...accept the offer

I woke up in this room I had just entered for the first time the day before. I am in one of two beds that form a right angle with the cement corner. Windows open to the alleyway below where if one looks at the right time, one can watch some of those excitingly feminine ways the young unmarried neighbor goes about the kitchen. She's an excuse to blow smoke politely out into the air, rather than fogging up the room with that sooty odor. A rug warms the floor under my feet, but I am most thankful for the fan that hangs above the door and hums with a repetitive crick. Without her, the Augustine Arab sun would bake us whole.

Outside the window, which looks somehow alive with the mystical curtain dancing sensuously about it, there are the flat roofs and water tanks and hanging laundry so familiar to this Middle East. An elaborate minaret rises dramatically from all the sharp architecture around it, but it too is that beige color that paints every other structure. The uniformity absorbs the sunlight and stands out from the smoggy browns of further earth.

I am in Sahab, Jordan, a small city outside of Amman, the capitol. In the moment I take to watch the curtain, and perhaps capture her spirit in a picture, I thank God that of all the cultures I was stranded in, it was an Arab one.

Last time I checked in I was on some street, and that's indeed where it all began. Muttering Let's see what happens, I said a prayer of need and gave up all my plans for whatever might come my way. I walked down the street toward traffic. I knew there stood in glory a great old Roman Theatre in Amman, and so I figured I would go there, since I had wanted to visit it before, but didn't get the chance. So I make it to the end of the street looked up and down it, and settled in to wait for an empty taxi to drive by.

Meanwhile, at that moment of surrender, two half-Jordanian, half-European young women were driving around talking about boys and how they would never marry another Arab. It was at the precise moment when they crested a hill when one of the two said,

"Why aren't there any good foreigners around here."

And they looked up and saw a bearded vagabond with two pieces of luggage looking worse for the wear, I am sure. They had to do a u-turn to work up the courage but in another moment they pulled over, slowed down and opened the right-side window.

“You need a ride?” The timing was miraculous. People may encourage you to display a bit more caution than I when traveling abroad—and certainly in the Middle East on high alert—but I asked for some divine intervention and a car pulled up. There isn’t much room to weigh options, let alone decline an offer. I said yes and climbed in.

These two were Diana and Linda and they giggled at their own courage. They told me without shame that they had pulled over because I was a non-Arab and perhaps it would be love-at-first-sight. And so I was recognized, not for looking like someone, but for looking not like someone.

I was taken to the theatre for the ladies had to return home to their families. It was Eid after all. But I took Diana’s card and she said she’d come and get me later. Her friend had just returned from a Director’s conference at Julliard in New York City and had a spare room. I looked forward to meeting an Arab who does what I love for a living, thanked Diana for the ride and the room, and climbed out.

The Roman Theatre was absolutely gorgeous and I stood at the base of her broad, ancient beauty and imagined players moving about in their fashion. I thought of Seneca, the brilliant tragedarian, and his macabre Oedipus being staged here. My feet sank into my history as I looked around at the scene coming to life before me. I walked around and touched these stones that supported feet two-thousand years old. I sat in timeworn seats and disappeared into a crowd, rapt and horrified at the despair of Medea as she slits the throats of her own children in vengeance. Then we are laughing at the farce of Plautus whose wives and lovers interact with the wrong Menaechmi.

But I am pulled out of history by three young men I greeted outside the theatre. They had followed me in and began a conversation with me. We climbed to the top of the theatre and sat there for a couple hours. And in learning what I was doing in Amman and what my favorite Arab meal was, he invited me over to his house for it. I gratefully said the only thing to say: “yes.”

But I had lodgings that evening so we eventually parted ways, Diana picked me up and took me to her friends where I spent my time engaging contradictory nihilistic philosophies and too much smoking. I met Mohammed, my host, and passed out after a long day.

The next afternoon, I left the director’s house, thanking him for the hospitality and took a bus to visit my new friend from the theatre—also a Mohammed. And that is where I woke up the next morning, in Mohammed Hasan's humble home.

Mohammed is the oldest male in the household by tragedy: his brother Hitham passed away in his sleep undeterminably within a year of his father dying in a car crash. I saw the pictures of the mangled car and the sleeping brother after his autopsy. This family has many reasons to be in grief.

Mosa and Rania

But they welcome me heartily, providing me with a bed, food, company and even some clothes I need. Rania is the youngest and she is sweet and serves me with joy at all times. Mosa is the younger brother who eats and eats and is fat and jovial, but likes to make trouble. Then there are two other daughters who I barely saw in the two days I stayed there, for they had to remain hidden and covered. They cooked for me and cleaned the room I stayed in, but when I was around, they locked themselves in their room. Such is the custom when a non-believing foreign man is under your very roof. Mohammed’s mother, however, did not have to hide. She was a kind woman with some English to work with, she was hospitable and sought to all my needs. She also took some delight in being the only mother with such a foreigner in her home, and many guests “happened” to swing by over the days. Sahab is no tourist attraction.

That first night, though, as I lay in the bed, with everyone around me, talking and playing, Mohammed first noticed something. I didn’t fit on the bed, and he said that it was just like Hitham, his brother. He was tall too. In fact, we were pretty similar in height, and I stood to confirm this suspicion. I assured him that it was no problem about the small bed and we finally slept.

In Hitham's alley, in his pants

But that comparison kept coming up. His mother noticed it in my facial structure and the color of my eyes. They gave me his favorite pair of pants to wear because I had nothing long enough to cover my knees and it set the resemblance in deeper. And as I spent all my time with this family I found myself becoming a kind of brother to Rania and Mosa, the friend to Mohammed that Hitham was, and the son their mother misses so much. But it was in small ways, or so I thought. Mohammed relaxed in the false idea that he wasn’t the head of the household anymore; he could shelve that while I was around. Rania and Mosa always sought out my attention and laughed with me, took silly pictures with my camera and sat out on the roof-deck with me as the sisters went about business inside. And we all ate together in a circle on the floor.

Mohammed Hasan, me and Mohammad Rizeq, our friend

But our mom looked at me from the locked chests of her eyes. She showed me pictures on her old phone and glanced up at me in double-check. She asked me to encourage Mohammed to do better in school and to work harder and to come home when he says he will come home and say thank you, for goodness sake. Her expectations are very high and she’s missing the help to get him moving. She even offered one of her daughters as a wife, if I would convert. And as I finally prepared to leave she went through old clothes of her son’s and husband’s, and in a quiet way she relived some memories. I saw her store special items back in the closet, undoubtedly because of the memory they coat. I gratefully took what was offered and said a bittersweet farewell. 

And I left, and once again they were missing a son. I wouldn’t have thought so much of it until that very moment of departure when Mohammed and I walked out of the alley onto the street. Approaching us was a young man who looked up at me, and his expression melted into a kind wonder. His eyes went wide and his mouth slacked slightly. He recognized me. But as we greeted each other, it faded. He swore he had seen Hitham standing next to his younger brother, walking out of the house as they had done many times before, but knowing him to be dead for unknown reasons, he might have believed, even just for a moment, that an equally unknowable reason could have brought Hitham home.

I suppose that did happen, though, and humble, sweet tears greet my eyes when I think of Um Hitham at home longing for a return of her son that will never happen, but did. Even for just two days.

So, sorry it wasn’t love-at-first-sight Diana and Linda; I guess I am too Arab for you after all. 

...see what happens

I was standing on the side of a street somewhere in this web of a giant city. I had all my earthly possessions in two bags, a backpack and a duffle. I looked up and down the street waiting for a taxi to somewhere and took a moment to chuckle at how I even got here.

I had been to Amman once before on a short trip to renew my tourist visa in Israel. Then too I had been charmed, perhaps bewildered, by her size. On and on she spreads, hardly a five-story building anywhere, or so it seems when you look out over the city from a high point. In the yellowy purple of a hazy twilight she twinkles like gold dust and at night the lights of dinnertime or ongoing business shine out from their place like stars in the heavens, and so they seem as far away too. At any point I was surrounded by the city as far as I could see and I felt it a bit eternal and I a bit lost and where was the edge of time and space anyway? Getting from place to place we are shuttled in taxis, but this is an expensive endeavor. The buses are so much cheaper, but you trade price for a far-longer trip. And a good walk after you disembark.

But this time I am not here to renew a visa, but in punishment for even trying to get one.

On Wednesday the 7th I flew into Amman, paid for a week-long visa, and took a bus and a shared taxi to the Jordanian border control. Everything was going all-too smoothly. It was a great pleasure to speak Arabic again, though, and I figured my familiarity with the language and culture was helping things run along well. But that all changed quickly.

The process is extensive and expensive. I paid for the visa, then the bus ride, then the shared taxi. At the border control center there is an exit tax I didn't have to pay, but I did pay for the ticket to the bus which transports us over the River Jordan to Israeli customs and for my one piece of luggage I was forced to store below. My anxiety grew as we inched forward; I knew what was coming. Approaching Israel is always stressful. Perhaps I should have been confident, for I had been through this many times, and it is never pleasant, but always eventually over. But we sat and sat and waited and moved forward and stopped and waited and turned two kilometers into an hour of shortness of breath and not enough room and restless hands. When we finally got off the bus, I took a deep breath and gave some thought to the insanity of anxiety. Was I overreacting to a day full of travel or did I know things were not going to go well? And why has Israel become a nation unmarked by blessing, anyway?

My last trip to Jordan

It took four and a half minutes to get summoned by a pectoral, automatic-rifle boasting, scruff. I was pulled out of line and taken into detention number one. I had some extra screening to go through and I guarantee my beard had something to do with it, but I got to skip ahead of a long line at least. After one round of check up I was allowed to go to the passport checkers. I have never once made it through these unscathed. This time was to be no exception. And so I found myself in detention again, this time with many other men and women. We began chatting, laughing at how ridiculous it all was and sharing stories about Jordan, Israel and Palestine. Two Muslim sisters were there. One was married to a tall American who got his stamp with no problem, though she and her sister sat for four hours before were given access into the country. And her husband sat there too and we laughed together. A half British half Tanzanian man had been there for over six hours by the time we arrived. He couldn't speak much Arabic, wasn't an Arab or a Muslim, but he could have passed for one. He was repeatedly taken away and each time he returned with a goofy smile on his face. In that formal way Brits speak he said,

"They keep speaking to me in Arabic, and I say every time that I am not an Arab nor do I know much Arabic." We all join in on the joke, our only power in this situation, which we cling to to feel less like cattle. We look around and find not one officer or employee older than thirty. The uniformed men and women look pubescent and we shudder at how Maoist it seems to have the decisions of entry and exit made by kids who use there work time to flirt and laugh and take little moments to gossip or talk about their weekend plans. With M-16 in hand. At some other point we came up with names for our band, if we had one, and what we would all do. Really, we developed some terrible ideas, and all we had was a hype-girl, a rotten beat-boxer and a knee-slapper. But we were determined to succeed. And everyone did. Except me.

Five hours of this nonsense, this back-and-forth, this questioning and answering and waiting, a young woman, certainly younger than me, came out and approached me.

"It's going to be a no." I argued with her politely and intensely. I used reason, but to no avail. My passport was receiving the red stamp of rejection anyway. And so, in a desperate and deeply quiet rage I was escorted to my luggage, and then the bus back over the Jordan, where it is free. 

The only other man on the bus was a husband separated from his wife and children by the choices of unmarried children. We had to pay for the bus back, and then shared the price to a hotel this man had already been staying at. There are few options after midnight.

In the morning, I woke up, checked out of my lodgings, paid the expense, and walked to the nearest place to find wifi and food. Now I had planned to be in Palestine with my family that day, for it was the first day of Eid, and it would be a time of joy and laughter and love. Instead I only found a McDonald's that was open, and I felt bad for all the other people who were separated from family on that day.


Hours of wifi and meditation and contemplation later in a next-door coffeeshop I had my only plan: go to the Israeli embassy in Amman and plead my case. I found the address, climbed in a taxi and soon found myself on the side of a street somewhere in the web of this giant city. The guards informed me that everything was closed and the Israelis had gone on vacation, or was it evacuated? There had been some travel-warnings and Al-Quaeda threats, so perhaps it was the latter. A manager came out, spoke in English with me and then ended our interaction:

The web expanding

"Enjoy your time in Amman." 

He smiled and walked back inside. I had realized that rejection was one of two outcomes, and though I wished it wasn't so, I turned around. Let's see what happens, I thought, and put one foot in front of the other on the side of this street somewhere in the web of this giant city. 

...google Wadi Rum

I remember it as a dream, even though it was only this past week…Wadi Rum. I could have been on the moon, in a painting, but not in reality.

Where are we?

Three days ago I left for my first trip to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Yes it’s a kingdom and there is a king and his picture is everywhere and people generally like him. I have been wanting to go, but necessity breeds action and my tourist visa was running out. So I went into Jerusalem and after scheduling an appointment for a work visa interview, I caught a bus far up north by means of the Jordan River Valley to a place called Beit She’an. There I grabbed a taxi to the border and after a series of questions, security checks, taxes and fees, I entered Jordan. At one point in the process my traveling partner and I had received our exit stamps, which means we had left Israel, but were waiting for a bus to take us over the river to get entry stamps into Jordan. We wondered where we really were and who would put us in jail if we committed a crime…

But wonder is all we did, and soon found ourselves under royal, setting sky. 

The setting sun from Jordan looking west

Something was different about this place. It was more open and expansive as if the land itself spoke of her freedom. This is a nation without Occupation. It is a land full of people just like the Palestinians but without checkpoints and tension. This is a place to come and go as you please without walls and gunman and x-ray machines to delay you. I could feel it in the air; it was refreshing.

My homebase was at a friend-of-a-friend's apartment. His name is Samer and he lives near the University of Jordan in Amman, a capitol city where there are millions of people and many foreigners. At one point during my trip I spoke in English and Arabic to a young Kazakh. That’s a first.

I spent the first morning grabbing a cab to Jabal al-Qala’a, or the Citadel. Atop this mountain (jabal in Arabic), there stand ancient ruins of many civilizations built atop one another, as is common in this part of the world (‘it was a temple, then a church, then a temple, then a mosque, then a church, then a mosque, now a crumbling tourist attraction’... it's a familiar mantra). 

From here we could walk around and get an exceptional 360° view of modern-day Amman, while prancing around this old fort-city. There were gorgeous ruins of a temple to Hercules, a palace, a mosque, a church, a bathhouse, a guard tower, old whispers of walls and rooms upon rooms upon underground cisterns. And when I looked up and out I saw towers and theatres and mosques and churches and hotels and houses upon houses upon the seven mountains of modern Amman. And I saw the world’s highest flag.

Amman, with a huge Roman theatre sometimes still in use.

But the focus of this trip wasn’t the citadel, or even Amman: it was Wadi Rum. I was traveling with Sofie, my Danish friend who is living in Palestine while she completes a paper for her Master’s program, and we were both eager to get out of the city. Palestine is crowded, sometimes claustrophobic. It is noisy and a bit cagey. Amman is some of those things too, and we both wanted space and quiet. So we rented a car, Sofie, Samer and I, and drove into the night, due south until we reached our destination.

The Desert Wolf at camp. He rocked my hat
so well, I gave it to him.

We were greeted by Ahmed, our Bedouin guide, the Desert Wolf, as he called himself. He was a pirate of a man who took us out into the middle of the desert, turning off his headlights at one point to look at the dark mountains for direction. I thought he was pretty cool, and I thought myself so for being there with him.

And then we stopped at our campsite.

I had a spiritual moment when I stepped out of the car. Looking up and around, letting my eyes get used to the dark, I saw massive shapes jet into the sky like the great teeth of a huge jaw. They surrounded me and would have swallowed me if not for the endlessness of the eternal night above me. Suddenly I was small and insignificant enough to gaze on the Milkiest Way I have ever seen. Honestly, I am having trouble choosing words to describe what I saw because it goes beyond what breath and tongue and lips can forge. This place awakened the vocabulary of angeltongue, of which I know not. But sometimes our bodies are smarter, or perhaps more enlightened, than our worldly-wise minds, and it knew what to do. So instead of saying anything, I ran, jumped, cartwheeled, spun, stretched and fell into a heavendance where my tongue could form no intelligence, my toes swam in the cooling desert and my entirety longed to make one grand jump from where I was to any of the infinity of stars that formed my canopy.

But my lungs exhausted long before my spirit, and I sat by the cooking fire to learn more of Ahmed and prevent my very cells from splitting from one another in ecstasy. We chatted, laughed, wrapped ourselves up and occasionally I looked up at my brobdingnagian ceiling.

Sofie and I didn’t sleep save for an hour or so. Instead, we strolled and explored, confined only by our moat of mountains, speaking of life, or silent in awe. The half-moon glossed everything, and we were quite able to find our way. We felt like we were on the moon, really, but when we looked up, we knew we couldn’t be: high and bright the arching moon chased the stars in an Olympian game of tag, and we found ourselves bewildered to look at something that couldn’t be real, could it? This place is a land one comes to in his dreams and has tea with God, finding clarity in something wholly heavenly and wholly earthly at the same time. It was incarnate, and I understood suddenly the reaction within me, of twins—no, more than twins…halves, perhaps—uniting in divinity unfettered by humanity.

Sofie in the sun.

But we knew it wasn’t over…morning was coming, and we were eager to see the sunrise and to see what our shelter looked like in greater light. A small nap sufficed to pass the time between the stars twinkling out and the sun peeking in. Tired and clunky, we rounded the corner of the nearest mountains in order to see the sun come. I have always found the sunrise to be one of the most beautiful things we can see with our eyes, but here, what he illuminated was so much more glorious. The golden light cast shadows as icebergs of stone rose out of a sandy sea around us. Ann-Sofie sat in awe; I ran into the horizon that never got any closer. Movement seemed the only proper response I could muster for such as Wadi Rum.

And then it was light and we welcomed the warmth of the sun, ate a modest breakfast and packed up camp. Ahmed drove us back to our car which we had abandoned near the road while we listened to some traditional Bedouin music and watched the gathering of the camels. We happened to be near a massive camel racetrack and today was a big day for racing. Some were being fed or watered, others walking around, awkwardly, like something out of a Dr. Suess tale. They are perhaps the only animals that ambulate by moving the feet of the same side at the same time. And then with their cleft lip, underbite and misshapen humps, they really are the goofiest of animals. And they got attitude, too. They spit and look at you with long lashes, bending their necks away from your approaching hand as if to say, “Nu-uh, not today brutha.” So sassy, they are. 

Driving in Jordan

But we had traveling to do so we couldn’t stay. The car hit the road again, this time with me at the helm. Driving is a pleasure I thoroughly miss, so guiding our rental up and down the hills and through the dessert, dodging Maersk trucks and other semi-trucks was quite the gift.

Later that night I found myself back in Palestine, having crossed the King Hussein or Allenby Bridge and passed through three sets of customs (Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian), being driven from Arriha (Jericho) back to Khalil. I passed into that place between wakefulness and sleep and visited Wadi Rum all over. When I got out of the van and walked to my apartment I wondered if I had really been there, or if it was a dream all along...

Jordanian Desert

The World's Highest Flag

Can you find Sofie?