My New Friend Freeda

It is no big secret—I am sentimental about many things: those final hugs on Graduation days, the metallic smell of the air before the first snow, any signed note to “King” from niece Emma and/or nephew Jack, the last scene in It’s a Wonderful Life. If you read the blog entry a couple months ago about my comfort foods, you know I revel in sentimentality! But as a general rule, I do not indulge in sentimental naming of inanimate objects. That leaves me cold.

However—I have a new friend, and she has been christened “Freeda.”

Our marvelous, rip-roaring new (as of early January) colleague Tessa has leased a car. She was here only a matter of days before she announced, “Right. To make this work out here we simply must have a car. We simply must have Freedom.” Tessa punctuates all her emphatic statements with a “we must” imperative. Wishy-washy, she ain’t.

A couple of weeks ago this little pug-nosed, white car arrived on campus and Tessa called me up and said, “Come on Jaari (a quick Arabic lesson—jaari means 'my neighbor')—let’s go get John and Suzanne and go for a ride.” The car had just been delivered that afternoon and everything inside was still encased in plastic. We ripped through the plastic covers of seats and belts and levers and wheels as we reminded Tessa that we would be driving on the right side of the road in this country. “Right,” Tessa understood it was not her comfort zone of left-side-of-the-road-driving like her native South Africa.

I will admit—we were giddy. The combined ages of the four of us probably approaches 225 or better, and yet we were giddy getting into the car at the prospect of driving the handful of kilometers to Madaba. I remember a giddiness like this—way back on a sultry June evening in the early 1980s I arrived at a birthday party for life-long friend Doris O, and as the proud recipient several hours before of a driver’s license, I drove to the party! I was the first of our group to command a driver’s license, and unfortunately I stole some of the spotlight of Doris’ party away from her as I drove various groups of people around the block all evening to show off my independence and driving prowess. It was a giddy feeling that night. Heck, I was giddy all through high school driving! When Kevin and I drove around it was that sheer thrill of being young men with a car to drive. As memory serves Kevin loved his car so much he christened his Corvair, “Carly.” I mocked him mercilessly for that sentimental attachment.

Anyway—back to 2008 and this middle-aged giddiness. Here we were—driving into town, helping Tessa stay on the correct side of the road, on our way to meet Mr. Ziad, the merchant in Madaba who owned “Carpet World” (I know—how cheesy can you get to live in a neat, foreign place and actually patronize a store with such a Babbitt-like name!) If you remember, John and Suzanne had recently chastised me for not decorating my home with any of the merchandise readily available here in Jordan. Mr. Ziad was going to open my world, and I was going to open my wallet, as I brought color to my semi-new digs.

We careen through the cluttered, twisty streets of Madaba, and arrive at the temple of carpets. Mr. Ziad is so ebullient to see his old friends (and treasured customers) John and Suzanne, and thrilled at the prospect of ripe, new acquaintances. He looks just like you want him to look—a striking resemblance to the bazaar-owner character Sydney Greenstreet played in Casablanca. He has a smile as wide as the Jordanian sunset, a paunchy stomach upon which his fingers play like an air band, and a devilishly coy business sense: “Ahh, Mr. John, if you are friends with Mr. John and Miss Suzanne and Dr. Eric, I will give you the best price in Jordan!” “Miss Tessa, come over here and sit down. I hope you are comfortable so you may enjoy my carpets.”

Mr. Ziad’s daughter brought us mint tea, and we sipped as he lugged carpet after carpet onto the floor so we could inspect the stitching, the patterns, the colors, the history. As I said in another entry, John and Suzanne have made the proverbial hay whilst the sun has shone—they have acquired maybe 25 carpets in their apartment. I came with money to spend—about $450, and no expertise on how to pick a carpet.

Mr. Ziad was patient though. After about a dozen or so carpets I began to get a feel for what I liked. He had carpets from Iran, Iraq, and Jordanian Bedouins. I liked most the striking patterns and the interplays of color. Suzanne had whispered in my ear that he was a fair merchant and they felt comfortable with his prices. I started to make a list and some notes about which ones seemed the best choices.

After the smiling, the chatting, the tea-sipping, I decided on two rugs. One rug is about 2 feet by 4 feet, with about seven patterns throughout, repeated about three times in succession. I chose it in part because of the dazzling patterns, and striking reds in it, and also, since it was from Iran, it reminded me of the Khosrowshahi family, a proud Iranian family I treasure back in Tarrytown. Somehow to purchase these somewhat costly items, I needed a connection, dare I say, a sentimentality, attached to them. The other rug is about 12 feet by 4 feet and comes from a Bedouin weaver near Madaba. There is something tightly constructed about this rug, strong like the Bedouins I see as I pass them on the roads. Maroon and cream dominate the rug (my high school colors—Go Mustangs!) with navy and hunter green striping the rug. The rugs cost about what I had anticipated, with just enough for dinner out at our favorite Lebanese grill in Madaba.

Haret Jdoudna is everyone’s favorite place in Madaba—ummm, frankly, there is not much competition—someone should wise up and open up some franchises here! HJ in Arabic means, “the courtyard of my ancestors,” and as the four of us sat by the fire in this great restaurant we relished, as Tessa reminded us, our Freedom. “I hereby dub her Freeda,” toasted Tessa. As we drove back to KA with the new carpets, I dug out the old civil rights era song with a slight twist: “I woke up this morning with my mind staying on Freeda…” Giddy we are!

Tessa announced the following day that Freeda was restless and wanted to go out driving that weekend. Who am I to keep her all cooped up here—plans were made, people chosen, and off we went. Some of us had never been to Bethany, so that was our first stop with Freeda on that Friday. Bethany is the site of some of the most important archaeological discoveries in the last 10-15 years in the Middle East. Since the mid-1990s this spot on the eastern bank of the River Jordan has been identified as the place where John the Baptist lived and was active, and where he most likely baptized Jesus Christ.

The area was closed for about 25 years since it is in a sensitive military zone right on the border of Jordan and Israel, but since 1994 it has been open, and archaeologists have been digging and dusting and discovering ever since with great success. The wealth of sites—21 at the last count—are churches and baptismal pools from the Roman and Byzantine periods (the earliest dated at about 330), caves of monks and hermits, and lodges of medieval pilgrims with a trove of medieval travel accounts mark this one little side-valley as perhaps the actual site of that baptism some 2,000 years ago. In March, 2000, Pope John Paul II celebrated an open-air baptism at the site in front of 25,000 worshippers.

All this attention could have turned the place into a tourist circus, but there is a calm dignity to the site. You enter a Visitor’s Center a few kilometers away, they take you by bus, and then in order to maintain a sanctity of the surroundings, you walk the last bit on a simple path. The crowds (there are 10 times daily that the bus arrives at the site) are quiet, respectful, and one can enjoy the chirping of birds, the dry, toughened trees, and the white, chalky marl that seems to deaden the sound on the path.

Once again, as if I needed it again, I am reminded of the historical and biblical resonance of my surroundings. There is a natural austerity and a religious power as I contemplate that within just a short distance of this place such figures as Lot separating from Abraham, Jacob wrestling with God, Moses crossing these plains of Moab, along with Joshua, Elijah, Elisha and of course John the Baptist and Jesus had walked. We were there with German tourists, Russian tourists, Arab Christians, and a few Muslims. One man must have sensed Tessa’s wisdom and asked her, “Do you mind to explain to me the importance of this Baptism to me?” As Tessa, a teacher-always-on-call, explained the symbolism of the new life of these living waters, she pointed and said to the man, “see that mud down there by those reeds? Some of those molecules of mud might have been here some 2000 years ago when this event, which to me is quite powerful, took place.”

As time has changed the Jordan River, the waters have narrowed, and Israel lay a scant 30 or so feet away. Barbed wire and flags reminded us of the continued problems of patriotism and territoriality that plague the region.

But never mind—Freeda takes us down the road, we spend the afternoon at a Dead Sea resort, and Freeda takes us home. Soon, a day or so later, Freeda is restless again and needs a visit to HJ—just because.

So this morning, as I walked to the gym (a subtle reminder to you that I love to go and work the treadmill watching American TV shows on DVDs as I multi-task) I noticed the first wildflowers emerging from the winter grass. I have been told that March will be dazzling as the wildflowers carpet (pun intended) the desert terrain. So here we are on February 29, ready and excited to greet the world, the first wildflowers catch my attention.

Am I so sentimental now that I am going to name the flowers as they greet me day after day? Oh no.