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| From Wadi Rum with New Friends |
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| From Wadi Rum with New Friends |
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| From Wadi Rum with New Friends |
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| From Wadi Rum with New Friends |
Tawjihi high school blues
3 years ago
Showing posts with label Wadi Rum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wadi Rum. Show all posts
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The Colors of Rum
Wadi Rum, Jordan
Overcast as it was, it's hard to see in my photographs the brilliant bands of color in the stones and the sand for which Wadi Rum is so famous. Even still, it was a beautiful day, and nice to just sit in the back of the 4X4 for most of the day, in contrast to all the walking and climbing we've been doing on this trip.
In each of the 3 jeep tours I've done in Wadi Rum, I've seen completely different parts of the park. It's easy to do. The preserve is enormous, and every part of it has its own wonders. I hope that the increasing control over tourist services and rates in the park (a very good thing, don't get me wrong!) doesn't restrict the jeep tours too much to just a few limited vistas.
I've also never been to Wadi Rum at this time of year, either. It's always been a pretty bleak desert when I've visited, at least as far as vegetation goes, but this time the park was teeming with flowers. One more reason that Wade's visit was perfectly timed!
Friday, April 2, 2010
The Contradictions of Wadi Rum
Disi Village, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Tareef took us south today, almost all the way to the edge of the kingdom (where we'll be tomorrow). On the agenda: desert cycling.
As Mel pointed out, striking up the chorus of Hakuna Matata, the surfaces we rode on looked very much like cartoon landscapes.
Wadi Rum's reputation is for desert, and we saw plenty of that - mountains, sand dunes, windswept surfaces dotted with scrawny brush.
It's easy to forget that Wadi Rum sits on the great Disi Reservoir. A new project is installing the infrastructure to pipe some of that water north to Amman, Zarqa and Irbid, but in the meantime it's a rich source of water for local agriculture.
Altogether it's a place of contradiction, where desert meets agriculture, flats meet sheer rock faces, and the nomadic meets the settled meets the tourists.
And surprisingly nice cycling with an exceptional group of people from 4 continents. Just watch out for the sand traps!
Tareef took us south today, almost all the way to the edge of the kingdom (where we'll be tomorrow). On the agenda: desert cycling. |
| From Good Friday in Wadi Rum, Then Aqaba |
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| From Good Friday in Wadi Rum, Then Aqaba |
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| From Good Friday in Wadi Rum, Then Aqaba |
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| From Good Friday in Wadi Rum, Then Aqaba |
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| From Good Friday in Wadi Rum, Then Aqaba |
Monday, November 9, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Red Rocks & Racing Camels
Zuwaideh Camp, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Finally, we got the relaxation we were hoping for! It started with an incredibly tender zarb dinner in the traditional Bedouin style (baked in the sand, that is). There were a couple of adventure tourism groups there, mostly middle-aged Brits with a taste for hiking. One gentleman had worked for the UN most of his career, so we spent a lot of time brainstorming ideas for me to get into that exclusive club.
This morning, the tour groups woke in the dark to take a camel ride out to see the sunrise. Jad and I took the car out instead for some nice pre-breakfast shots. One thing that I'd never seen before was galloping camels. There's a camel race track across the street from the Zuwaideh camp, and three young camels were being put through their paces this morning. As the camels were racing around the track, three 4X4 trucks were racing just outside the rail, cheering them on. Beside them came Jad and I playing tourist, trying to get a few good shots of racing camels:
Then we hung around a bit for the morning, and headed back to Amman. Relaxing but not exhausting. Just what a vacation should be. And exactly what we needed to take the sting out of the hotel fiasco in Aqaba. Wadi Rum's much better, anyway, even if there's no ocean!
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| From Red Rocks & Camel Racing |
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| From Red Rocks & Camel Racing |
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| From Red Rocks & Camel Racing |
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| From Red Rocks & Camel Racing |
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Updates
Pictures, Arab Names, New Job
Amman, Jordan
There are more pictures up on my Facebook album "Back to Jordan," from Wadi Ram and my trip to "my" village where I lived as a Peace Corps Volunteer:
A Brief Explanation of Jordanian Names
In order to understand some of the captions of my pictures, you might want to take note of some Jordanian naming conventions. These are pretty standard for Arab countries, although Saudi Arabia has a somewhat more complex system, as I understand.
In my village, almost everyone has the same last name, so it's useless to call someone Muhammad al-HaraHsheh; there's one in every other house. Instead, an individual is known by his name, followed by his father's name, and sometimes his grandfather's name. So, to take my "favorite" Jordanian (because he didn't speak more Arabic than I when I lived in Mshairfeh), we get Zayd Radhwan Ahmed al-HaraHsheh, i.e. Zaid, son of Radhwan, grandson of Ahmed, of the HaraHsheh family. His sister is Aiat Radhwan Ahmed al-HaraHsheh, i.e. Aiat, daughter of Radhwan, granddaughter of Ahmed, of the HaraHsheh family.
Similarly, people's homes are referred to by the name of the father of the family, so that Zaid and Aiat live in Dar Radhwan (House of Radhwan).
Radhwan, however, is rarely referred to as Radhwan. Instead, he has what's known as a kunya, a particular kind of nickname. Radhwan is usually known as Abu Muhammad (Father of Muhammad), because Aiat and Zaid's oldest brother's name is Muhammad. Their mother is generally known by her kunya, Umm Muhammad (Mother of Muhammad).
Kunya can be a bewildering concept for many modern Americans, who are loathe to be reduced to their roles as parents and feel that the kunya erases a parent's individuality. My mother, however, tells me that kunya is actually a common shortcut in American PTA meetings. "Oh, you're Wesley's mother!"
Employed!
I am now employed as an early elementary teacher at the Modern American School in Amman, Jordan. Teachers start work next week!
Amman, Jordan
There are more pictures up on my Facebook album "Back to Jordan," from Wadi Ram and my trip to "my" village where I lived as a Peace Corps Volunteer:
A Brief Explanation of Jordanian Names
In order to understand some of the captions of my pictures, you might want to take note of some Jordanian naming conventions. These are pretty standard for Arab countries, although Saudi Arabia has a somewhat more complex system, as I understand.
In my village, almost everyone has the same last name, so it's useless to call someone Muhammad al-HaraHsheh; there's one in every other house. Instead, an individual is known by his name, followed by his father's name, and sometimes his grandfather's name. So, to take my "favorite" Jordanian (because he didn't speak more Arabic than I when I lived in Mshairfeh), we get Zayd Radhwan Ahmed al-HaraHsheh, i.e. Zaid, son of Radhwan, grandson of Ahmed, of the HaraHsheh family. His sister is Aiat Radhwan Ahmed al-HaraHsheh, i.e. Aiat, daughter of Radhwan, granddaughter of Ahmed, of the HaraHsheh family.
Similarly, people's homes are referred to by the name of the father of the family, so that Zaid and Aiat live in Dar Radhwan (House of Radhwan).
Radhwan, however, is rarely referred to as Radhwan. Instead, he has what's known as a kunya, a particular kind of nickname. Radhwan is usually known as Abu Muhammad (Father of Muhammad), because Aiat and Zaid's oldest brother's name is Muhammad. Their mother is generally known by her kunya, Umm Muhammad (Mother of Muhammad).
Kunya can be a bewildering concept for many modern Americans, who are loathe to be reduced to their roles as parents and feel that the kunya erases a parent's individuality. My mother, however, tells me that kunya is actually a common shortcut in American PTA meetings. "Oh, you're Wesley's mother!"
Employed!
I am now employed as an early elementary teacher at the Modern American School in Amman, Jordan. Teachers start work next week!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind
Wadi Rum, Jordan
We're spending the night at Wadi Rum tonight, almost the whole CLS group, plus our program coordinator Ishraq, her friend Aboud and some of their friends. On our way into the campsite, I was telling about my brother Wesley's adventures in Wadi Rum, getting stuck half way up the rockface at sundown with a Frenchmen who was not nearly as good of a climber as he claimed, but having no choice but to go the rest of the way up and then down in the dark. So, of course, while most of us watched a gorgeous sunset from sand-level, Chris, Doris, Sam and Galaal decided they were going to scale a rockface (without lines!) and watch the sunset from the top. And as they were coming down and it was getting darker and darker, they said to each other, "Perhaps we should have listened to Maryah!" But then, I'm too timid to hitchhike and drive across Central Asia like Chris, either, so what do I know? ;)
Then they showed us how they were cooking our dinner the real Bedouin way: First, dig a hole in the sand, put in a big metal tube, mound the sand up around it, and build a fire in it. When the sand is good and hot, remove the fire and put in a metal rack of chicken and potatoes, put on a lid and cover with sand, wait an hour and remove. Delicious! And they had my favorite kind of Jordanian salad, just like Umm Alaa makes it, with chopped cucumbers and tomatoes drenched in tahini!
After dinner, Ishraq and I taught the rest of the group the Jordanian dubkeh, and then out came the CDs of Nancy, Ruby, Deena and the rest of the Arab popstars for more dancing!
I had a very interesting conversation with the owner of the camp, Ribha, that started out very inauspiciously with "Oh daughter of the Bedouin [Aboud was telling everyone that I was a "real" Beni Hassan Bedouin, and it had become a joke across camp], why didn't you marry a Bedouin?" But after the initial awkwardness, he told me about his own American wife, who went back to the States when her mother got cancer, and we talked a lot about why it's important to visit other cultures, live in other cultures, marry into other cultures, etc., in order for people to better understand each other.
In the process of this conversation, he mentioned the town of Rajef, near Petra, and I mentioned that I had a Peace Corps friend in Rajef. "Ah, Josh!" says Ribha. "Josh is a good guy! So is Zane!" In case Josh is reading along, I wanted to put this out there, because it's often considered bad luck in Jordanian culture to compliment someone in their presence.
We're spending the night at Wadi Rum tonight, almost the whole CLS group, plus our program coordinator Ishraq, her friend Aboud and some of their friends. On our way into the campsite, I was telling about my brother Wesley's adventures in Wadi Rum, getting stuck half way up the rockface at sundown with a Frenchmen who was not nearly as good of a climber as he claimed, but having no choice but to go the rest of the way up and then down in the dark. So, of course, while most of us watched a gorgeous sunset from sand-level, Chris, Doris, Sam and Galaal decided they were going to scale a rockface (without lines!) and watch the sunset from the top. And as they were coming down and it was getting darker and darker, they said to each other, "Perhaps we should have listened to Maryah!" But then, I'm too timid to hitchhike and drive across Central Asia like Chris, either, so what do I know? ;)
Then they showed us how they were cooking our dinner the real Bedouin way: First, dig a hole in the sand, put in a big metal tube, mound the sand up around it, and build a fire in it. When the sand is good and hot, remove the fire and put in a metal rack of chicken and potatoes, put on a lid and cover with sand, wait an hour and remove. Delicious! And they had my favorite kind of Jordanian salad, just like Umm Alaa makes it, with chopped cucumbers and tomatoes drenched in tahini!
After dinner, Ishraq and I taught the rest of the group the Jordanian dubkeh, and then out came the CDs of Nancy, Ruby, Deena and the rest of the Arab popstars for more dancing!
I had a very interesting conversation with the owner of the camp, Ribha, that started out very inauspiciously with "Oh daughter of the Bedouin [Aboud was telling everyone that I was a "real" Beni Hassan Bedouin, and it had become a joke across camp], why didn't you marry a Bedouin?" But after the initial awkwardness, he told me about his own American wife, who went back to the States when her mother got cancer, and we talked a lot about why it's important to visit other cultures, live in other cultures, marry into other cultures, etc., in order for people to better understand each other.
In the process of this conversation, he mentioned the town of Rajef, near Petra, and I mentioned that I had a Peace Corps friend in Rajef. "Ah, Josh!" says Ribha. "Josh is a good guy! So is Zane!" In case Josh is reading along, I wanted to put this out there, because it's often considered bad luck in Jordanian culture to compliment someone in their presence.
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