Confirmation in Jerusalem: Searching for God in the Holy City

A massive wall stood before me, stretching from either end of the horizon. Forty feet tall, the wall was topped with crevices and ramparts, arrow slits and ancient stonework. Between the road and the wall sat a large pavilion, illuminated against the night by harsh fluorescent, descending twenty feet from the road to the wall. A small chasm separated the pavilion from the wall, with a bridge connecting to a gate ten feet tall. Vendors stood in the pavilion hawking their goods and vegetables as pedestrians ambled through the gate. Despite the diffusion of modern technology, I could feel a continuity of life, emphasized by the vendors and the walls. It seemed that here life continued much as it had for thousands of years in spite of war, death, disaster, and the unrepentant forces of change. Taking in a deep breath and smiling, I entered the Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Earlier that Thursday, I had left from Irbid with Kinzer and Stephen, two friends from AU in my program, as well as Allie, a friend from Macalester in my program. We took a bus to Amman and a taxi to the King Hussein bridge border crossing between Jordan and Israel. On the way there we ran into several friends of Kinzer and Stephen – students in Amman whom they had met during their previous trip to Istanbul. We chatted while waiting for bus before arriving on the other side of the border in Israeli processing, which was surprisingly easy. Bidding goodbye to our compatriots from Amman as they went off to visit Ramallah, we continued on our way.

Hopping onto another bus, it took about forty minutes to travel from the border to Jerusalem, during which time Stephen made friends with a Jordanian who let us use his smart-phone to figure out where the heck our hotel was. The number of times my travel arrangements have been saved by an impromptu Jordanian friend made on the bus… (literally, this is the third time this has happened to me or my group). And so, after our bus let us off right outside the Northern Damascus gate, we made our ways into the Old City of Jerusalem.

The City was an intriguing site, 8PM in the evening. Even at a relatively early hour like that, most of the shops were closed. The roads were an absolute mess in the best way possible, many lacking clear signs, forming a maze with constant side-streets breaking off only to turn you around back in your original direction or on a completely different road. Luckily, with the instructions from our Jordanian friend, we were able to relatively easily find our hotel which was located on a small sidestreet, tucked in a corner and completely un-noticeable save for a two feet sign hanging off the building – “Citadel Youth Hostel.”

The hotel was fascinating – the lobby a cavernous hut-like space with a 7 foot ceiling composed of seemingly ancient stonework. A four story building, the hotel was composed of two completely separate towers which wrapped around each other through the building before letting out onto open roofs with gorgeous views of the city. Sitting atop the taller one, I could see the Dome of the Rock twinkling in the distance, a massive blue lightbulb against the dark.

Afterwards, we went out to grab a quick bite to eat. I ate my first pizza since arriving in the Middle East and drank a couple goldstars – the very tasty Israeli national beer – before setting out for some quick night-time exploration. Several hours later, after having traced the outer western wall and found a life-size windwill in the middle of modern Jerusalem, we settled into bed.

The next morning, I woke up at 6:00AM to attend mass, believe it or not. We had decided to attend the morning mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which according to tradition contains the site for both the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Despite having gone to bed only five and a half hours previously, I rolled out of bed, wiped the crust from my eyes, and staggered out of the front door of the hostel. After wandering around the empty morning streets of Jerusalem for twenty minutes and making several wrong turns, we finally found our way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

One of the members of the group from Amman, a Palestinian-American who had visited Jerusalem several times in the past, said that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had the least impressive exterior and most impressive interior he had ever seen on a church. The exterior blends seamlessly with the rest of the surrounding block; I wouldn’t have even known it was a church if not for the two massive domes rising from the building. The interior is gorgeous, filled with gold-laden shrines and entombed rocks of great religious significance.

We slowly proceeded into the building, reaching the Holy Sepulchre itself outside of which mass was being conducted on wooden benches haphazardly laid out on the surrounding marble floor. The Holy Sepulchre is a twenty foot tall wooden structure in the rough shape of a rubix cube said to contain the tomb of Jesus. Its exterior is decorated with incense, candles, and golden ornaments and the entire structure sits inside the massive hollow hallow hall underneath the large of the Church’s two domes. Standing at the columns of the edge of the room, the site was breathtaking, as the room was completely silent save for the occasional harsh whispering of tourists walking through. Out of nowhere, a massive organ sounded, and the mass began.

My experience at Church of the Holy Sepulchre that morning was perhaps the first clearly positive religious experience of my life. Certainly, the first such experience in a LONG time. It clarified my developing religious and spiritual beliefs and represented a new step in my spirituality not based on suffering and anger. Or, at least, not exclusively, and in a far more healthy way. If you’re not interested, feel free to skip ahead several paragraphs, but I’d like to go into the details here.

Over the past year, I’ve read several books from black liberation theologian James Cone, specifically “Martin and Malcolm: American Dream or Nightmare” and “God of the Oppressed.” They have both had a large impact on my political and spiritual outlook, as I’ve emotionally connected with many of the ideas expressed by King and Cone (I love Malcolm but surprisingly didn’t connect with him as much). Essentially, Cone expressed true Christianity as fundamentally a religion of libratory struggle against oppression, with Jesus a revolutionary figure explicitly focused on social and economic justice. King believed in the UNIVERSAL DIGNITY of humanity – that every single individual person in all of creation has self-worth, dignity, and rights. I agree, one hundred percent, with both claims – claims that are fundamentally inter-related in my opinion. To me, these claims are not so much the product of a well-thought-out intellectual analysis as they are fundamental statements on the nature of reality. In my gut, in my soul, I feel them to be true. The struggle is holy because every single person is holy.

God calls us all to liberate those suffering from the banality of systemic violence – be they trans-folk killed for being true to their inner self, black folk shot in the face while their killers walk free, homeless persons starving away in the winter, victims of rape and sexual harassment, disabled folk pitied into nothingness, etc. There are many other examples and dimensions just as heinous. Jesus provides an example of the extent to which God calls us to sacrifice for liberation, as Jesus struggled with every fiber of being to make this world a better place until a suppressive state executed Jesus for political rebellion against the empire of the day.  In this context, the resurrection of Jesus represents a promise and a hope. No matter how dire things may seem, regardless of which direction the world seems to be heading or which injustices go unpunished and forgot, good will always triumph. Liberation will always come. Even if this seems crazy to think because of present circumstances, the resurrection of Jesus constitutes a divine mandate on the inevitability of Liberation. And it that’s hard to believe or challenges rationality, well, that’s why they call it faith. It’s the hope that keeps us going when all else seems lost.

I apologize if I seem somewhat extreme in laying this out. Personally, I think everyone has their unique path to God that brings them fulfillment based on their own experiences. I realize my path is very different from that of others and that’s okay. I would expect no less. But the really cool thing, the take away I found as I stood listening to the somber tones of organ and monk singing in synchronicity, is that I have found my path to God. There is no other God I could imagine respecting, let alone worshipping, than a God of the Oppressed. After years of screaming in silence and quite literally cursing in bloody rage against anything even resembling divinity, I no longer feel alone.

Even now, the memory of this experience resonates with me. I’ve been haphazardly thinking about all this over the past six months but I my experience in the Holy Sepulchre was the keystroke. I cannot remember having a religious experience of such clarity and positivity in my entire life. Later on, my Mom said she thought it was a miracle that I willingly attended mass in the first place.

Anyway, after my rapturous religious revelations, we continued our exploration of Jerusalem. We hiked over to the Western Wall and toured that, though unfortunately we were unable to explore the Temple Mount as it was only accessible to non-Muslims for a two hour period and there was a MASSIVE wait. We walked over to the Mount of Olives and saw the Basilica of Mary Magdalene before coming back to the hotel and grabbing a short nap. Upon waking up, we walked over to Mount Zion on the southern end of the city and saw the Dormition Abbey.

To be honest, I don’t really remember why all those sites are important or what is their religious signicance. That was the one downside about Jerusalem, you really get monument fatigue. Furthermore, I really don’t think you find God in a place – what matters are experiences. A place can be an experience –such as my whole shindig in the Hole Sepulchre – but it can also just be a sterile site. As well, almost all of the Christian sites in Jerusalem were gold laden, which kinda pissed me off. God did not command us to go build gigantic golden temples in his name. Those places are beautiful, but building them is not something we do for God, it’s something we do for ourselves. And that can be a big problem if in building them we forget doing what God actually cares about.

The mentality of many of the religious tourists was also weird. If you’ve been waiting years to do a trip to Jerusalem and are super attached to visiting all the sites and feeling your God in them, ok, I guess it makes sense that you’re a pushy-shovey-jerk trying to get into all the shrines and spend as much time as possible in each. It’s just weird seeing such aggressive body language in supposedly holy sites of a religion about helping and loving each other, not being a selfish prick.  It also reinforced my impression that the sites were not that intrinsically spiritually significant.

Anyway, that night we met back up with the group from Amman, who had come back from visiting Ramallah and were staying in the same hostel. We went out to a restaurant beyond the Damascus gate in the north and all had a scrumptious dinner before sitting outside and smoking hookah, which I am still pretty crappy at despite two months spent in Irbid.

The next morning, we woke at 6AM again, this time with the group from Amman. They wanted to see the mass and we were hoping to actually enter the Holy Sepulchre. After waiting half an hour we were able to enter but it was rather underwhelming, as we were rushed through so a massive Russian tour group could send everyone through before the Sepulchre closed. No similar religious experience the second time through. Afterwards I took a quick nap before we did some souveneir shopping, grabbed lunch, and hopped on a bus to Bethlehem and the Occupied Territories…

TO BE CONTINUED

Accommodating Caves, Impromptu Friends, and Learning to Survive the Jordanian Bus System

So, last weekend I was lucky enough to be able to schedule two and a half days in the South of the country exploring and sightseeing by myself. What follows is an account of my travels. As always, please check out my Facebook photos for an accompanying visual overview of my adventures!

Staring out the bus window, I watched the Jordanian countryside flash by as I scarfed down two large falafel sandwiches – an impromptu lunch eaten on the go as I traveled to Amman for the first leg of my expedition. I had managed to get out of class an hour early to so I could get to the capital in time to catch the last bus to Shobak, an ancient village embedded in the Jordanian mountains south of the Dead Sea. Watching the massive agricultural plateaus of Northwest Jordan speed past no longer conjured the same feelings of excitement and untested opportunity they did two months ago when I arrived in Jordan and as such I was in search of further adventure in the South.

Barely catching a routing bus to Shobak – every seat was taken in the bus (including the floor) and I sat between the driver and the passenger seat on an informal futon-thing – I arrived in the village at about 6:30 PM. Taking a quick taxi to the Hotel I had reserved – the Cave of Abu Ali كهف أبو علي – I arrived just in time to catch a quick glimpse of the reason I had arrived in this outlying town: the ancient crusader fortress of Montreal, also known as Shobak Castle قلعة الشوبك. Its history is described in a short passage from my Lonely Planet guidebook:

“Formerly called Mons Realis (the Royal Mountain), it was built by the Crusader King Baldwin I in 1115 CE. It withstood numerous attacks from the armies of Saladin before succumbing in 1189 after an 18 month siege. It was later occupied in the 14^th century by the Mamluks, who built over many of the crusader buildings.”

Unfortunately, I had arrived too late to do any real exploring that night, so I settled into my hotel, the entrance of which had a beautiful view of the castle perched on the mountain. Quite literally, the hotel was a single cave carved out of the rocky hillside in which Abu Ali and his son Ismail lived. It was rather decorated, the walls plastered with pictures of the country, guests, and Abu Ali while two large ply boards were covered with business cards from all of Abu Ali’s “friends” – guests who had previously stayed in the cave. There was no heating but a large number of massive blankets. The cave was closed by a metal door which helped preserve heat during the relatively frigid nights. A small stove top and refrigerator flanked the entrance from which Abu Ali made a filling dinner of sardines and vegetable mix as we made introductions and got to know one another.

Funnily enough, a rather large family of mountains cats were common visitors at Abu Ali’s Cave, and joined us for dinner the night I was there. Gradually, one calico cat turned into seven as more and more meandered in, sprawling over the floor and fighting each other for the scraps Abu Ali would throw to them as he mixed love with abuse. When I commented on how cute the family was, he laughed and asked me to take the cats off his hands.  After dinner, we feasted on a basketful of fresh sweet and sour pomegranates – which I had never eaten before – and shortly thereafter went to bed.

I woke up at 8AM and immediately went outside, curious to take a second glance at the castle in whose shadow we had slept. I was blown away. The sun now sat behind the cave’s hill and completely illuminated Montreal and the mountain on which it stood, giving a breathtaking view of the ancient fortifications. We ate a quick breakfast of bread and cheese, before Abu Ali introduced me to a friend of his who worked a souveneir stand at the castle entrance. Abu Marwal – Abu Ali’s friend – offered to drive me for free up to the entrance of the castle and I graciously accepted, glad to avoid a 30 minute uphill walk. Shortly thereafter, I entered Shobak Castle.

In total, I spent about two and a half hours exploring the castle. One particularly notable aspect was descending the 375 step secret tunnel inside the castle that leads to a small underground stream before surfacing at the bottom of the hill down from the castle. The descent was somewhat intimidating, as the steps were extremely steep and in some cases had literally withered away to dust. My flashlight – hastily bought two days prior – revealed Arabic script on the ceiling, hundreds of years old. Every time the path turned, a beautifully constructed stone wall supported the tunnel – perhaps foundations to the castle itself or specially built for the tunnel. At the bottom, the spring was little more than a trickle but climbing up small ladder shaft and exiting at the base of the hill was glorious.

After returning to the castle via the tunnel, I meandered over to the castle keep and spent half an hour atop the highest point of the castle, sitting at the very edge eating falafel, catching my breath, and taking in the astonishing views. It’s unfortunate that my pictures of the view can’t effectively convey the same feeling, but you could see forever. The rift valley off in the distance looked like the imprint from the spine of a giant fifteen miles tall. The very breadth of how much lay before gave a sense of my own cosmic insignificance in a way that was beautiful to experience. It was not so much a feeling of cold indifference from a monumental cosmos, but a surprised understanding of just how massive the world is – how much it contains. It would not be possible to see all the world contains – in terms of geography, nature, culture, life, experience – in a hundred thousand lifetimes and what a wonderful realization that was. No matter how old I grow there will always be more to explore, see, understand, perceive. There will always be something new to hear if I am able to listen. Sorry, this probably sounds kind of cliché, but it was still a really damn cool experience.

After exploring the rest of the castle (the Court of Baldwin I, the Eastern Watchtower, the ancient Church and a few catacombs beneath it), and returned to the exit and met with Abu Marwan where we talked and drank tea for an hour or so. He had a pair of binoculaurs which he let me use to survey the landscape in greater detail; I bought a small carved cylinder from him for a few JD as a way of saying thank you.

At this point, my original plan had been to take the bus system to Dana Nature Reserve, my second stop. However, the night before I had been informed by Abu Ali that as it was Yum Al-Jum’a tomorrow يوم الجمع, the Muslim Holy Day (like Sunday in Christianity), there were no buses in Shobak. Normally this isn’t a problem in Irbid, but I hadn’t anticipated that a smaller town like Shobak would not have service on Yum Al-Jum’a. Not relishing having to spend more money, I reluctantly made plans to take a 20 JD cab from Shobak to Dana when I was done exploring the castle.

However, fortune smiled on me; at the very least I got really fucking lucky. While I was sitting there sipping tea with Abu Marwan, a lone older man pulled up in a dusty car and struck up a conversation with us. I began explaining what I was doing and when I mentioned I was going to Dana his face broke into a surprised grin. He stated that he was going to Dana himself in about half an hour and offered to give me a ride for free. Astonished, I thanked him. Initially, I was a little hesitant, as this guy was a total stranger. However, it shortly became clear that he was a close friend of Abu Ali when I mentioned that I still needed to head back to the cave to pay him for the night and meals. I decided that I trusted Abu Ali and if Jabbar – my new acquaintance – was indeed a friend to Abu Ali then I was probably all right. So, after driving the five minutes to Abu Ali’s Cave, paying him and thanking him, I was off to Dana with my extremely generous new friend.

Arriving about thirty minutes later, Jabbar and I stepped out of his car and I took a second to process the view before me. Dana Village قرية دانا was an ancient, quaint village composed of old stone architecture – half of which was clearly in ruins – nestled in the central shoulder of a massive mountain covered in trees and overlooking a narrow valley stretching off as far as the eye could see. Which is to say – the site was breathtaking, and somewhat abnormal compared against the rather uniform desert geography which Jordan seems to be composed of when you leave the northwest corner of the country.

Jabbar, a handyman, spent the next twenty minutes repairing some sort of heat-vane contraption on the roof of one of Dana’s few restaurants before we entered the building and met its owners. Two men – a Jordanian and a Lebanese – owned the place. Previously been partners at a restaurant on the King’s Highway before increased competition had forced them out, they had only opened their restaurant in Dana ten days before Jabbar and I arrived. After talking for a short while, I realized that I was starving, and suggested lunch before offering to buy Jabbar’s lunch as thanks for his generosity. Shortly thereafter, we were feasting on lamb kebab made from locally butchered livestock and inspected by the Lebanese chef. Funnily enough, we were the first customers to eat meat at the new restaurant, and thus it seemed doubly a privilege being able to eat delicious lamb kebab in the warm afternoon shade.

Promising that we would see each other again before we left Dana, I left Jabbar and went to check in with my hotel. Shortly after receiving my room and key, I walked over to the outer courtyard to sit for a second and accidently interrupted the conversation of two Germans. Introducing myself and apologizing, we struck up a conversation and ended up talking for an hour. My new german acquaintances Phillip and Flo explained their situation in Jordan – they were both water engineers working in Amman with a consulting corporation which was attempting to modernize the Jordanian water system. Their work specifically focused on the well system. Both spoke German and English (as well as a few other various European tongues) but neither spoke a lick of Arabic. It was interesting listening to their stories and hearing a very different perspective on Jordan as they discussed their difficulties with the language as well as how frustrating the corruption and apathy within the Jordanian water management departments were for their jobs. They described visiting wells in the middle of the desert which appeared as green oases surrounded by plants and animals – all of which was the result of easily fixable leaks in the pipes which had gone untended.

We exchanged numbers and I promised that I would call them the next time that I visited Amman. This ended up being the next weekend, when I and a couple other students got drinks with Phillip, Flo, and some of their friends. Although it was an incredibly good time, it is a story best recounted in a different blog post.

After leaving my new German friends as they drove off to a nearby campsite, I descended into Dana Nature Reserve محمية دانا الطبيعية for a quick two hour hike before the sun set. Although the reserve rules clearly stated that hikers without guides should not deviate from main trails or wander, I… selectively forgot that bit and meandered off on an intriguing little side trail pretty quickly after leaving Dana. Interestingly enough, the mountain was covered with an impromptu irrigation system consisting of concrete trenches and black pipes that carried the water downhill – for what purpose I knew not. My trail was rather informal, at times narrowing off to a hazy six inches between fields of tall grass, certainly more of an adventure than the massive gravel main trail. After a while, it deadened. Carefully marking the location so I wouldn’t get lost, I explored the surrounding area and took some glorious photographs of the sunset. As well as a few selfies, cause, ya know, I didn’t really have anyone else around to take a picture of my great solo escapade.

Easily finding my informal trail again, I followed it back to a spot where it met with a rock-face and began to climb the rocks, more horizontally than vertically after I realized that the rocks were not the most stable and vertical climbing might lead to an unsightly end. Eventually, I made my way back to the main trail just as the sun vanished against the horizon and quickly made my way back to the hotel in the remaining light.  Eating a quick and filling dinner from the buffet-style options available at the hotel, I collapsed in my bed and easily fell asleep.

The next day – Yum As-Sebt يوم السبت – was the last day of the weekend and as such I had to return to Irbid. However, hoping to see more of the reserve, I woke up at 7AM and ate a quick breakfast before descending once again, this time focused on reaching the base of the valley instead of meandering. Although I did have a more concrete goal in mind, I still managed to meander, finding a particularly interesting rockwall about two-thirds of the way down and deciding climbing the rock would be more interesting than the main gravel path. After about twenty minutes of pointed exploration, hoping to climb down, I stumbled upon some sort of water facility towards which some of the irrigation system was directed. Pools of water lapped outside a plain concrete shelter, as the sound of flowing water dominated the early morning valley. Taking a breather, I sat there for about twenty minutes and just took everything in, listening to the water interrupted only by the occasional bird song. The light of the newborn sun slid across the valley prompting what was almost a dance between the shadow and light as both cascaded around the mountains and valleys. Eventually, I stood up and continued my descent.

After having hiked for about 70 minutes, much of which was spent on the rocks, I finally reached the base of the valley, where the hiking leveled off and traversed across small hills as opposed to mountains. Eventually, I stumbled across the “official” entrance to Dana Nature Reserve, a sign I only reached fifteen minutes before I had to head back and a testament to the gargantuan size of the reserve. Returning was far more draining than descending, as most of the trail was forty-five degrees, an unforgiving angle. Eventually however, I made my way back to my hotel, where I met up with Jabbar briefly, and waited for a ride into Qudsiyya – the local town past the mountain where the bus stop was located – so I could grab a bus out.

The bus ride back was rather exhausting, and an interesting experience of itself. My ride dropped me off at the side of the road on the outskirts of Qudsiyya القضسية and told me to wait for the bus as it had to pass through. I spent 45 minutes waiting for a bus that had an open spot, then spent another forty five minutes sitting in the bus as it drove around Qudsiyya trying to fill itself up before it drove over the Tafila الطفيلة , the next stop. The actual ride from Qudsiyya to Tafila was another 45 minutes. Luckily, as I was waiting I made a new friend – a local Jordanian heading to Karak named Ahmad who was only a few years older than myself. We chatted haphazardly throughout the busride. When we arrived in Tafila, the bus driver dropped us off about a five minute walk from the actual bus station, and I was extremely glad I had made friends with Ahmad as he helped me find a bathroom and guided me to the bus station where he hopped on a bus to Karak and I sat down in a bus bound for Amman, exhausted from my morning hike and the entire weekend. As Ahmad’s bus pulled out of the station, he excitedly waved at me, and I smiled back.

Unfortunately, my bus literally spent an hour and a half waiting in Tafila for every single seat to be taken. By the time we actually left, two people were standing because there weren’t enough seats. It was a relatively uneventful bus ride past that point, aside from the fact that my bus broke down about 20 minutes outside of Amman and the driver spent 15 minutes trying to kickstart the engine. I was legitimately starting to freak out, worried about finding a taxi into Amman on the highway, when the engine started backup and we resumed our route. Past that, it was relatively easy to take a service taxi from the southern bus station to the northern one and hop on the bus to Irbid. However, it wasn’t until 9PM that I finally stepped into my apartment, more than exhausted. 

"Really Freaking Awesome and Undeniably Unforgettable"

[Note: On my facebook page is an album full of pictures from this entire journey with a matching chronology. If you want, feel free to check that out, though not all the pictures have been uploaded yet. The album name is in Arabic and it's my most recent photo album]

Our bus pulled into the front lot of the Silk Road Hotel in Wadi Musa at about 9PM. Thirty slightly exhausted but visibly excited students shuffled into the front lobby to receive room assignments and keys. The building was constructed on the side of a cliff, so the ground floor lobby on the eastern side of the building was the four stories above the ground on the western side. Entering my room, one level under the lobby, I went straight to my window and opened it. Sitting astride the ledge, I breathed the cool night air and glanced across the valley to the entrance of the ancient city of Petra – البتراء.

That morning all the US students – 13 of us – had left from our apartment building in Irbid with a motley assortment of our language partners and roommates for a meandering three day sojourn through the south of the country. After driving for about two hours through the Jordanian countryside – rolling hills symmetrically covered with stubby greens and scruffy olive trees – we arrived at the Dead Sea البحر الميت. We spent about three hours here at a resort which clearly catered to tourists. A large swimming pool sat 20 meters above the sea, as the valley gradually wound down to the beach. 

To say the least, the Dead Sea was surreal. It’s one thing to read about how the maniacally high salt content causes the human body to float. It’s another to swim 30 feet away from shore where the water depth is fifteen feet and just lie there without the slightest effort in the world, staring at the imposing cliffs of the West Bank on the other side of the sea. The mud is also easily accessible – you can literally just scoop it up with your hand from the ocean floor. Like children, we all played with it until our bodies were covered with a ragged collection of smiley faces and handprints. 

After lunching in the excellent resort restaurant, we continued our journey. Our next destination was Karak – an ancient city high in the rocky Jordanian mountains which was home to an old crusader castle قلعة الكرك. Ascending from the sea to the city was breathtaking, as the bus climbed near vertical roads winding through mountains which towered over the ocean plateau. Upon arriving in Karak we dived straight into the castle, as we only had an hour to explore. Entering through a lowered drawbridge, we were immediately treated to a gorgeous view of the valley sprawling out before us. It was another surreal experience, standing in the middle of a drawbridge connecting an ancient castle to a modern city and looking out across the chasm to the valley. I stood on the rampart from which Renaud de Chatillon – the French lord who ran the Castle during the crusades – threw his prisoners to their deaths and contemplated the fall. I walked through tunnels dissecting the belly of the castle which seemed to have no end – somehow running into two perfectly modern couches randomly sitting next to a window. And I stood atop the highest part of the castle where everything I saw lay below me. 

The next day I woke up at about 6:30 in my hotel room at Wadi Musa. Though the sun had not yet broken into the sky, it was effectively light outside as we all ate a small breakfast before departing from the hotel. It was about a ten minute walk from the hotel to the official park entrance, where we presented our tickets. From there, the massive trail heads into Petra. We walked for about another ten minutes before we encountered the Siq  السيق-  the iconic canyon guarding the entrance to Petra. Although the size varied, the gap generally stayed between ten and thirty feet across and continued for another fifteen minutes before we came to the Treasury الخزنة, the most famous site in Petra. In reality, it was most likely constructed as a place of burial by the Nabateans, but the local Bedouin thought it was their treasury. The first view of the Treasury through the Siq was absolutely breathtaking, as but a ragged slice of the iconic façade was visible through the rocks in front of us. There is an urn at the top of the building covered with gun shots – the Bedouin thought it contained treasure and would shoot it trying to break the urn get the gold. 

After the treasury, the Siq begins to open up gradually, eventually transitioning into a wide courtyard-like space housing the amphitheater before disappearing entirely into wide plain. There are several divergent paths available at this point – I decided to take the stairs climbing up to the High Place of Sacrifice, or the Altar – المذبح. From the floor of the canyon, it took about half an hour of steady climbing to ascend the relentless stairs to the highest point of the adjacent mountains. The apex of Jebel Madhbah is relatively flat, perhaps 30 ft by 80 ft, in the center of which sits a 2 foot deep rectangular depression, 10 ft by 20 ft, which the Nabateans used for sacrifices. Sitting atop this point it was possible to see the entirety of Petra. The city’s ruins dotted the landscape. Tombs and caves spread across the mountains like flowers, not connected to any tourist path of sightseeing route, just sitting there. Several clusters of columns in the plain indicated two-thousand year old centers of activities, while a larger assortment of buildings indicated the city center. About the only thing we couldn’t see was the monastery – الدير – which was located on the other side of a mountain pass, perhaps a 70 minute hike from the Treasury. A testament to the grand size of Petra. All of this was clustered on the North and East side of the mountain – to the West lay grand mountain ranges stretching out as far as I could see. Although I had started the climb by myself, about halfway up I ran into three of my good friends from the group. Together, we sat in silence atop the mountain, listening to the wind and taking in the enormity of what we saw. 

Afterwards, my language partner and I headed south and began climbing the mountain, while our two other friends began the descent down the opposite side of the mountain. For perhaps half an hour we meandered up and down the peaks of the mountain, exploring and seeing how far we could go. No path lay before us – we wandered (التجول) and sought out the highest points going forward. I have never encountered hiking such as that which I did at Petra and it was by far one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. 

Taking the trail, we descended down the western side of the mountain and walked around the base, heading back towards the treasury and collection of buildings where the eastern mountain trail (which we had used to ascend) begins. At this point, my language partner retired, heading back to the hotel, but I kept going. I thought to myself, “Petra could very well prove to literally be a once in a lifetime opportunity. If I end up running myself into the ground, that’s a small price to pay for another hour of exploration.” (Note: kinda did end up running myself into the ground. The one hour hike back from the courtyard-valley to the hotel was preeeeetty sucky.)

The western face of the mountain to the NE of Jebel Madhbah (جبل ام الأمي) is covered with ancient tombs; a path leads to the most grand of these: the Urn Tomb. About half-way up I stopped at a sign to take a breath when a voice called out to me in English – “would you like some tea?” I looked up, surprised, to see a woman clothed in all black sitting in a souveneir stand, waving towards me. Having made the somewhat stupid oversight of not bringing water with me, I walked over to the stand, offering my thanks. She pulled out a second plastic chair and we sat in the shade of her stand, speaking and sharing stories. Somehow, I managed to have a 20 minute conversation with her – completely in Arabic. She talked of her Bedouin heritage, how fifteen years ago the government had forced her people out of Petra proper into a smaller village. She talked of how it was difficult making ends meet, especially with how tourism had slowed after the Arab Spring. She talked of sending children to University, and trying to pay for that.

As I finished my tea, she asked if I would like to buy anything from her stand. Feeling it would be rude not to, I asked if she had any Jewelry, figuring I could give it as a gift to a friend or family member back in the States. Her first offer was a necklace – for which she asked 40 JD. Really not wanting to spend that much money, I ended up selecting a smaller necklace and haggling the price down to 15 JD before continuing on. Afterwards, I felt like I might have gotten screwed on the price, as I saw a sign at another stand advertising bracelets of similar make – 2 for 5 JD. Though, the way I see it, I paid for the experience, which in that light was absolutely worth 15 JD (roughly 23 USD). 

After visiting the Urn Tomb, I continued the path up the mountain, which dead-ended several minutes later. Undeterred, I continued to climb (التسلّق) up the face of the mountain, free form. About twenty minutes of hard climbing later, I stopped on a shaded ledge to take a breath and behold the beauty of the valley before me. I sat there for a while, just looking around. I was high enough up that I couldn’t hear any tourist – only the wind – and had a perfect view of the amphitheater directly across from me. After my breather, I descended slightly and continued towards a plateau above the valley floor which was covered with structures but devoid of tourists. I spent perhaps an hour in total climbing and exploring that mountain before I decided to return to the hotel, realizing that it would take an hour to walk back from my current location, as I had to descend to the valley and walk the entire way back to the hotel.

Climbing that mountain, what was most astonishing to me was how you could just find old tombs and signs of settlement – stumble across them only by chance. I wasn’t following any path of directions, I was wandering across the face of the Jebel. Occasionally, stairs would appear and disappear. At one point, there was a lonely spire of rock ahead of me which ancient stairs carved into the side – I began to ascend before feeling my own fleeting mortality and subsequently chickening out. Near my breathing point, there was a small trawl-like space clearly carved out of the rock, forming a square 3 foot depression. Perhaps a resting place for ancient Nabateans, or the local Bedouins? Regardless, a clear sign of habitation. My favorite moment from that part of the hike was standing before a great tomb directly above the valley floor. I could see the sprawl of tourists below but I was utterly alone before the cavernous resting place, a fifty foot cliff separating me from the masses. I sat for a second, resting, and laughed in joy. 

After showering and eating a delicious buffet lunch in our hotel, we continued on to Wadi Rum – the desert. A two hour drive from Petra, pretty much everyone on the bus slept the entire way. Except for a few of the Jordanians, who felt that it was the appropriate moment for karaoke on the bus loudspeakers. 

Upon arriving in Rum Village, we all excited from our nice tour bus and loaded all our stuff into a convoy of four open ended pickup trucks. With six people sitting in the rear of each truck, we entered the desert, the trucks rumbling across the sands as the setting sun cast a red glare across the land. For the next two hours we drove, stopping twice for a half hour break each time to climb and explore on foot. The entire desert was composed of broad expanses of flat sand broken up by jutting towers of red rock – the original skyscrapers. The second stop was particularly memorable. This particular mountain featured a sliding hill of sand that went about three quarters of the way up the mountain. As a group, all the students took off their shoes and socks and raced up the sand barefoot… before losing steam and stopping for a breather. By the time we had managed to make it to the top of the sand we were perhaps seventy feet from the desert floor. I continued climbing, carefully watching my footing, and made it to the top plateau of the rock in my bare feet. The wind was deafening and the scenery gorgeous, as I was lucky enough to be sitting there about half an hour before the sun set. If I look away from the group, the wind blocked out any noise and I was utterly alone, without any other being, standing on top of the desert. 

Upon descending, I raced down the sandy hill with three of my friends, running at a breakneck speed. In a sprint, the hill that had taken me about five good minutes to ascend took me literally twenty seconds to descend. It was really fucking awesome. After a third stop to watch the sun set, we entered the camp where we would be spending the night. It was a good bit more developed than the camp I had been expecting, which to be completely honest was really nice as I was dog-tired. There was a stone building complete with full bathrooms, showers, and electricity. A longhouse sat next to a fire ring while 20 identical sedentary tents finished off the camp. The entire complex formed a hollow square and sat nestled in the shadow of one of the Desert Mountains. 

That night, we ate a delicious meal. I forget the name, but the main course was traditional Bedu chicken and beef, literally cooked inside a cylindrical hole in the ground. The meat was delicious and melted off the bone. Afterwards, everyone gathered in a circle around the firepit as the Bedouin brothers who ran the camp played music and sang for us. However, my strongest memory of the night is of wandering off into the desert with a group of friends to watch the stars. After a while, I was by myself, being the fastest walker. I lay down in the middle of the desert, the only earthly lights coming from my friends’ phones in the distance and past that the camp, and looked up. Galaxies sprang to life above me, as I saw the Milky Way with such clarity as I have never experienced before. For twenty minutes I lay there, my mind empty of all thoughts. There were only the stars (النجوم), the moon (القمر) and the quiet rustling of the wind. 

Later in the night, a few of the Bedouin came out to join our group in the desert, only about five minutes away from the camp, still clearly visible. They began to assemble brush and sticks, and illuminated by the light of their smartphones set about the making a fire. If that’s not globalization, I don’t know what is. Until 11PM or so, we sat there, trading stories against the dying fire. 

My alarm woke me up at about 5AM, as I wanted to walk to the mountain opposite the camp and watch the sun rise. When I stepped out of my tent, I let out a cry a shock and called for my roommate to look. The crescent moon was embedded in the sky, casting out light like a second soon. The desert landscape was clearly illuminated by the moon, a new beauty my overloaded brain had yet to see. After climbing about halfway up the mountain, an easy task with the moonlight, I sat down with four friends and we waited. We never actually got to the point where we saw the sun peak over the opposite mountain, as it was really tall and we didn’t want to wait another two hours, but we got to the point where it was clearly day around us. 

After everyone in the camp awoke, we cleared out at about 9AM and spent the entire day driving back to Irbid, stopping in Jerash (جرش) for a really fancy, delicious bite to eat. And… that was my weekend! Sorry if I sound pretentious here (I felt a little pretentious writing this), but this trip was grand beyond belief. In the future, I would absolutely love to return to Karak and Petra, as there was so much I didn’t see in either site. We’ll see whether that’s possible with time and money constraints, but one can hope. It was amazing, it was beautiful, it was really freaking awesome and undeniably unforgettable.

Insomnia, Gender, Labor

Last night I couldn’t sleep.

I lay in my bed for nearly two hours going over and over and over the events of the week, my thoughts like storm waves clawing at a desolate trawler. My body was exhausted but my mind just wouldn’t shut down as it tried to process my experiences and observations over gender in Jordan. At the same time, I was feeling not so much homesick as activism-sick – longing to come back to the United States and return to the fights I has been engaged in over the Spring and Summer.

After living in Irbid for about a month, I’m getting the sense that there are some fundamental differences surrounding gender relations between  the US and Jordan. Here, the genders only interact under very specific circumstances – often (though not all the time) there seems to be a de facto wall barring any informal interactions between men and women. I still don’t necessarily understand everything, so it might be best to take my thoughts with an extra grain of salt until I’ve been able to process and observe more. However, there does seem to be some clarity to the fact that the consequence of this stark separation is that men are given extreme social agency while women have little to none. 

A few examples:

• I have not talked to a single Jordanian woman since arriving other than the staff in my program and roommates of my American friends. This is a literal fact. It is interesting how this contrasts with the extreme hospitality of the culture to reveal social agency. For example, whenever I cross the street it sometimes seems like half the city says “Welcome to Jordan!” Despite the enthusiastic gusto, the welcome really only does come from half the population.
• Reinforcing this fact, certain service sector jobs – shop owners, clerks, wait staff, cooks – seem to be predominantly male. I have only seen female clerks in large department stores – not in smaller local establishments. Whenever I go to the store to buy groceries or eat at a restaurant, most of interactions are with other men. However, I have seen female teachers, janitors, and government staff.
• When a Jordanian friend who had studied in Houston invited several of my friends to his house, his wife cooked the meal. My friends never saw her, never spoke with her, never congratulated her on the absolutely amazing job she did although their descriptions afterwards had my mouth watering. 

 Perhaps the craziest thing was a Jordanian friend of mine explaining his family dynamics. If he wants tea or coffee, he tells his mother or sister to make it for him. If they don’t, his Dad yells at them. 

However, I think it is important to avoid the perception that Jordanian women are fundamentally meek or subservient – those few Jordanian women I have interacted with tend to have incredibly strong and vibrant personalities punctuated by copious amounts off laughter. My teacher has a loud yet cute guffaw which she uses quite often in our class. She is established as the authority in our class and all the students clearly respect her. The program director curses like a sailor and is kinda like that crazy Aunt you can’t wait to see over the holidays. I’ve discussed the best Arabic curse words with her – her favorite is “your mother’s pussy.” 

The hardest thing for me has been figuring out where I stand in relation to the clear patriarchy in Jordan. As shocked as I am by some of the gender traditions, I can’t help but think of Arab feminists who have written on how white feminists trying to “fix” Arab culture are just as big a problem as patriarchy itself. It’s a pretty clear case of why intersectionality is integral to any social justice struggle. Right now, probably the worst thing I could do would be to fight. All I can do is observe and listen – I’ve only been here for a month. There’s a lot I haven’t seen. I want to talk to the Jordanian women I do know and get a deeper understanding of their thoughts on Jordanian culture and gender.  

I skyped with a good friend of mine last Thursday and I kept going through this circular thought process, thinking about how she’d love it here in Jordan, then remembering how that she would have a very different experience because she’s female, then realizing she probably would not love it here because she is female. That thought trail ran through my head several times before we actually talked. 

As an activist, I’m used to being engaged in a struggle against the injustices of the world. When I see suffering around me, it pisses me off and makes me want to fight. But here, unlike the United States, I don’t have any fight to channel that emotion into. Right now, I’m not part of a community actively dedicated to changing the world for the better and fighting the really bad shit that exists out there. Having this experience of being forcibly dissociated from activism… is weird. 

That was the other thing that kept me up last night – thinking about the fights I’m involved in – on campus and with the union. I kept visualizing what they were doing, what they would be doing, and how I would fit in with that when I returned. There’s that really trite phrase “distance makes the heart grow fond.” To be completely honest, that’s how I feel with activism right now. We’ll see where I am after a semester, but experiencing life without activism… is dull. Like a broad and beautiful canvass with the vibrancy of color robbed from it. For me, one of the many wonderful opportunities that come from this study abroad program is self-reflection. And as a result of such reflection, I can’t really see myself doing anything but activism after I graduate. After spending two years volunteering and working in social justice activism, it's not just that the work fills an emotional need. In all truth, I love the work.

That being said, I think this semester is a wonderful opportunity for me as a social justice activist. This semester is a lesson in listening which I’m thankful for. As a white man, I’ve grown up in a society and globalized world which prioritizes my words first – regardless of their content – because I’m a white man. I’ve received a lot more training in speaking than I have in listening. Here, I don’t know shit because it’s not my culture and that’s a great thing because, if I really want to understand, I have to listen! (Though, I get the sense white/American privilege does totally exist here – that might be the subject of a later post).