Bedouin Life Part 1

Hi Everyone,

I am back in Amman after spending five days with bedouins. Each day, I journaled a tremendous amount and experienced crazy things. I just finished typing up day one--and it's three pages on my word doc. I'm going to copy and paste it here. I will post the other days as installments over the next week or so. Read this. Bedouin culture/life is crazy. And I finally put in pictures.

Wearing a traditional Arab thob and a poorly wrapped hijab, I stepped on the bus ready to begin my 5-day Badia excursion. I was headed to the southern Badia, and all I knew was that I was staying with a widow.

Before I talk about my experience with a Bedouin family, let me give a brief background about Bedouins. Traditionally, they travelled via caravan and lived in tents. Within the last 100 years, Bedouins have settled and now, they live in houses. Children build houses near their parents’ homes, and families stay together. Families have a million kids, gender roles are very traditional, and yet, they live in the modern world. Bedouins have computers, running water, toilets (though not always inside), internet access, cell phones, TVs, and connections to the modern world.

As we drove south through the desert, I thought a lot about what it meant to be in the middle of nowhere—I saw it: When you drive for 30 minutes or more on a main road and never see a building, you’re in the middle of nowhere; when you turn off the main road and coast over and around desert hills with clumps of houses containing no more than 100 buildings, you’re in the middle of nowhere; when you have to stop in the middle of the road to let goats cross the street, you’re in the middle of nowhere.

We were in the middle of nowhere.

I arrived in Be’er Abu Danneh looking like Maria showing up at the Von Trapp family’s house in the Sound of Music. I had a backpacking pack on my back, a little one in one hand, and a guitar in the other. The bus dropped me off in front of this blue gate at the bottom of a small hill with a house above it. It honked a few times and waited. I walked up the unpaved path toward what I thought was the front door and knocked. In Arabic, I heard the question, “who is it?”

“It’s Becca from America”

There was a pause, and then I heard “Dr. Raed?” I said yes in Arabic (Dr. Raed is my program’s AD), and the door opened. A 65-year-old woman holding an adorable two-year-old stood behind it. She smiled and introduced herself with a name that she said once followed by “Omi, Omi” which means, my mother. She introduced the baby and said that it was sick. I couldn’t figure out which gender pronoun she used and because of the way the baby was dressed, I had no idea if it was male or female. She asked me if I spoke Arabic, and I told her that I knew a little bit. It became clear instantly that she spoke absolutely no English—and that no one else was home. Here goes nothing.

I took off my shoes and stepped inside the kitchen. It was a large and open room with a small mattress against the wall and one perpendicular to it. I was told to expect Bedouins to spend the majority of my stay trying to force food down my throat, but I was not prepared for what would happen next. I put my stuff down where she indicated and sat down on the mattress on the ground. Within seconds, there was some yogurt, bread, olive oil and zatar on the floor in front of me, in addition to a baby staring at me with a perplexed look on its still gender-ambiguous face.  

I sat on the ground and began to eat as she went to get tea. “kooli, kooli! Shrabi shrabi!” Eat, eat, drink, drink she commanded me to do. I attempted to make small talk but then gave up and started interacting with someone with similar Arabic language skills to my own.

As I made faces at the adorable small child, Omi spoke in very fast Arabic and I tried to understand. I told her that I had only been studying for a month and to speak slowly, so she spoke loudly. We established that I was from America and she from the village we were in (Bair Abu Dannah). She had kids, one of who was named Dr. Fozzy. Aside from that, I didn’t get much. Whenever I paused to breathe, she told me to eat more; whenever I put my glass of tea down, she told me to drink more. When I said I was done, she didn’t believe me. I said “thank god” in Arabic, and she pressed no further.

She asked me why I had so much stuff, and I explained that I had a guitar. She looked at me very confused so I took it out. “Oud, oud” she exclaimed excitedly. An oud is a traditional Middle Eastern stringed instrument that is very cool—and very much not a guitar. I went with it. It was actually quite sweet.

She led me into a room with a bed in it to put down my things and then gave me a grand tour. The house had a total of one bedroom (that one), one bathroom (with a door that did not close completely or lock and a sink outside), three large sitting rooms lined with mattresses and open in the middle, plus one large room for storage.

The TV was on the Islamic channel that chanted Koranic verses around the clock, and images of Mecca, Medina, and Al-Aqsa were everywhere in the house. The bedroom had a prayer rug with images of the three holy places as well.

We sat down in the bedroom while she put the baby on her legs and rocked it to sleep. After 5 or so minutes of it staring at me, it fell asleep, she put on the bed and put a blanket over it. She ushered my out of the room and shut the door.

We walked to the big sitting room where she had me take a picture of her. She led me out a different door to a stairwell with a massive pile of wool. She had me sit down on the stairs while she went to work stuffing pillows. It was a beautiful day with perfect weather and a blue sky with no clouds—and yet this woman had no interest in being outside. It was going to be a long week.

 

After 10 or so minutes of sitting and watching her, a small boy named Mohammad came by. When she introduced me to him, he leaned in to do the traditional kiss next to the cheek generally only reserved for people of the same gender. I was taken aback, but then I remembered that he couldn’t be older than 10 and didn’t think much about it. He started spit firing Arabic at me and I smiled and nodded. He saw my camera and asked for me to take a picture of him; he then took a picture of me and left.

 

Although I knew the baby was fine, I felt like I should check on it since I was doing nothing else and baby monitors aren’t a thing in her house.  I mentioned this, and she hopped up to look at the baby. It was fine.

As we walked back outside to go back to making pillows, a car pulled up with Mohammad, his sister, and his mom. Omi told them I had a guitar, and I went to get it. The young girl followed me and instantly started screaming, waking up the baby. She saw my camera on a chair and picked it up, asking me what it was. I told her, asking her to put it down and be quiet so that the baby could sleep, and instead she shook up the baby and picked it up. I brought the guitar into the main room and started playing. Within about three seconds, the kids were trying to rip it out of my hands. The girl gave the infant to her mother, and I realized that the family made a hell of a lot more sense than I initially thought.

I gave them a chance to play the guitar both with me making chords and them strumming and by themselves. They were really excited by it, and I got much more excited for my badia journey—there were small kids!

Soon after they left, a woman wearing a full hijab walked up the driveway and said hello. I couldn’t tell how she was related yet, but I learned that she was an English teacher. Al hamdallah! Given that she had never been to a western speaking country, her English was fantastic. I spoke more slowly and used simpler words than I normally do, but for the most part, we were able to communicate effectively. She told me that she wanted to change, pray, and then make dinner. Within minutes, the call to prayer rang. It’s like she has ESPN or something.

She emerged from a room wearing leggings and a short-sleeved t-shirt without a hijab. She assured me that I could take off my hijab, so I changed out of my Thob and hijab and into PJ pants. I asked her how Muslims prayed, and she said that she wanted to show me how Muslims wash themselves for prayer. Given how little water there is in Jordan, particularly the desert, I was quite surprised by the practice.

She went to the public sink next to the kitchen and recited the steps as she did them:

            Wash hands 3x

Rinse teeth 3 x, tongue 2x

Wash nose 3x, whole face 3x

Wash ears 1x, mat back hair 1x

Wash forearms 3x, right then left

Lift right foot into the sink, wash 3x, and then put it down and do the left 3x

The water was running the whole time. When she finished, she assured me that it was very easy. It only took a minute. She then stepped into one of the large rooms and said that she would pray now. I left her to do her thing.

She went into the kitchen and started cooking. A few minutes later I joined her, bringing a notebook with which to write new words down. The first question she asked was what religion I was. I paused, deciding whether or not to disclose or not. She looked at me with a look of concern on her face “please don’t say nothing. Say anything but nothing.” I smiled.

“Actually I’m Jewish”

She knew virtually nothing about Judaism. She didn’t know that the Hebrew language was a thing or that it is closely related to Arabic. It did allow us to segue into a really interesting conversation about why religion is valuable—ritual, community, etc. She was just happy to know that I believed in Allah and that I had something. It was a moment. 

She was making magloobah, a traditional Jordanian dish with rice, chicken, and a green sauce that is made deliciousness and mystery green vegetables. Since my time in Jordan feels like a non-stop carbo-loading party for a marathon that I’m not running, these vegetables made me really excited. During our chat, I started asking her about words and trying to write them down in Arabic. She took the pen from my hand to write them, and then wanted to make sure I knew clearly that she could write good English. I gave her sentences, and she wrote them. The one mistake she made was that she separated the word tonight into to night.

She took a phone call and told me that her husband and son were on their way. When I asked if I should put on the hijab and cover up, she told me it was totally my choice. After confirming that it was OK for me to be uncovered around her man, I said that I would not bother putting on the hijab. Then she told me that when he comes in, he’d probably ask me to cover up. What a choice it was. I went into the room and put back on the Hijab. At this point, I was still really crappy at putting it on, but I felt really good wearing it.

Her husband walked in along with an adorable three-year-old named Osama. He said hello to me in English, and I responded in Arabic. He looked surprised, said a few words to me in Arabic, and I switched him back. I said hello to Osama, and he instantly opened up to me. On a scale from one to cute, OH MY GOD he was adorable.

While Om Osama (literally Osama’s mother—that’s her name) continued cooking, the men went into a sitting room and started playing with a soccer ball. Naturally I joined them quickly. Soon, I was sitting in the room with just the three year old, playing catch/roll a ball around back and forth with him. He is super smart. He can count to ten and identify basic body parts in English and Arabic. My favorite part of playing with him is that I don’t need to know the language to form a good relationship.
 

Dinner was served. I came into the kitchen to see a massive circular platter with rice covered in chicken. She put three bowls of mystery green sauce around the platter for the five of us. It was on the ground, and we all sat cross legged around the common dish. Bedouins are professional hand-eaters. Bedouins also practice everything my parents have taught me to never do at the table. They grab handfuls of rice with their hands along with handfuls of chicken and eat, licking their fingers and slurping up a storm. I wasn’t quite ready to rip a chicken thigh apart with my hands, so I used my spoon to take the meat off. I got all I could, and Omi grabbed the bone from the platter in front of me and slurped everything off the bone. She slurped her tea, making sounds that were hysterical. I couldn’t decide if it was more rude keep myself clean while eating or slurp.

I got my official approval from the family when I grabbed a handful of rice with some bread and put it in my mouth. “You eat with your hands, like us!” Abu Osama said enthusiastically. I don’t think he realized that there was bread there, but he was really excited that I was blending in. I was even more happy to be wearing the hijab.

After dinner, Mohammads family came back over along with the dad. The kids had some English homework that I helped them with, and I had a little Arabic work that they helped me with. While the girl (whose name I still don’t know) was helping Mohammad with her homework, I had my first moment of true culture shock. His homework involved translating words like board, pencil, pen, etc. and copying them down in English.

He couldn’t read or write. Each time he failed to write a letter properly, his sister would hit him, grab the pen from his hand, write the word, tell him how stupid he was for not being able to do it, hit him again and give him the pen back. For about 10 minutes this continued. Instead of stopping them Om Osama turned to me—they’re so loud. I tried to tell her to stop, but it was clearly a lost cause. The culture is different, and I guess I just have to get used to it.

I went to bed the first night excited. I would wake up the next morning and go to Bedouin school. If the first day was any indication of what was coming, I had a lot to look forward to.

If you read all of this, you need more hobbies...
Just kidding. Thanks, and keep checking for the next installments. Also, wish me luck on my first ever arabic test...it's tomorrow.

B

Appendix 1: I typed up some of the analysis of my badia journey and have some general observations and comparisons to Amman. In no particular order:

Regarding Arabic, it’s interesting being in the Badia. When I initially arrived and realized that Omi spoke no English, I appreciated the amount of English my Amman family has. I spoke absolutely no Arabic in the beginning, and it was nice to be able to at least communicate basically in English. Getting around the city with no Arabic was frustrating but possible. Even though I now have a decent amount of Arabic, I don’t have nearly enough to forge a spoken relationship with my newest Omi or the other Bedouins that don’t speak English, even though they think that I understand more than I do. Fortunately, I can sort of communicate with the kids, but even with them, it’s hard. With them, though, I can do a lot more physical playing, so the language barrier isn’t as big of a deal. When the English teacher speaks to me in English, I feel weird because I want to practice my Arabic more. Having said that, she wants to practice English with a native speaker, and I get to learn more intellectual things than I otherwise would.

These guys pray 5 times a day, and it’s interesting. When Om Osama heard the call, she explained to me that women’s prayers are the best in their own bedrooms while men’s’ prayers are best in the mosque. I wonder how much of this is Koranic vs. cultural—the women have to stay home to be with the kids, but the men don’t have the same domestic responsibility. I’m curious if I will see men praying at home at all this week.

There are chickens everywhere. The soundtrack of the dik (rooster) is nonstop. Not to mention goats, sheep, donkeys, and camels. I kind of like it. In Amman, the only time I heard about animals in Amman is when a friend told me that the garbage collection by his house consisted of two men and a donkey. I don’t know if I believe him.

The husband in the Badia is a computer programmer. For some reason, I feel like this job is oxymoronic. I shouldn’t, but the mix of modern and traditional is really interesting to think about.