I'm now out of the desert but I haven't gotten much of a rest yet. Saturday must've been the longest day ever. We wnet to SIT at 9 to leave for debrifing on our desert adventure at the Dead Sea. On the way we passed some tents by the side of the road made of colorful plastic and the inhabitants seemed to be tending a small plot of cultivated land. My ISP interest in that area spiked and receeded again (more on ISP woes later)
Before the Dead Sea we stopped at Bethany. I'm probably the most religious person in the group though I learned that B is actually a practicing Catholic. I was a bit miffed at the jibes of "holy water purification tablets" and the flurry of related jokes that went back and forth though I found them absolutely hilarious. I wish I could remember the rest. If I had been in a more pious mood I probably would've complained a lot too. The infrastructure at Bethany is very new and geared towards modern tourists. The prices were 2JD for Jordanians and 7JD for other nationalities. Bethany is run by an organization that does historical and archaeological work and cooperates closely with the state. It has to, Israel is a Bedouin shepherd's stone's throw away. There's a car park, a promenade with tourist shops (we founda key chain with the slogan "I <3 Baptism Site" and well beaten paths to John's spring, Elijah's hill, Jesus' historical baptism site (according to the Greeks). No structure is over 15 years old and the only ones older than 5 years are the benches, platforms and some coverings of the ruins of the old churches, 3 on top of each other, the oldest dating back to 300. There are many many new structures, including a Russian church by the river completed in 2003. The church is incredibly beautiful on the inside covered in paintings and with old mosaics tastefully implanted in the floor and is rich with religious imagery and architectural iconography. For instance the windows in the apse are tablets divided into 10 rectangles with crosses in them and two more in the semi circles on top of the tablets the significance being the ten commandments, christ's fulfilling of the old law, and the twelve apostles (or tribes maybe) all together. I really wish I had my camera, but I'll go back eventually.
Outside the church the tastefulness declined sharply. There was a Coke vendor by the church and new structures by all 4 baptism sites. 1 is filtered for children, 1 is where Jesus was baptised (as far as we know), 1 is at John's Spring, and 1 at the actual river itself.
Jordan's Banks are about 15 ft across and in all likelihood have not seen storms in many many years. A soldier held us back until the Israeli group was done and then let our group approach the water. We could see the Israeli outbuilding about 50 ft. away with 3 flags flying, the Israeli flag, a half white, half blue flag with an insignia and another unidentifiable flag in the center, green with a gold tracing of a gazelle head superimposed into a tree (from what I could tell anyway). The gaurds kept us all in one place until we left. Despite the vendors in the proverbial temple, the shocking newness of the place (I forgot to mention but the reason it's so new is that it was all built after relations w/ Israel normalized a few years ago, I'm not sure what pilgrims did before that but I wish I had been there.) the military presence and the joking, I felt like I was ona pilgramage and was thankful I had left my camera, broken, in M(roommate's) bag, so I didn't duplicate what I had done in Israel/Palestine where I took lots of pictures instead of paying attention. It really is beautiful there. There's lots of green trees and reeds and grass and undergrowth in a sort of uncommon wilderness. The only downside were the many flies.
I washed my face at John's spring and in the Jordan, which I guess doesn't count as baptism but it did feel good and ritualistic. Later, I read that the Jordan was actually high when we were there and in the summer is little more than a trickle. Thre reason is that Israel takes a lot fo water from Lake Tiberias (The sea of Galilee) for agricultural projects and Syria and Jordan responded in kind by damming the tributaries, the result being major devastation to all three bodies of water, the third being the Dead Sea. Jesus' historical baptism site is now about 100 yards from the river and is a nice green meadow. The Dead Sea is shrinking but I was surprised to not see any salt flats a la Salt Lake in Utah.
It was insteresting that such fucking up of nature's course and regulation by military force didn't spoil the significance ina ny great degree for me, a Quaker who doesn't put much stock in holy places anyway. On the way out, we saw construction of another church, this one Greek. We joked that it might have been a Holy-day Inn.
The Dead Sea was fun but dirty and it hurt. It's so salty that it makes any cut, rash (even something innocuous like razor burn) or eyes sting like hell. My sunburn throbbed and stung, but it was relaxing to play in the really thick water. We could swim faster with less effort, our legs bobbed up and were hard to get back down and we could do a form of swimming by a semi-running motion, upright in the water. A number of us got slathered up in the mud and cut feet from sharp rocks but I was too busy smoking nargila and listening to a talk on a Syrian poet. Besides, I had already washed up. A number of us plan on going back though. The construction of new hotels baffled me. Had there not been touristy places there before? Why? What was there before? Did I miss out on uncommercialized Jordan by only a few years? I was told that most of the touristy places were in Israel and Jordan's had only started after normalization.
The shower that evening was the best I'd ever had.
Later we went out with M and his Jordanian Christian friend who I forget the name of at this point. R and L joined us and we went to the Lady Cafe in suburban Abdoun. M and M(roommate) have a number of friends in common, both knowing the North Carolinians that went to the Universtiy of Jordan's summer program. M had acted as sort of welcoming committee organizing outings to Jerash and Aqaba and introducing hte X men and Y men (his names for the groups of foriegners) to local culture. He's a good guy and we have a lot to talk about (he's from Jerusalem) but I felt a little awkward, not sure if I was tired but he does try to give us a lot of resources, time, energy and it's hard to look a gift human in the mouth.
We had a really good time though. There was good, relatively cheap, food and nargila, and live music, Oud and Tableh. I learned alot about Arab songs. They tend to be communal in nature ("we forget who originally wrote them" says M) and take on ethnic significance. For example there was a song praising King Abdullah and the army. M's friend gloated and dance in his chair then the singer kept the same melody only switched the lyrics to Palestinian ones, Abdullah became Ramallah. M clapped and cheered while his friend tried to quiet him. It was nice to see ethnicity treated so lightly. There was also dancing. An old guy at a nearby table was dancing and singing at every song. "he's Lebanese" was the explaination. Apparently the Lebanese are the only Arabs that specialize in music and dance. Egyptians apparently smile and joke alot and Jordanians are austere. Some of the guys including me joined them for a dance and man, the old men knew how to move. It was frenetic but obviously had a pattern and rythm as they did it simultaneously. The best I could do was bounce a bit and enjoy it. R wanted to dance but no other women were dancing and it is a cultural and religious no-no to dance together. Apparently among the Bedouin there's a particular dance that used to be dancec by husbands and wives (in full hijab of course) but then they learned to read the Q'uran and learned that it was haram (forbidden) so now nobody dances and it's become a sad song. Music and dance here, both culturally and actually compositionally are very complex with patterns within patterns and melodies within melodies, much like the Harkonnens, only not evil.
Today in Arabic I realized that I'm a slow reader compared to a couple other people and had a flashback to 1st grade where I was very annoyed that not many other people could read as fast as I could. I suddenly felt really old and not nearly as precocious or clever as I once as. I think I'll resolve to never regret feeling old which means I need to keep myself sharp. (I'm sure the older people reading this will have some sort of reaction but you know...)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment