“Dancing on the Earth,” Part II

If you are caught up in your blog reading, you will know that for the previous two weeks I hosted my first guests in Jordan. During their stay, I took Anne and Martha up to the northern reaches of Jordan (to Um Qais) down south into the desert (Petra) to the Dead Sea and criss-crossed the streets of Amman—all while trying to hold down the full-time job of teaching!

If traveling is an art (and I would not want to argue that) then Anne and Martha are like Dutch masters. Memorable food and exquisite places always cast a spell on the traveler, but after nearly a dozen trips with Anne, it is often the more quotidian, the seemingly ordinary, moments that are the most transcendent that memory does not dim.

Last week at Um Qais, as we stared down into the valley of the Sea of Galilee, I grabbed a slip of paper, and surreptitiously jotted down some observations Anne had made over the previous 90 minutes. Here are some of those gems:

--As we walked down the 2000 year-old Roman road, Anne reflected, “seeing these rocks, and walking on these ancient stones remind me that there were people here. It isn’t just that these are ruins, but seeing the stones in place, and knowing that Romans put them in place remind me that people really lived here.”

--About thirty feet further down that same road Anne called to me, “John, come back and look at this. Don’t miss this.” Anne was pointing to a stone and staring in wonder: an ant was carrying a load that must have been about 75 times his weight. “They’re just amazing, aren’t they?”

--We were strolling around the Archaeological Museum and Anne discovered that one could touch the ancient statuary in this museum. Oh my—Anne was in heaven (for those of you who may not know the story, Anne and I do love to touch ancient souvenirs—we are particularly proud that one time in the British Museum, near a lazy guard, we touched the famed Rosetta Stone!). She put her hands into the handles of a Roman sarcophagus and sighed, “My hands are right where those ancient hands were that placed this into a tomb. I feel the grooves. These were real people!”

--Wherever Anne walks she thrills to see the native plant life. If I had a dime for every time she has said something like, “Oh my. That’s lantana!” or “I am sure that is a cousin to a ficus”—well I could treat my advisees to a stay at the Dead Sea probably. But as we passed this one plant, she calmly noted, “oh, that’s the plant that Eyeore ate.”

--As we walked back toward the car as the sun set, Anne saw several children walking nearby, and practicing her best Arabic, smiled and greeted them with “Marhaba!” They enthusiastically returned the greetings and there was a mini-summit between America and the Middle East.

And those are just a few examples, some scattered moments of the kind of “dancing” one enjoys when traveling the earth with Anne.

Here is a thumbnail sketch of the rest of their visit.

Sunday
The Science Department had planned this school day for science projects focusing on solar and wind energy—and faculty who did not volunteer did not have to help out. Normally, this kind of science exploration might have piqued my interest (who are we kidding?!) but the consuming science fair allowed me a chance to spend the day in Amman showing A&M around. Remember that Amman has about 2 million people in it, and almost no street signs or addresses at all…I did alright driving to the heart of old Amman. We were trying to find this art gallery, and nipped into a handicrafts store to ask for directions. Anne and Martha discovered the stores’ treasures, and when we left I am sure the shopkeepers did a little jig. We found the art gallery and walked through seeing some contemporary art from Jordan. After that we braved the tight, twisty alleys of the oldest part of downtown looking for the “candy store.” It is not really a candy store, although I call it thusly—it sells DVDs for about $1.50 a pop. I like to go there. It is like visiting a 21st century candy store. I think Anne bought 45 DVDs. Alert the Chamber of Commerce! Shopkeepers and restaurateurs are dying to thank her for visiting Jordan! We ended the day in a café run by the Nature Conservancy called “Wild Jordan,” where everything is organic and, you know, that kind of organic-y, health-y, of-course-it-has-omega3-the-good-fat-in-it food. Wild Jordan also boasts one of the best views in all Amman.

Monday
Today Anne taught an English class while Tessa was busy with a conference on campus. Anne brought a poetry packet for the students, and taught a great short story by Sandy Cisneros. I did not get to observe the class, but Yasmin, one of my students rushed up to me at lunch and gushed, “Oh, my—your friend was a-ma-zing! Class was a-ma-zing.” No surprise—anyone who sees the alumni line up to greet Anne at any event would nod in agreement.

This conference on campus was a big deal. It was a group of boarding school heads from around the world—they call themselves the “G20” and KA hosted the annual conference. KA staff and friends hosted a number of panel discussions and seminars on life in the Middle East, and A&M availed themselves to go and take mini-classes on literature, photography, archaeology and history in the Arab world. For some of us this heady combo of teaching, travel, learning and eating is about as close to paradise as we get!

Tuesday
A&M spent the day in Amman with my good friend Sam, a driver at KA. I talked to them in the afternoon, checking when they would return to campus, and they enjoyed Sam’s ebullience so much, they thought just might stay forever. Sam brought them back in the late afternoon, and we ventured forth on a late afternoon field trip with my dear KA friend Rehema and her visiting-from-NYC-friend Chris. I drove us about 45 minutes to Mukawir, the ruins of biblical Herod’s summer palace, the scene of the famed “Dance of the Seven Veils” by Salome and the beheading of John the Baptist. The hike up is a nice, rugged walk, and I timed it right that we enjoyed the sun setting over the nearby Dead Sea. You stand up there—embraced by the stark beauty of the surrounding hills, alone and cut off from the rest of the world. It is gorgeous and harrowing at the same time.

Wednesday
A&M enjoyed a reprise of a day with Sam, this time visiting the Baptism Site of Jesus, and continuing on to Ajloun, a castle built a thousand years ago by Saladin’s forces to protect the region from those barbaric, Crusading Franks. That night Anne treated a group of my friends to a lovely dinner at an Italian place in Amman called Romero’s.

Thursday
A&M spent the day with me in my classes, bidding my students good-bye since they would be leaving on Saturday. The warmth of that camaraderie was another of those moments to remember. After school we set off down the Desert Highway bound for Petra, the last of the superstar sites to enjoy for A&M in Jordan. We checked into the fancy-schmancy Movenpick resort and after sunset went to an evening introduction in Petra, “Petra at Night.” Bedouins usher you down the candlelit kilometer-long siq and then you enjoy stories, music, and tea, under the stars. As we headed down this ancient pathway, I felt like I had been transported into a beautiful Christmas-card setting: the mountains and unbelievably bright stars seemed to presage the angels’ greetings we read about.

Friday
Today was the great work-out at Petra, the unique 2000-year-old rock-carved city. Carved entirely into the rose-red cliffs, the remains of the once lost Nabataean city of Petra includes temples, Roman theaters, monasteries, houses and roads. I remembered my trip last August—the unrelenting heat and sun and that notorious donkey ride—and enjoyed the current spring weather immensely. Anne and Martha were agog at the natural beauties of the rocks, the audacity of the Nabataean sculptors, and kept saying, “this is so much more than I thought.” Their reactions reminded me of some of the Europeans who re-discovered Petra in the early 19th century: “We do not know with what to compare it on earth. Perhaps there is no other place like it on earth.” Ever the lover of poetry, Anne recited these famous lines about Petra: “…a rose red city, half as old as time.” (couplet by John William Burgon)

That night we descended upon our favorite (and, well, only) Madaba haunt, Haret Jdoudna for a farewell dinner. On the way home I had an induction for Martha into my personal Travel Hall of Fame (hey, those who scoff at this institution probably cannot get in! Watch it! And for those of you wondering, I do have a personal Travel Hall of Shame as well. I just don’t invite those inductees to a dinner.) I discovered in those two weeks that Martha is more than a dear friend of a friend. She is smart, funny, kind, charming, knows about movies and cabaret singers, deeply loves talking to teachers and students, and possesses that elusive quality that guarantees your entrance to the H. of F. on easy pass—she enriches my days.


Saturday
On the way to the airport A&M noted how many wildflowers had popped up during their two weeks in Jordan, and how seeing goats and sheep in the back of a pick-up truck no longer was very surprising. Loving Jordan was no longer surprising. Indeed, they remarked that they had come to Jordan to see me, but in the process of visiting KA these two weeks, they enjoyed how great a destination Jordan itself was.

The guests left for the United States happy and satisfied.

Later that day I got a text from my wonderful KA friend Elizabeth: “I miss Anne. Tell her to come back! She was so wonderful.”

Inshallah.