find a few good things and I was very impressed. I wished we had one in Bethlehem.
Then we went back to help with MCC Jordan's Christmas party being held at Daryl and Cindy's house. I "helped" by going with Daryl to the Safeway for some cranberry juice. Wow--Safeway! It's like a department store! This is where I found my Christmas treat, Diet Dr Pepper, imported, and delicious. When we got back, preparations were almost complete, except for setting the table. The guests soon started arriving: Maryanne, Hinke, Nada, Suzi, Rick and Steve. We had a delicious dinner of smoked turkey (tastes like ham), saffron rice, salad, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows, and cheesecake . Next came the sad and funny stories of Christmases past--including Justine's tragic tale from one Christmas when every child in her community was supposed to have a giant cookie hanging with their name on it in the common room. Except she didn't see one for her that year. The other kids ate happily and it was days later that they found the broken bits of her cookie fallen to a back corner of the stage. It was truly a distressing story and for the rest of the night we tried to make it up to her, letting her go first on desserts, etc. There were carols and then a funny game of pictionary charades where I wrote about a sheep being slaughtered for Eid-il-Adha which turned into a slimy slug.
Back at Maryanne's that evening, a group of shibab from the street got into a scuffle with shouting and fighting involved. We were not too interested, until Maryanne noticed from her balcony that they were messing with her (MCC's) car and had taken off the license plate to toss around. She shouted out from her window: Hey stop! That's mine! Leave it alone! The sheepish guys tried to return it but couldn't put it back on. They left it on her windshield. Maryanne went down to retrieve it before it disappeared again and the shibab said, "So sorry miss!" We awoke early in the morning on Saturday and I went with Justine to the bus station: She headed to school and I headed to the border. It went swimmingly, all to plan. I met some interesting folks on that journey--a huge group that I thought looked like beach bums lost in Jordan, which turned out to be a group of surfers based in Hawaii called "Surfing the Nations" an evangelical group that brings the joy of surfing around the world. They were touring Jordan/Jerusalem between events in Egypt and Tel Aviv. Also, I wound up on a 10 person taxi trip to Jerusalem with 9 folks who had just completed their hajj pilgrimage to Mecca who had so much baggage we barely fit beside it.
When I completed the 6 hour trek of buses and waits and more buses back to Bethlehem, I arrived to the horrendously loud sounds of construction and a lack of water in the house. But that's another story!
Here are some photos I have up:
Wadi Rum
