Rain is Baraka ... Right?

Wadi Musa (Petra), Jordan

From Farewell Tour

Some people go on vacation for adventure, and others for relaxation. By the time we got to Wadi Musa last night, we'd had too much of the former and not enough of the latter. Up early and on the move every day for a week, we were exhausted and starting to crack. Today's rain was unfortunate in that we didn't get to see much of Petra, and especially because we couldn't make it to the Monastery. On the other hand, today's rain was also baraka (a blessing), because it gave us an excuse to have a quiet afternoon in our hotel room, napping and recuperating.

From A Rainy Day In Petra

Farewell Tour of Jordan

King's Highway, Jordan
(Madaba, Macchareus, Mujib, Kerak, Wadi Musa)

From an Ammani evening

As we walked around the Castle Hill in Amman last night, it occurred to me that several of my favorite pictures from Jordan were taken on that hill. This morning, as we were winding our way through southern Madaba and Jabal Bani Hamida, I realized that while I was showing Wade all my favorite places in Jordan, I'm also saying goodbye.

From Farewell Tour

I'm excited about my move to Cairo for a CASA Fellowship. It's a great honor and a fabulous opportunity to immerse myself in Standard Arabic (as much as that's even possible) and learn the Egyptian dialect that I find so challenging. But there are so many things I love about Jordan, so many things I haven't seen (Umm aj-Jammal, Shaumari Reserve, etc.), so many things I haven't done (Petra-Wadi Araba by camel, climb Jabal Rum and the tallest mountain in Jordan, etc.), so many friends I'm going to miss. I've spent 4 years of my life here, and that's no small thing. So if my photos are captioned with nostalgia, well, it's a fair representation of how I'm feeling these days.

From Farewell Tour

Downsides of an SLR

or, If I Only Had a Digital Camera!

From Philip Goes North

Amman, Jordan

I've been teased a lot in the last few years for still having one of those old-fashioned film cameras, and for most of that time, I've been able to counter that it takes better pictures than some cheap digital camera. That claim's getting harder to make, especially in Jordan. I don't know if it's the way the vendors take care of the film before I purchase it, or the heat I subject it to after I've purchased it and taken pictures, or the quality of the developing, but it seems that all the photos I've taken in Jordan this time around have been grainy and poor quality. They tend to be washed out, too, even with my UV-protected and polarized lenses. I think this is probably because I can't find a place to purchase 400-speed film in Jordan. Every shopkeeper I try to ask says, "The sun is so bright in Jordan, you don't need 400-speed film!" But I think using 200-speed is over-exposing my film. (Not to mention that sometimes I want to take indoor pictures of kids whizzing around, or people dancing, for example.)

The other problem with film cameras is the time it takes to finish a roll of film and develop it. I just developed seven rolls of film this week, the best of which I've uploaded to Picasa. These photos go back months, all the way to our first trip with Tareef Cycling Club: Biking in Wadi Musa and Hiking in Wadi al-Ghwayr. Most of the other pictures are more recent, from the trek down the King's Highway with Philip, John and Ann, from my trip with Philip to Umm Qais and Jerash, and from the day that Ryan, John and I rented a car to go to Ajlun, Pella and Umm Qais. There are still a few more pictures left in my camera, and I'm waiting to get the pictures I took with Philip and Ryan's cameras!

From Ryan's Rental

What Do You Mean, No Bus?

Wadi Musa -> Ma'an -> Amman, Jordan

This morning we got up nice and early to see the highlight of the Petra National Park: the Monastery! In the interest of time, I convinced poor Philip to take a donkey up the mountain. He may never forgive me! But it really was beautiful up there, wrapped to the ears in our new kaffiya, taking pictures, chatting with a young Belgian photographer who was waiting for a second day for the perfect light.

Then we walked back down, passing Miriam on her way back up, and had just enough time to see the highlights of the Roman City before we hoofed it back up to the entrance so we'd make it on to the JETT bus by 4 o'clock. But when we got there, we discovered that there was no JETT bus today. The morning bus down from Amman couldn't make it, because the Shobak road was still closed, so there was no bus to take us back up to Amman. By this time, it was too late to find a public bus back to Amman, either. Instead, the bus parking lot manager offered to drive us to Ma'an, where we could catch a bus to Amman. We agreed.

Now, while I (and many other Peace Corps Volunteers and other expats who live more than 4km from the so-called "Fortress America") think that the American embassy tends to be overly-cautious about their warnings, I do lend some credence to their warning about Ma'an. Not only is it known for its "radical Islamist leanings," a term I'm always suspicious of, but also for its anti-governmental riots: bread riots, Tawjihi riots.... Even my archaeologist friend, who's well known and well respected in Wadi Musa and the south of Jordan, recommends that non-Arab women going to Ma'an cover their hair. And when we got to the bus station in Ma'an, the parking lot manager recommended that Philip let me do the talking, and that I stick to my Bedouin Arabic. And it seems to have been successful, because when we finally arrived in Amman, the young guys who'd been sitting next to us even stood around in the pouring rain to help us find a cab at a reasonable price. So I guess the embassy was wrong again.

Snowed In!

or, Someone Will Know (of) You Wherever You Go in Jordan!

Wadi Musa, Jordan

I've mentioned before how small a place Jordan is, and how closely people are connected to each other here. It was something we sometimes complained about in Peace Corps, how you could never go anywhere without being seen by someone who would know who you were and report back to your site village. On the other hand, sometimes it can be an advantage to be part of the network. This was a night for acknowledging those ties.

It started with a cup of tea last night with the owner of our hotel, Adel. Something slipped out about my being an honorary HaraHsheh, the name of the family in my Peace Corps village, which revealed that the hotelier and I were "cousins," as he was also from the Bani Hassan Tribe. He regaled us with some fabulous, likely exaggerated, tales of how being related to his uncle, alias Abu Mas'ab al-Zarqawi, had both helped and hindered him in recent years. I've heard similar stories before, and I understand what it must be like to know that the most infamous terrorist in Iraq is from your tribe. After all, it's become my tribe, too!

Then, this evening, Philip and I were walking down for another cup of tea with Adel, and I saw this Spanish guy I know coming down from upstairs. "Hey, I know you!" I exclaimed. It's Jose, who's friends with Abby and a number of other people I know in Amman. And he had quite a tale of woe, which he shared over a cup of tea with Adel, some other Spaniards and a Pollack travelling with Jose. They'd been in Petra for the day, and were on their way back to Amman when it started to snow. The higher they went, the more snowy and slippery it got. In Jordan, as is usually the case in south-central Pennsylvania where I grew up, they don't start plowing until the snow is almost finished falling. So when Jose saw an ambulance leading cars in the other direction, he decided to follow it back to Wadi Musa, and ended up at our hotel.

After they'd told their story, Jose and friends went down to the pub in the Petra Palace for a much-needed beer, but they left a note with the hotelier for a girl named Miriam who was also staying at the hotel. Philip and I stuck around to accept an offer of a cup of tea from our hotelier. When it came out, and I put in two spoons of sugar, Adel started to laugh: "You really are Bani Hassan!" But then he had to get up and take a look at the hotel's boiler, leaving Philip and I alone with our tea when the door opened and a girl walked in. The immediate words out of my mouth were, "You must be Miriam!" immediately followed by, "Wait! I know you!" We had met a week earlier while out with some mutual friends. She's an Aussie, volunteering at a Palestinian refugee camp, and staying with a friend who works for the UN. After she'd showered, the three of us followed the Spaniards down to the pub.

And what do you know, but the Swiss couple were also at the pub! Small world.

Neither Rain nor Wind nor....

Petra, Jordan

Our weather luck changed today. In fact, John and Ann called over breakfast to let us know that the park had been temporarily closed for fear of flash flooding. As we've been saying in Tareef for weeks, the weather's been great for biking and sightseeing this winter, but bad for Jordan, so I have to be grateful for the rain. Still, the timing could hardly have been worse for Philip, who was sure that winter would be over by the time he arrived in Jordan!

Nevertheless, as we lingered over breakfast, hoping the weather would change, another couple sat down at the breakfast table and starting talking to each other in a language I know and love ... Schwyyzerduutsch! A lovely middle-aged couple from Winterthur, Switzerland, they even gave us a ride down into the park when it had opened.

I'm running out of new things to see in a single day in Petra. Most of the things I'd most like to see now require advanced planning, more than one day, and a guide. Still, it's fun to go through the park with different people and see it through different eyes. Petra with Josh, Petra with Auntie Viv, Petra with my parents, Petra with Chris Tuttle, and Petra with Philip are very different experiences. Josh wants to pet every stray animal he comes across. Auntie Viv and I climbed every mountain in the place. I started out that way with my parents, and consequently, Mom couldn't walk uphill on the second day, and we rode donkeys, camels and horses all the way home. Going with Chris Tuttle was just fascinating because he knows every stone and every Bedouin in the camp by name and history. It was fun, then, to explore with Philip and recall all the things that I had learned on the expert tour this past summer.

Plus, Philip is a shopper. We hit almost every stand in the park, buying necklaces and such. I ended up with some very nice additions to my growing jewelry collection. As Philip said, "Maryah! You're finally turning into a girl!"

We also found ourselves with a little girl, Fawzia, leading us around the park and trying to play tour guide, which was cute for awhile, and then got annoying, and then she asked for money for a tour we neither asked for nor needed! In retrospect, I think perhaps Auntie Viv and I were also shadowed by Fawzia and a friend of hers, but three years ago they didn't ask us for money!

King's Highway Tour

Criss-Crossing the Backbone of Jordan

Amman -> Madaba -> the Dead Sea -> Kerak -> Wadi Musa & Petra, Jordan

Despite short notice, a full work schedule, and the threat of snow, I was determined that Philip get to see the highlights of Jordan in his brief stay here. As luck would have it, my co-worker John also had a friend, Ann, visiting from London, and had hired a driver to take us down the King's Highway to Madaba, the Dead Sea, Kerak and Wadi Musa, the town at the entrance of Petra National Park. Philip and I decided to tag along, despite my corporate client's warnings that it was supposed to snow and be miserable all weekend long. Philip agreed, it would be silly to come all this way and not even get a brief, rainy glimpse of Petra!

So we left early, in order to arrive in Madaba as St. George's Church opened in the morning. The Greek Orthodox church features a Sixth Century mosaic map of the Classical World, one of the oldest and most accurate maps of the Trans-Jordan region, though the part of the map depicting Egypt is quite skewed, so that the Nile River runs perpendicular and not parallel to the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. Archaeologists interpret this to mean that the mosaic makers were probably from the Trans-Jordan, and were only able to construct the Egyptian section of the map from texts and word of mouth.

As it turned out, the weather was simply beautiful today, warm and sunny and perfect for a trip down the Dead Sea, and along the backbone of Jordan, through the mountains that formed the edge of the Crusader kingdoms. Back in the period of the film "Kingdom of Heaven," the European Crusaders had built a series of castles along the mountain range beyond the Jordan River: Aqaba, Wu'ayra (in Petra National Park), Kerak (which features prominently in the film), Shobak, Ajlun, Krak de Chevaliers and others. They were built at such intervals that signal fires could be lit at one castle at night, and seen at the next one north and south. We visited one of the best preserved of those, Kerak Castle. One of the fun things about archaeological sites in Jordan is that they're poorly labeled (and likely poorly understood as well), so you mostly get to make things up as you go along. Sadly, I couldn't locate what Auntie Viv and I thought was probably the kitchens, but we had some fun wandering around and wondering.

After lunch, we went out to the Desert Highway and hurried down to Wadi Musa so that we could make it to Petra By Night ... which was rather more fun when I came with my parents and there were about fifty people, instead of a couple hundred. Being one of the New Seven Wonders of the World has made Petra an awfully crowded place! On the other hand, I could tell my Arabic was better, because I understood what the rababah player was singing!

I tried the biking....

Beidha (Little Petra) and Wadi Musa, Jordan

From Biking in Wadi Musa

I woke up this morning remembering the dog, Thomas, that belonged to my first host family in Switzerland. I was staying in the bedroom of the oldest son, Niklaus, who was studying in Philadelphia, and along with the bedroom I inherited his responsibilities, including taking Thomas for a run every day after school by bike. While Niklaus was a pretty typical Swiss cyclist who frequently biked the 30k to school and back, I was not. More often than not, Thomas took me for a run, until such time as I crashed the bike and Thomas could escape to do what he loved best, chase cows. After a number of bloody knees, my host mother said to me, "Maryah, I have never seen a girl your age who was so bad on a bicycle!" I've barely been on a bike in the decade since. This memory was not an auspicious start to the day of my first biking excursion with Tareef Cycling Club of Amman!

I gathered my determination and went anyway, and I'm so glad I did!

In the bus on the way down, Megan reassured me that the trip had been labeled "moderate" on Facebook, and if all else failed, I could always ride in the backup bus. I made some great new friends, including Aktham, who does exactly the kind of work with Iraqi refugees that I would like to be doing, and offered to help me find a similar job for myself. (He also DJs at my favorite radio station, Mood FM, which our Filipina manicurist friend Angie always turns up loud for Megan and I at the salon.)

When we got to Wadi Musa in the south of Jordan, we made a brief incursion into Beidha, aka "Little Petra," while the bikes were unloaded, and then we were off. For about the first 90 seconds, I felt pretty confident, but then there was just the slightest long incline, and by the top of it, I couldn't remember why I thought this trip was a good idea, anyway. Those of you who know me well are probably wondering the same thing. (It was because of tomorrow's hiking in Wadi Araba, where I've long wanted to go but have never been, because it's virtually impossible without my own wheels!) The club members, particularly the ones who are professional cyclists, were very patient and encouraging, and they convinced me to do the long downhill portion. But when we turned off the paved road at the Wadi Musa Water Reclamation Project, a startling patch of green in the mostly red and brown mountains, the ride turned sharply uphill, and I took to the pickup! My host mother was right about my bike riding abilities back then, and it's probably more true now, out of shape as I am! And, to my credit, most of the cyclists agreed that this was one of the most difficult excursions they'd done to date in the club.

There are distinct advantages to riding in the bed of the rescue truck, though. You really get to see the scenery that way, putzing along at the pace of the slowest cyclist, and you don't have to stop to take pictures along the way. Unfortunately, my old-fashioned camera hasn't fared well in the desert this time, with the heat of our trips this past summer washing out all my film beyond what I know how to fix with Photoshop, so my pictures didn't come out nearly as well as other people's. But the scenery was simply breathtaking, especially when we got to the overlook of Wadi Araba at the top of the mountain!

From Biking in Wadi Musa

There are many more pictures of the two days of biking and hiking by Jad.

Dialects Matter

Beidha (Little Petra), Jordan

A classmate of mine, Chris Shad, and I were talking to the woman who made the fabulous shrak bread for our Bedu barbecue in Beidha. (Shrak is a white bread, often two feet or more across, and paper thin, baked over a thin, domed metal surface propped over a wood fire, and it's my favorite kind of Jordanian bread.) I, of course, know all the right things to say to village women, and she had plenty to say in return about how wonderful a job Chris did when he tried his hand at making shrak with her.

Chris, however, had a bewildered look on his face. Finally he asked me, "Do you understand a thing she's saying?"

I laughed, and told him the absolute truth. "I understand her better than almost everyone I've spoken to in Amman!"

When I translated the exchange for her, the woman smiled and nodded and said to Chris, "You come and live in my house and make bread for me for a year, and you'll be a pro, and you'll understand me, too!"

The Expert Tour

Rajaf, Beidha and Petra, Jordan

Wow. These past two days have been incredible. You can see the best of my pictures here (and more will be coming).

I won't go into detail here, as the pictures are captioned with just some of the neat new things I learned about Petra, the Nabateans, and the various kingdoms and dynasties that followed them. We've been travelling around the south of Jordan with our program coordinator, Chris Tuttle, who is just finishing his dissertation on the Nabateans of Petra. But dissertating doesn't pay well, so he's also been coordinating our summer program as part of his job at the American Center for Oriental Research. When he's not shepherding around Arabic students (which is only part of his summer workload), he's hard at work helping archaeologists from all over the world come to Jordan and do exciting new projects. He also occasionally escorts media people, like BBC reporters, and the occasional celebrity, like FLOTUS Laura Bush.

This is, of course, not as easy as it sounds. There's a lot of bureaucracy and red tape, a lot of people who don't demonstrate much understanding of the archaeological, historical and cultural worth of many dig proposals, and the economic and logistical obstacles that plague any endeavor in Jordan. And then there are the treasure hunters and the tourists. The more Petra and its surrounds are opened up, the better known and more valuable they become. Since Petra was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World about a year ago, tourism has leapt up 68%. This is great for the Jordanian economy, but it means that the archaeological information enshrined in the rocks and soil of Petra will be erased at a far faster rate. When I suggested to Chris that the Lonely Planet tour guide's entry on Petra needed to be updated, and maybe I should rewrite it with his help and split the proceeds with him, he said, "Great! Write, 'Don't bother. Not worth the trip.'" On the other hand, he'll also be the first to admit that more tourism makes it easier to get the grants to do the archaeology!

Actually, it's economics as much as archaeology that motivates Chris Tuttle, and this is perhaps one of the most amazing things about this trip for me, more than the sheer glut of information we got about dead people.

You'll see a picture in my album captioned "Chris Tuttle knows every Bedu in Petra." This is not much of an exaggeration. Chris has been in Petra every summer for eight years, and more frequently since taking the job at ACOR in Amman. While many archaeologists come and learn to say please and thank you to a few faces they recognize and go home, Chris has made a real effort to get to know the community. He seems to know everyone by name. Though he claims to speak virtually no Arabic, he speaks more than many Peace Corps Volunteers I knew spoke after two years in the village. And last night, while our group was having dinner with some local Bedu after our tour of Beidha (Little Petra), Chris told me that one of his primary motivations behind opening Beidha to excavations was to give some source of income to the families that lived in and around Beidha, whom he had befriended in his time in the area.

A Few Updates

In fact, Chris Tuttle knows the people I was hoping to see in Petra, both of whom were extraordinarily helpful when I came to Petra with Auntie Viv, and with my parents. Unfortunately, I didn't see Shaher (I think that was his name), who served Auntie Viv and I tea in his brother's shop when we were very cold, and gave us the best advice for seeing the sunset in Petra.

I did go back to Jeff's Bookshop, where Auntie Viv and I bought our cookbooks, and where I arranged cars for she and I as well as my parents and I to take us back to Amman by the scenic route. When Auntie Viv and I were arranging our car and commenting on how amazing the shopkeeper's English, German, Spanish and Japanese were, we learned that one of his brothers, Jeff, for whom the shop was named, was in Denver, Colorado, getting brain surgery for a malignant tumor. I asked about Jeff at the shop this time around, and got more details from Chris Tuttle. The operation was temporarily successful, and Jeff came back looking hale and on the way to recovery (I saw the pictures myself!), but after about 6 months he suddenly declined and passed away. Allah yarHamuhu.