Saturday, August 4, 2007

The First Camel Sighting

The camel sighting is toward the end of the observations of the day…

Thursday evening is the end of the work week in Jordan, since Sunday-Thursday is like our Monday to Friday. Eric Widmer (the headmaster) invited the entire KA staff to a dinner in Amman. He wanted to host a dinner not just for faculty, but the grounds staff, security, food service staff, so that everyone went and felt feted together. I was told this was a rarity in Jordan, since this is a mixing of the social classes a bit, and so all 200 of us (about 60 teachers and then everybody else that makes the school hum) descended upon a well-known and lively place for a barbecue.

So we show up at this restaurant that looks very much as if it would be at home in Disney World’s EPCOT pavilion for Morocco. There is the cool Arabian castle effect, and the Islamic turrets and scooped openings, and the waterfall in the middle, just for extra Vegas-y effect. This is a huge place! There are probably a couple hundred other guests there that night, so our 200 fit in quite well as we gather around tables for 8 with family style serving.

A Barbecue in Jordan is really a “Lebanese Grill” (because we all knew that, right?) and there is much food to enjoy. The waiters start with the “mezze” consisting of appetizers, maybe 15 bowls and plates per table, with various roasted eggplant dips, tzatziki, fritter-like things, hummus, pickled vegetables, and pita. You are to dip in and pass, and keep on passing…

Then the platters arrive. But these platters are not wimpy platters—they are the size of a bear’s torso, and they are laden with a fantasia of roasted delights—shish kebab, lamb, chicken, vegetables, potatoes, and then we dig in again. And again. The food was great, and the atmosphere was so festive. While people generally sat with their workplace peers, many started mingling so that the drivers and the grounds crew and the deans and faculty visited in between the heaping plates of “barbecue.” After the meal, many engaged in, I forget the word (yes, I am trying to learn an Arabic or two everyday—classes don’t start yet for formal Arabic training), for what we might call, the passing of the peace pipe. Think of any Hollywood movie set in the Arab world, with the bazaar setting, and the huge, baroque pipe. So they had the pipe with melon snuff.

The drive home from Amman started out in gridlock. I guess everyone else was out to celebrate the weekend too and we didn’t move much as the bus headed for the Academy. So the busdriver cranked up the radio, and the security guards started whooping and singing on the bus to the Arab tunes. The KA bus behind us saw the convivial spirit, and so the passengers on that bus started dancing. Not to be outdone, our security guards on our bus started dancing and clapping and the women workers started ululating (okay, great word, huh? It is when you move your tongue in an exciting, serpentine way and screech out in a feral falsetto!) to the music. So as the KA buses navigate the busy streets of Amman, most of the passengers are dancing and singing and clapping and ululating in the buses. Shoulda brought the video camera! As we arrived back at campus, the workers bound off the bus and dance in the parking lot, grabbing the headmaster and his wife, and therein begins an Arabian-like square dance. I think the experiment of mixing the faculty and staff paid off. Everyone was comfortable, smiling and laughing.

Yesterday was a planned trip to the Dead Sea.

Keep waiting for the camel sighting—I know you’re wondering when it is…

The Dead Sea, as you may know, is famed as the lowest point on earth. I hope this is not a metaphor for my career…

Anyway, barely a handful of kilometers (see how I am trying to adjust to the metric world!!) west of King’s Academy limits, the rugged highlands of central Jordan drop away dramatically into the Dead Sea rift. This giant valley (or “wadi”) marks a geological dividing line as a political one, with the Arabian plate to the east, and the African plate to the west. Between the two is the River Jordan (more than just a phrase in a Pete Seeger folksong!!) defining Jordan’s western border as it flows into the large, salty inland lake of the Dead Sea. And on the other side of the lake/sea is Israel—I mean you can see it like how we New Yorkers can see New Jersey across the Hudson!!

On the way there you drive by the most authoritative and best-documented (believe me, I asked, and drivers swear to the authority and documents) candidate for the Baptism site of Jesus. So just driving there is exciting as it converges important geological, archaeological, natural, political and religious associations.

Okay, so we are off to the Marriott Hotel Spa/Resort on the Dead Sea. So far there are three spa/resorts, and a public beach, but Jordan is working on developing more—they say there are condos and golf courses in the works (hmmm…the new Vegas???) to expand and, well, make some more moolah (if they build it—the rich will come…)

We are going to spend the day at the beach.

Now for those of you who know me well, I seem to have ADD at a beach—I get bored laying out, I like cool air, and, when do we eat??????? But, one can’t miss the Dead Sea—famed for its mud and floating in the salty water.

We pay our $50 to be a day guest (ahh…they have studied western ways!) and then we claim an umbrella since everyone warned us, “the sun is beyond hot, and two words of advice: sunscreen, and hydrate!” I get an umbrella, and sit for a few minutes. Then I need to explore this swanky resort…I find the spa. I hear there are massages. I hear you get some of your entrance fee returned if you purchase a massage treatment. I think about it for a minute, and sign up for a 2:30 Swedish Deep Tissue Massage. I also get to use the spa facilities all day. Zen.

Next I get a new teacher-buddy and we go down to the actual beach. Okay, the shoreline is 400 meters (again, we should do a little metric work Americans!) below sea level. The Dead Sea got its name in the Roman Empire due to its uniquely salty water, which kills off virtually all marine life (it is 10 times saltier than regular sea water!). If you want to know more about how it gets so salinated, email me, and I will play science teacher for 60 seconds—all I can probably muster and sustain.

The major reason for the visit is to slather on the hot, sulphurous black mud that collects on the beach. Everything your mother told every six year old boy is thrown out the window here—go ahead! Cover yourself in mud!!! They say the mud has excellent science-y, medicinal ingredients: calcium, magnesium, sulfur, bromine and bitumen (okay, what is bitumen?). So you take this free skin-care product and put it everywhere and walk into the Dead Sea, and the high salinity makes the water so buoyant it’s literally impossible to sink. You become a bobbing cork, so one just gives in to it, and you lie back and you find the water supports you like a cradle. The Sea washes off the mud, leaving your skin tingly and baby-skin soft.

Who wants jars of the Dead Sea mud as Christmas gifts??

After lunch I made my way to the spa for the massage—yeah, that’s my kind of day-at-the-beach, and it was great. After the massage I was in the steam room, and met two cousins who wanted to talk to the American with the new job in Jordan. I talked with Yusef and Slamon for the next 40 minutes about their trips to Canada, and what they like about the Arab world and the American world, and just enjoyed a friendly conversation.
I had been told Arabs genuinely like starting up conversations, and not just acting like they don’t see you, as we often behave in our stores and subways.

So—we drive back to King’s Academy, past many Bedouins who herd sheep and live out in their camel-skin tents on these hills. We drive by a cave that is thought to be Lot’s Cave, where Abraham’s nephew Lot sought refuge from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (they have recovered shreds of evidence of these razed cities that make these claims tantalizingly credible).

Just as we are about to turn off to the entrance to King’s Academy, about a quarter mile from the school (yes, I’m tired, so back to American measurements) I see a man and his camel going through his herd of sheep! I told you! The first sighting of the camel!!

And there you have it!

1 comment:

My Song said...

Bring me Mud for Christmas!
Wow what an adventure!