My final project in Arabic. This is probably more impressive than it appears here.

ليل لطيف يتنفس حولي
أنملات نديّة تعمل رعشات على جيدي
وحضرتك خلفي
ترفعين شعر ذراعي
آذاني يتحمرّون ويسخنون...
لو أستطيع أن أدور لأنظر
أرى عيونك يبأرون إلى الغرب
نخيلك يلمس السماء...
لكن أيد خفيّة يمسكون برأسي بضيق
فلا أستطيع أن أرى وراء نحيط دائرتي...
أعرف أنّك أنت
لأنّ الهواء يحمل طيفك على ظهري
لأنّ القمر الفضّىّ ينير بشرتك
وأرى التوهّج على عقابيّ
لأنّ سكوتك يقطعني...
هل أنت طيف؟
هل أتمسّك بذاكرتي؟
لكن حضرتك ملموسة
كلماتك ترنّ أذنيّ
وأسمع خطواتك المتراجعة

A soft night breathes around me
cool fingertips of wind leave chills down my neck
and your presence behind me
stands my arm hairs on end
and turns my ears red and hot...
if I could turn to look
I would see your eyes focused on the west
palms facing the sky...
but invisible hands hold my head straight
so I cannot see beyond my periphery...
I know it is you
because the wind carries your shape into my back
because the silver moon illuminates your skin
and I see the glow on my heels
because your silence cuts through me...
Are you a ghost?
Am I clinging to a memory?
But your presence is palpable
your words ring in my ears
and I hear your retreating footsteps.

Tonight Alix invited us all to a classical music performance that she heard about through her host mom. Over the phone she told me that it was a performance of Spanish and Arabic classical music and started at 19:00. My friend Austin and I walked over to the concert hall (located inside a bank, go figure), arriving at about 18:55. Most of the seats were still empty, but some of the SIT crew were there so we sat down next to them. By 19:15 there was a steady stream of people coming in, but they didn’t close the doors and dim the lights until nearly 19:45. The performance, it turned out, was a student recital by students from the music department at the University of Jordan. Alix found out about it because her host mom knew she spoke some Spanish and asked her to greet people before the music started, but Alix asked Jen (who’s Mexican) to do it instead, so to start the evening there was a welcoming speech in English, then one in Arabic, and then Jen’s in Spanish. I think one of the Jordanian princesses was there as well because the English speech mentioned her and the guy speaking kept looking at a woman in the front row when he did.

The performance was broken into three sections. The first was standard Western European classical composers (Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, and Chopin). The second section was pieces from three Spanish composers. After the intermission there were four pieces by Arabic composers. The audience was somewhat inattentive through the first section; whispers and hushed conversations rumbled behind and around me, papers were shuffled and doors opened and closed. Granted, the musicians, students as they are, made mistakes and sometimes were not very engaging in their playing. Nonetheless, when the Spanish section began the noise from the audience fell to a hush. Although there was less background noise during this part, there also wasn’t much energy from the audience. It wasn’t until after the intermission when the Arabic section began that the audience’s attention and energy were fully invested in the music. The last piece, involving a choir, oud (lute), drum, and violin was by far the most popular and received a standing ovation.

Although it was a free event (unlike Amman’s elite clubs and cafés), there was still an air of elitism, much like at most classical music performances in the States, although that could just be my own cultural experience projected onto this one. However, the fact that it was held inside of a bank in Shmeisani (a well-to-do neighborhood) added to that atmosphere. I wondered about the lateness of the concert, seeing as it started 45 minutes after it was scheduled to, but I haven’t been to enough programmed events to know whether or not it’s common for them to start so late. My friend Austin, who has been here for seven months now, made a crack about Arabs and their lack of punctuality, so I’m assuming that it’s at least not out of the ordinary.

During the performance, I thought back to things I learned in my ethnomusicology class last semester. We had talked about differences in time signatures in music from around the world, and how ears that are accustomed to one set of rhythmic norms often have a hard time appreciating others. Where 4/4 and related time signatures are the most common in the US, Arabs are used to hearing far more complex rhythms and may be bored with simpler ones, which would explain the audience’s unrest during the first section of the recital. The Spanish section, however, was notably closer to Arab rhythms due to the influence from the Moors in the 14th and 15th centuries (I think). This would again explain why there was more interest in this section than the first.

I was pleased to go to my first programmed live music performance (aside from musicians playing in restaurants that we go to) in Jordan, and especially pleased that it was classical music, which I love going to in the States. I don’t know what Jordanians would say about people who go to performances like this, but it’s interesting to note that back home someone who goes to classical music performances is considered “cultured.” It seems like there is a similar attitude here, although going from just this one experience it’s hard to know whether or not the division of the audience would fall along the same socio-economic lines as in the States. I would be curious to find out about the students as well, and if there’s a difference between those who play more traditionally Western instruments (piano) versus Arab instruments like the oud.

Wadi Rum has climbed to the top of my list of favorite places in the Middle East.





If SIT students formed a band, the band shots might be just this awkward.

Today we left the hotel relatively early to get to Petra before the majority of the tourists arrived. I don't know how successful we were, as there were plenty of tourists there from around the globe by the time we arrived at the entrance gate. It was a beautiful place, partly because of the city carved into the rocks, but largely because the rocks themselves are so impressive. The colors swirl through the sandstone in ways that confound my poor understanding of geology.



We got to see the building that makes an appearance in Indiana Jones (just the facade; what's inside in the movie doesn't exist there). It's called the Treasury because at some point people thought that there was treasure hidden inside of it, although I believe it was just tombs for some of the Nabatean kings. When you climb the stairs and go under the columns to the front entrance, you can look in and see that there is just one central room with small rooms (possibly tombs) off to the sides. The colors inside look like the images I've seen of Jupiter, brilliant oranges, reds and yellows.



It's amazing to think that people occupied these rooms more than 10,000 years ago.

We left Petra in the early afternoon to drive to Wadi Rum, part of the southern desert. Upon arrival, it was easy to understand why people say you can't leave Jordan without seeing Wadi Rum. The desert is covered in soft orange and red sand, the land more or less flat but with massive rock mountains thrusting out of the sand, towering over the rest of the landscape. The sandstone is not the sturdiest type of rock to climb, but the shapes lend themselves very well to scrambling to the top of otherwise daunting plateaus. One of our guides said that this land was at the bottom of the ocean 10 million years ago. Maybe 100 million (Thor and I heard different numbers). Nonetheless, it was strange to look around me and think that the land I was standing on was once the ocean floor.

Dana is a small town of perhaps 60 people that sits on the edge of a cliff overlooking what is now the Dana Nature Reserve, a 320 km2 piece of land established in 1989. Before the land was sanctioned off as a reserve, it was home to several Bedouin tribes who used the land largely for grazing their sheep. Since 1989, however, most of the Bedouin have moved to nearby towns to look for work (often at the cement factory), and a few have remained in the town of Dana and work with the tourist industry or whatever else they might be able to do.

We emerged this morning from our small hotel rooms to the morning fog in Dana, a blanket so thick we could barely see past the walls of the hotel’s atrium. After we had eaten breakfast and the fog had had a chance to clear, we started off on our hike to the nature reserve. Our guide, a man from Dana and a worker at the hotel co-op in which we stayed, led us through the village and down a trail around the top of the ravine. As we walked, he told us about how the creation of the nature reserve has affected the lives of the people living there. He said that life in the Dana area used to be self-sufficient – or close to it – as it was based on animal husbandry. Many forces have impacted the viability of that lifestyle in Jordan, but Dana in particular was intentionally and forcibly changed; it is now punishable by a fine, he said, to graze animals in the reserve. Many Dana women now work for the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN), who run the reserve. We visited a shop in the visitor’s center where some women from the village were making jewelry and other small items out of silver to sell to tourists. Our guide said that many of the people (especially women) who are employed by RSCN in Dana are under the poverty line. The government, he said, gave the Dana Bedouin one-time monetary compensation for relocation, but they have not put enough attention or money into helping the people that they displaced by the creation of the nature reserve.

Hearing the story of someone whose family’s lives were negatively impacted by governmental efforts to protect nature made me think about how the same thing must be true in the US. Although settlers drove Native people in the States from place to place, the undeveloped land must have remained home to many before it was turned into state or national parks. I don’t know anything about how the government has addressed that issue or if it ever was an issue, but I can’t imagine that the US government dealt with it any better than the Jordanian government has dealt with the problem here. Our guide also painted a biased picture; he didn’t say much about increased education opportunities, especially for women, or better access to health care (which may or may not be true anyway).

I feel a bit more torn now about unquestionably supporting nature reserves and parks. It’s apparent that there’s no simple answer; on one hand I believe and will always believe that it’s important for people to create as many ways as possible for nature to persevere in the face of human development, yet as always the low-impact people are screwed over while the high-impact people are able to continue their destruction.

Our guide brought us back to the village (where we got a tour of the visitor’s center), and after lunch we headed back onto the bus for the drive to Wadi Musa, the town next to Petra. We visited a lesser-known site called Siq al Berid (also known as “Little Petra”), which was where the Nabateans originally started to build their city before settling on the site at which Petra is now located. This site was almost empty and we were able to climb all around what must have once been a fairly busy town. Inside one of the rooms was an alcove, the ceiling of which was covered with a highly damaged and barely visible fresco from Nabatean times (pre-Islamic, so probably 5th century or so). There were staircases carved into rock faces on both sides of the rift, some leading to rooms on higher levels, some leading nowhere.





At the far end of the rift was a staircase, broken in several places and partially blocked by a large boulder. We scrambled up the stairs and emerged on a large ledge overlooking a part-desert part-alien landscape.


And then suddenly we were in Star Wars.

This evening, Thor, Nic and I went to check out a coffee shop called Zaqaq not far from my house. When we got there, we asked the waiters if there was a table next to an outlet (something that I still, no matter how many times I need to ask for one, can’t remember the Arabic word for) and in the process of trying to communicate what we were looking for we ended up with three or four waiters around us, welcoming us while insisting that there was indeed an outlet and fervently ushering us towards the next room where we were seated at a little round table next to an outlet. For 19:00 on a Sunday it was fairly crowded; nearly all of the tables were occupied by men smoking argeelah, some playing chess or backgammon, others watching the football game on the TV at the far end of the room, others just talking over their coffee and argeelah. Unlike the crowd at the Arab League Café, the men at this place looked to be mostly in their mid- to late-30s or maybe a little older, but dressed in typical Amman city clothes (generally stylish jeans; dark-colored, unpretentious lightweight sweater; maybe a light leather jacket; and a short, tidy haircut) as opposed to the Bedu galabiyehs and kafiyehs. The waiters who had showed us to the table remained standing in the open space next to our table while one of them bustled over with menus, and they stayed there clustered around watching us as we looked over the menu. Zaqaq, the menu insisted, was a mixture of ancient and modern. I wasn’t quite sure which aspects were ancient and which modern; perhaps the wood décor and unspoken gender-segregated seating belonged in the ancient category. The free wireless was definitely one of the modern aspects, and Nic and I took full advantage of it, setting our PowerBooks on the table and connecting to the network. Thor doesn’t have wireless, but he also brought out his Mac laptop, making our little table even more of a spectacle for the on-looking wait staff. My computer screen faced the window, but Thor’s and Nic’s screens both faced the rest of the café, making them easy viewing material for anyone who was interested, and the wait staff was clearly interested. A couple of them leaned over and asked us where we were from, welcomed us, asked something about our computers, and welcomed us again. After a while, I was absorbed in my email, Nic and Thor were absorbed in a debate over the name of a cartoon from the ‘80s, and looking up I saw that two waiters standing behind Nic’s chair were absorbed in whatever he was doing on his computer. When they saw me looking at them they looked back for a moment and then went back to staring at the screen

There is undeniably a difference between concepts of privacy and personal space in Jordan and in the States. If this had been a café in the States, the waiters would mostly likely have employed a level of stealth in looking at the screen – clearly still curious about what was happening on the screen but not wanting to appear interested. The blatant, tactless staring at someone’s personal affairs is something that I hadn’t really encountered to the same degree before I came here. I imagine this comes from the tribal/communal culture, where one person’s business really is the business of a number of other people, as compared to the individualistic, everyone-for-themselves culture of the US.

At first I was a little irritated with the waiters and wished they would have more respect for us and our privacy, but the more I thought about it, the sillier it seemed. We were sitting in a public place, so if we were doing anything that really required privacy it was our own fault for doing that in the café. I don’t know if Thor or Nic noticed them looking over their shoulders, but neither of them seemed to care either. I suppose as long as I understand this I can be more intentional with my actions and not get upset when someone is reading what I write over my shoulder.

If you ask young Jordanians how they like Jordan, many of them will say that it’s boring and there’s nothing to do. Mondays and Thursdays are the big days to go out (as the weekend is on Friday and Saturday), and it seems like the three main destinations are: Mecca Mall (a Massive, disgusting blend of modern, expensive consumerism and the relatively conservative Jordanians who go there; pubs/bars/cafés; and night clubs. Today we decided to check out a club/restaurant/café called Kanibaya. Alix had called ahead to make sure that we didn’t need reservations, so at 20:30 or so we all met up there. A crew of us had gone inside just before Thor and I arrived so we stepped into the front door to pay the 5JD cover charge. The entranceway was packed with 20-somethings at the height of Jordanian fashion (basically just European-style): the guys were in their stylish, tight jeans and dark, chic shirts, the women dressed similarly but with lots of make-up, and not one of them wearing the hijab. The receptionist/bouncer asked us how many people we had with us and while trying to explain we saw Jen and the others standing just past the entranceway, so motioned for them to come talk to us. They said there was nowhere to sit and nowhere to stand, so they got their cover charges back and we left for the Irish Pub, our normal hangout where there are no reservations, no guest lists, and no covers.

A few weeks ago, we went to an event at a place called Oliver’s where we had to have our names placed on a guest list (by Rana, who knows people), and then again pay the 5JD cover. From what I hear, this is standard for any of the popular hangout spots in Amman. Popular or fashionable here seems to mean Western; this is the face of modernity in Jordan. Apparently, most of the crowd that was at Oliver’s knows one another and they all end up going to the same hangout spots weekend after weekend. I imagine this consistency is a product of the tribal society. However, these places are also the trendy spots in the most expensive neighborhoods, so it could also be the limited crowd of people who are attracted to and can afford to frequent such chichi establishments. The cover charges and guest lists are probably intentional as a way of maintaining this selective group.

Maybe I just don’t go out enough in the States, but I’m fairly appalled at the exclusivity of the Amman nightlife. I don’t know if this is something I would typically find in the US except at the most expensive and elite places, but it doesn’t seem like it. It seems to be more of the odd cultural amalgamation so present here: Western/modern on the surface, but very Arab underneath. Personally, I’m far more comfortable at a place like the Irish Pub where although we have wasta (connections/benefits, thanks to Rana), anyone can theoretically get in.



Jen and I at the Irish Pub on St. Patrick's Day. Note the green beer.

People in Jordan, as a whole, like to talk. Whether in Arabic or English, the majority of Arabs that I meet are enthusiastic about filling the time with as much conversation as possible, as trivial as it might be. Generally these conversations are with taxi drivers, and the topic almost always touches on one or all of the following: why I’m here, how long I’m here for, who I’m here with, how I like Jordan, what I think about America, whether or not I like Bush, how I like Jordanian people, how I like Arabic, and whether or not I’m married. When I was staying with the Bedus I encountered the same thing, but to a more intense degree. Questions from friends of friends of my Bedouin family would push beyond “are you married?” to “why are you not married?” and on one occasion a poorly communicated, joking (I hope) “do you want to sleep with this guy sitting over here?” From what some of the girls in my group have said, they get the same kind of personal questions (save the last one) from taxi drivers and other men, although for them I think it’s more uncomfortable because of the power dynamic.

There does not seem to be the same taboo on asking personal questions here as there is in the States. A cab driver in the US would likely at most ask where I was from, but even that only if I seem like a foreigner. I think it’s related to all the other different understandings of personal space. I doubt people here would even consider these questions “personal questions,” or if there even is the concept of a personal question.

At first, I was shy about these questions and would never ask any back. My first instinct is that they are invasive and people like taxi drivers have no right to ask them. I suppose by my American standards, they don’t, but standards are different here and I think I’ve come to accept that. I’m now at a place where I feel more comfortable playing the game, asking questions back and laughing off any questions that overstep the line, because I think there comes a point where both my cultural standards and cultural standards here agree on the inappropriateness of questions.

We left Damascus this morning to drive up to Aleppo, a five-hour drive to the north, just 50 km from the Turkish border. On the way, we stopped to see the Crac des chevaliers (Fortress of the knights), an impressive fortress on top of a hill with a far-reaching view of the surrounding countryside. It was built by the Crusaders and served as their last holdout against Arab forces. When it was taken, the Christians inside had enough food and water to last five years, but the Arabs laid such a siege on it that they surrendered after only one month.









We arrived at the hotel in the late afternoon and had a couple hours to rest before going to our “relaxing surprise.” The surprise was a visit to the “best Turkish bath in Syria.” Even as we stepped through the front door into the entry hallway, the smell of steam and something just a little sweeter than soap wafted over us. I felt the air get damper and warmer as we walked through the winding hallway and emerged in the main lounge room. The room was shaped roughly like an X with a fountain in the center, and chest-high elevated floors lining the walls. On the elevated floors were couches where we were directed to sit, men in one section, women occupying another two. Tossing plaid cloths to us, the bath workers told the guys to change in the convenient closet next to our couches (which were blocked off by a translucent – at best – curtain). After we had changed, wearing nothing more than the small cloths we were ushered into the first steamy room, through a few other rooms and finally into a small room that was the hottest and steamiest of all. We sat there getting sweaty and hot and I felt the steam seep into my muscles and coax out the stored up tension. After several minutes a man came in and motioned for me to follow him out. I picked up the soap and scrubby thing they had given me and followed him to an alcove in the first room that we had passed through. He told me to sit on the floor next to the fountain and then he began to scrub me, first with something that felt like rough sandpaper, then with the softer scrubby thing. He began with my arms, then the fronts and backs of my legs (going uncomfortably far up towards my waist), my chest, my back, and finally my head. If he noticed anything abnormal, he made no indication of it. After he had poured a good deal of water on me to rinse off the soap, he motioned for me to follow him back to the steam room. Jason and I sat there for a bit while Thor and Nic were each scrubbed down, then Jason went off as well. Shortly afterwards, one of the men told us that it was time for the women’s turn, and we trooped out. A pile of dry towels sat on a chair next to a small room by the exit to the lounge room, and as I started to change from my dripping cloth, the man who had scrubbed me hustled into the room to help me into the dry towel. Heading back into the lounge room, we were draped with more towels and sat down on the couches to talk and relax while the women were in the bath.

Although the bath was next to empty besides us that night, I know that at other times it is filled with men and women. Like the mosque, but in a different way, this is a social gathering spot, where people can come, relax, share gossip, talk politics, and generally mingle (in an appropriately gender-segregated manner, of course). I think that coming from a culture that is more open, physically, between members of the same sex might make the experience of a public bath less intimidating and uncomfortable. Also not being trans would make it more comfortable. In the US there is no history of anything like a Turkish bath – except for sweat lodges in Native tradition, which did not carry over to mainstream Euro-American culture – and locker rooms are generally the only socially acceptable place to see someone else of the same sex nude. I also realized after we had left the bath that the scrubber men made no move to help any of the other guys into their dry towels, so now I wonder if perhaps the one guy had been curious after giving me my scrub-down and decided that he’d be especially helpful in an effort to confirm suspicions. I don’t know.

If it had not been for my fear of what would happen if I was “found out” I would have been considerably more relaxed in this experience. I think I’m lucky that I encountered no problems, but I’m also reassured by the fact that Jason, Nic and Thor were near by in case there were any. This is something I had wanted to try for a while and I’m glad that I was able to, although I don’t know when or if I will go again. I like the idea of a place like this, like an enlarged sauna, that also serves as a place where people can get together and take it easy, even if it’s somewhat awkward to have someone else scrub you. It would be interesting to see what the reaction to a Turkish bath would be in the US if someone decided to build one there. I have the feeling that there’s some sort of cultural disconnect that would make it unappealing to most Americans, at least in a context where it’s not an exotic treat in some far off country.

If yesterday was a Christian-themed day, today was the museum-themed day. We first visited the National Museum, which is a renovated ancient palace, and houses, among other things, the oldest known complete alphabet, from the early Bronze Age (~1800 BC). Along with that, there are clay tablets from around the same period, with military letters to the king, judiciary statements and other pragmatic documents. There were also books, handwritten in Arabic, from more than 500 years ago. Lots of beautiful and very old things.

The second museum we went to was the military museum, a stark contrast to the beauty of the national museum. Many of the rooms were lined with display cases, in which piles and piles of swords, guns, and other weapons were laid. One room displayed weapons and photos from the 1967 (?) war with Israel over the Golan Heights. There was a sign in French attached to a bomb, which stated that the US had provided these bombs and weapons for the Israelis to fight against the Arabs; this reaffirmed in my mind why are saying that we’re from Canada. Attached to the courtyard of the museum was a mosque; as I stood looking at innumerable weapons that had killed unknowable numbers of people, the call to prayer rang out next to me.

We walked through the Souq (market) al-Hamadiya to get to the next museum, which was also a renovated palace. This one displayed more cultural and social items, with separate rooms for textiles, costumes, rooms and their furniture, etc. We didn’t spend as long at this museum, leaving to eat lunch after perhaps only half an hour.



After lunch, we walked over to the Umayyad mosque. Built in 1007 (I think), this mosque as been the architectural inspiration for most mosques built since then. It’s a stunning building, and is the resting place of John the Baptist’s head. Even more so than the Christian sites we saw yesterday, this is a destination of religious pilgrimage. The women in our group all had to step into the “putting_on special clothes room” to don an Obi Wan Kanobe-like robe. We proceeded into the courtyard after taking off our shoes and were greeted by the sight of running, laughing children. People were strewn about the open space, lounging against walls, sitting in the middle of the floor, or walking from one of the rooms off the courtyard to another. Intricate and colorful mosaics decorated some of the walls. We stood around in the courtyard for a few minutes to admire the building, then we headed off inside.



The main part of the mosque where people worship was one immense room, interspersed by columns and arches. Stained glass windows looked down onto the gathered people, and intricate geometrical patterns on the woodwork covered most of the visible walls and bases of the columns. Like the outside courtyard, people lounged on the floor by the columns, clustered against the walls, or walked softly through the room. And also like outside, children ran back and forth fighting with each other or playing games of some sort. Their parents made no move to quiet them down or make them sit.

Some of us decided to sit and rest in the room while others of us wandered off to see other things. After we had been sitting for perhaps ten minutes, a man came over and told Fatima to tug down her hood; part of her hair was showing. Five or so minutes later, another man came over and told Fatima and Willow that they had to leave. Jason and I apparently were not a problem but we didn’t want to stay without them so we also got up and left. As we were leaving, the first man approached Jason and I and, welcoming us, invited us to come in and pray. We declined and found the rest of the group sitting out in the courtyard and joined them. My piercings (I’m assuming) were the source of much entertainment to some of the kids running around near us; one of them saw me and giggled, then pointed to me and whispered something to the kid standing next to him. A few minutes later, they were back with a few other kids who circled us a few times, saying hello to us in Arabic. They were also highly entertained when we said hi back in Arabic.

While a mosque serves some of the purposes to Muslims as a church does to Christians, my experience in the mosque today convinced me that it also plays a more important role than churches typically do. It’s partly a place of worship, but it’s also a gathering place for the community. The kids build connections with other kids there, while the parents are free to socialize with people who they might not otherwise get to see on a regular basis. Because Muslims are supposed to pray five times a day, there is probably almost always someone around in any give mosque, but especially one as large and important as the Umayyad mosque. However, while the behavior of the children doesn’t seem to be monitored very closely, that of the women is. The two men who approached our small group may or may not have been part of some security for the mosque, or they could have just been two men who took it upon themselves to enforce their interpretations of what is right and wrong behavior for women in the mosque. Then to turn around and have a completely different attitude towards men goes against at least one part of the Koran where it states that men and women are equal.

I enjoyed seeing the kids having a good time in the mosque because I always associate churches with stifling environments where kids are always told to be quiet, to sit still, to be respectful, and definitely no fighting. It’s a good tactical way to keep kids interested in the religion as well; if they associate going to the mosque with hanging out with friends and having fun, they’re going to want to keep going there. Even inside the mosque where people were praying, children were allowed to run around and be noisy. It’s a very different approach to religion. At the same time, I was struck by how women were treated in the mosque. It left me frustrated and sad that I was benefiting from the social system that was so unfair to them.



After the mosque, we had free time to wander the souq and walk around before going out to dinner. We ate at a restaurant with live music and a whirling darwish (dervish) dancer.

My feet so few years advanced walk down paths of stone older than my country older than my parents’ religion. The buildings press against my shoulders taxi to my side and the remnants of the old souqs leaning into my path. Not so far from a blissful moment torn between history and now these curving alleys do lead to new places and it’s a breath away from a little blurred past and time is no simple matter triumphing armies marched through these streets and will march again humans are not so advanced as they would like to believe. A tour bus filled with foreigners and the cameras come out click click click.

I lift my voice to a world worth believing in. I stare this anticipation in the face and find myself one more block away from a message of propriety. A crack in the mountain leads the way to a message worth believing in and a religion only carries me so far but for some it carries the whole way and beyond.



Our first full day in Syria covered a few of the important Christian sites. The bus first took us to the Virgin Mary Church, a complex on top of a hill overlooking a small town. One series of rooms, which to enter one had to remove their shoes, was filled with portraits of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus and metal decorative hands to protect someone. The first two of the rooms were light with only a few paintings on each wall, but the last (ducking through a low stone doorway to enter) was windowless, illuminated only by candlelight, and the walls were covered with the paintings and hands. It had a strange, cult-like feel to it, but such is religion.



Climbing back into the bus, we headed off for Ma’aloula, one of the last Aramaic-speaking towns in the world, a town that our guide told us is 95% Christian. He told us a story about an early Christian who sought refuge from persecutors (possibly Romans?) by running up into the hills, where she found a crack that led through the mountain.



Following that crack, she emerged in a safe hold, where she lived for the rest of her life until she died at some old age. That safe hold is where the town of Ma’aloula is now, and there is a shrine and spring for the woman, Saint Taqla. The water from the spring is said to have healing powers. Near the spring we saw a blind man from Iraq walking with his wife; he had made the pilgrimage in the hopes that the water could cure his blindness.



We visited a church while in Ma’aloula, the original foundation of which was built over 1600 years ago, when the prominent religion still used animal sacrifice. It was altered by Christians (the stone table that once was used for animal sacrifice is now a shrine), and over the years was destroyed and rebuilt. While in the church, a local woman said the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic for us. Aramaic is closely related to both Arabic and Hebrew. I could understand a few of the words she said.

While standing outside of the shrine to Saint Taqla, I heard the call to prayer from the one mosque echo off the mountainside. Shortly afterward, church bells rang out in a cacophonous clatter. The majority becomes the minority within this small Christian town.

We returned to Damascus to see the Christian quarter of the city. The final church (St. Ananias Chapel) we visited was underground, which I imagine was to escape persecution from whoever occupied the city at the time. Probably the Romans. We had some time to wander the narrow, labyrinth-like streets and do some shopping before going to dinner at Bait Jabri, a restaurant that has been there since 1737.

This is a volatile region, sure, but why? Because the earliest human life started here and in Northern Africa. Because humans have had thousands upon thousands of years here to develop religions, territorial claims, and tribal conflicts. Because this is the crossroads between three vast continents and countless armies have passed through these streets, persecuting, converting, assimilating. The evidence of these changes remains, however, and we saw evidence of that today in the Christian sites that we visited. Their existence alone is that evidence, but also the visible changes to those sites: the old church in Ma’aloula, with its elements from the Romans, Byzantines, and others; the Damascene church, hidden away underground; the mosque in Ma’aloula, and the holdout of the last Aramaic speakers. The history runs deeper than I can imagine.

In a region so dominated by Islam, it was moving to see some of the origins of the religion I grew up with and to see that it is still very much alive here, if in smaller numbers. It’s a different kind of Christianity than what I know, partly because Catholicism predominates and partly because the religion here is more in touch, literally and figuratively, with its roots. To see the pilgrim from Iraq, in search of healing from the spring of a saint of his God; that level of belief and hope is powerful.

Today we visited the northern part of Jordan. At Um Qais, we stood on a hillside, looking down into the Jordan River valley and across at the Golan Heights. To the left of the Heights (one big series of hills) was the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberius). In the distance to the left we could see mountains in Lebanon, and in the distance to the right, mountains in Syria. Israel, of course, has occupied the land past the Jordan, including all of the Golan Heights.

At Ajloun there is a large castle built by Arabs during the time of the Crusaders.

Jerash is where the ancient roads from Jerusalem, Syria and Lebanon (I think that’s right) met, where the Romans built a city, the remains of which are still being uncovered. These images are all from Jerash.

We had to meet in front of the Lebanese embassy this morning at 8:45 to get on the bus for our debrief session at the Dead Sea. Our first stop was Jesus’ baptism site, recently discovered to be on the East Bank in Jordan, not far north of the Dead Sea. Since the discovery in 1996, the site has been built up considerably and several excavations are in progress where ancient churches and other religious sites were. It was bizarre to look across the valley to Jericho, and at the top of the mountains behind it we could see three towers in Jerusalem. I thought about all of the Bible stories I learned as a child and how they all seem like legends to me, with fictional people and places. To see, in person, the oldest continuously inhabited city (Jericho) in the world and think about the events that have taken place there over the last several thousand years is truly mind-boggling.

We saw one of the spots where John the Baptist baptized people when not directly in the Jordan River, and the spot where it is assumed he baptized Jesus, although it no longer touches the river. The walking trail led down to the Jordan, and no more than four or five meters across the river was Palestine. I could have easily pole vaulted across if it weren’t for the army officer standing on the Jordanian bank with an automatic rifle.


The Mighty Jordan River

After the tour of the baptism site, we got back on the bus for the 15-minute drive to the beach on the Dead Sea. We arrived at the beach shortly afterwards and all trooped off to claim a spot under the umbrellas for our stuff. I had my swimsuit on under my jeans, but others wandered off to find the changing areas. While they were gone, I looked around at the people who dotted the beach. Most of them looked like locals or at least Arabs, but there were a good number of ajanib (foreigners) as well. The main way to tell who the ajanib were (aside from the often comparatively pasty skin) was to look at their attire; whether on the beach or in the water, the Arab women mostly wore shirts and shorts or even their full dress and hijab (head covering), while foreign women were either in one- or two-piece swimsuits. When the gals from my group emerged from the changing rooms, they all looked visibly uncomfortable in their swimsuits, most of which were two-piece. Some wrapped towels around themselves, some kept tank tops and/or shorts on, and some decided to just deal with it. I looked down at my bare chest, the first time I had been topless in a public place, and noticed that nearly all the guys my own age, Arab or not, were also shirtless. Some of the older men wore tank tops or t-shirts, but not very many. Moving down from the umbrellas to the shoreline, our group received lots of stares from others at the beach. I noticed Erin (who has several large tattoos) surrounded by a group of men who had their arms around her and were having their friends take their photos with her. They left after the photos were taken, and we continued into the water. We floated around for a while and then some of us decided to try out the famous Dead Sea mud treatment, which is supposed to be good for the skin.



While we were rubbing the mud onto ourselves, a group of guys, mostly high school age, came over to us and started asking where we were from, what we were doing there, etc. They also wanted their friends to take photos of them with us. One of the guys brought over a drum and started playing, at which point the first two guys we met began dancing and trying to drag as many of us as possible into the center of the circle to dance too. Nic and I obliged for a while, but the boys were insistent on getting some of the girls in our group to dance with them. They grabbed Sam, Alix and Jen’s wrists, trying to physically compel them to dance, but they ultimately failed.

The level of physical modesty that I saw at the Dead Sea, particularly in regards to the Arab women, comes from both the culture and from Islam. In the Koran there is a part that calls for Muslims to practice modesty, but this is open to some interpretation as are many aspects of any religion. Some people interpret this to mean that in public a woman should be covered from head to toe with nothing but her hands showing, and others interpret it such that a woman can wear even shorts and a tank top, provided the shorts aren’t too short and the top isn’t too low-cut. The same goes for men (hence some of the older men wearing shirts while swimming), but the interpretations are universally less extreme for men. These interpretations are subject to location and current trends in the area. In Turkey, at least in the urban areas, I’ve heard that few women now wear the hijab. In the ‘50s, it was hard to find a woman on the University of Jordan campus wearing a hijab, but due to shifts in trends (fashion, religious, political, social) the vast majority of the women on the campus today wear headscarves. What I saw at the Dead Sea is another manifestation of that; while a beach is typically a place where it’s socially acceptable to expose more skin, in Jordan in some peoples’ minds that is not necessarily the case.

The boys who were pulling on the women in our group were in an awkward situation. While they come from the culture (and the time, with all its trends) that says that women must be respected, especially physically, they don’t necessarily apply that to foreign women. They would never grab the wrist of an Arab woman to get her to dance with them, but foreign women don’t fall into that category.

It was frustrating to watch this scene knowing that a few years ago I would have had a completely different experience on this beach, if I were there at all. It’s true that we normally get stares from people as we’re a conspicuous group of obviously foreign young adults, but the added element of exposed skin in a culture of imposed modesty made it more uncomfortable than usual, and I can only imagine what the women felt. In particular, the physical assault of their space must have felt violating, perhaps not because in the US this would never happen, but because of the context from which the Arab boys came and the fact that the women in our group were not shown the same respect that the women covered by their dresses and hijabs would receive from them. At the same time, it makes me sad that women aren’t allowed to feel in control of their bodies enough to comfortably wear a swimsuit on a beach.

Eventually the boys left and we washed off the mud and salt under the fresh water taps, then redressed and went in to the restaurant on the beach to have dinner and talk about our experiences with the Bedouin families. Our conversation expanded to talk about how we were feeling in regards to our religious and gendered selves being in this culture. It was an intense conversation by the end, but we closed it so we could go out and watch the sunset and go home.

Yesterday we hung around a lot. Mahidi made a flute out of a piece of plastic piping and played for a while. I showed them how to play the spoons and make a whistle out of one’s hands. Mahidi decided to try to get the busted gulab (a beat-up farm truck) running, so all the guys that were around went over to push it out of the dip it was in. After that attempt failed, Souleyman drove over the other gulab, and they tied a rope between them to pull it up. They got the engine started, put a little gas in it, and Mahidi and I took off to visit folks and get water. The interior of the cab is about a basic as it gets. The passenger seat is a box of springs with a pillow sitting on top, the backrest is in worse condition (the cloth is tearing off to expose the springs), and seatbelts are out of the question. The dashboard is a glorified metal box, and the floor is a piece of plywood, through the cracks of which you can watch the road go by beneath you. I found out after we got back that it also had no breaks.



Our first stop was at a house in the village by the tents, where Mahidi jumped out, briefly said hello to someone, then got back in the truck. The next stop was a small shop in a neighboring town, a fifteen-minute drive through the desert. There Mahidi said hello to the men working there and sitting in front of the shop smoking argeela. I was looked at curiously and asked questions about, then Mahidi picked up some brake fluid and we went over to some relative’s house. Driving through the first village then through the town, Mahidi would wave hello to almost everyone we passed, and in turn everyone we passed looked over to the truck to see who it was and waved back. At one point as we drove through the town, a man was standing by his pickup on the road and waved and made a pushing motion at the truck. Mahidi stopped the gulab and we jumped out to give the man a push. When that didn’t work, Mahidi popped the hood, fiddled with something on the engine then we tried pushing it again. The engine revved, we jumped back into the gulab and went to the relative’s house. There I was again looked at curiously and asked questions about. They attempted small conversation with me, but my lack of Arabic knowledge but a halt on it. I sat around awkwardly drinking tea while Mahidi ran off to say hi to someone else, and then we left.



We stopped by the family that Alix was staying with and I got to talk to her for a while, then we set off to get water. To get to the “waterhole,” we drove off the road and followed a pipe that looked suspiciously like irrigation water running through the desert. We came to a place with a little utility shack, where the pipe had a hose sticking out of it. After much wrestling with the hose and getting a bit wet from the strongly sulfuric water, we had filled up a large tank for the sheep’s water, two 50-gallon tanks and a dozen 5-gallon jugs for the family’s water. When we were done, we went back to the house and ate dinner.

Although it might seem like it would be a quick trip to pick up brake fluid and water, we spent the whole afternoon and early evening on the venture. It seems impossible and perhaps unthinkable to go out and run errands without dropping in on at least a few people. I think that stopping to help the man with his pickup and making brief visits to friends and relatives comes from the stronger interpersonal ties here. The tribal way of life is so apparent here; maintaining these connections traditionally provided protection for the family and the tribe and thus became an indispensable norm. Due to this and the isolated, small population, everyone seems to know everyone else here and the likelihood that Mahidi actually did know most people that we passed is probably relatively high.

The trip in the gulab was an interesting experience because it illustrated in so many ways the cultural and societal differences between Bedouin life and the American life with which I’m familiar. The simple difference in regulations between here and the US was striking when I thought about this truck driving in the States. The only context in which you would see a truck like this in the US is strictly on a farm, as it would be illegal by many counts on public roads. Maybe it’s different coming from a small town even in the States, but I was surprised at how everyone we passed looked to see who was in the truck and waved. Especially coming from a New England city that is fairly cold in encounters with strangers, I’m not accustomed to that level of fleeting interactions.

Anyway, after dinner Abdullah came to get me because “Teacher Mohammad” was visiting. We talked with him for a while and agreed to meet up with him in Amman at some point. Our conversation was a bit disturbing at times because although Mohammad is an educated man very interested in Western ideas and culture, he spoke at times of his fiancé here and how he rules over her. Additionally, I’m getting very tired of speaking English because I know that it’s hindering my progress in Arabic.

Today we left the Bedouins around 10 and picked up Sam and Alix, then went to catch a bus in Ud’roh. After arguing with the bus driver, we each paid 1JD to get to Ma9an and from there caught another bus to Amman. I spent the rest of the evening vegging and eating delicious food that Renee cooked.

Yesterday we visited the school, where everyone was very excited about our visit. We visited a 7th and 8th grade Arabic class (boys) and a 4th and 5th grade English class (mixed). The teacher’s English wasn’t great, but passable. The younger class was mixed, but Mohammad said most of the guys and girls sitting next to each other were brother and sister. I didn’t really do much the rest of the day except hang out with the family. Guests come and go, and Thor and I usually sit (with tons of space compared to everyone else), not really following the conversation. Occasionally the topic will turn towards us, everyone will look at us and maybe ask a question (which I usually can’t fully understand) and the conversation will move on. Tea is served with unbelievable frequency, coffee about once or twice a day, especially when guests are present.