Hey Everyone,
If you haven't read the rest of the bedouin series, please do. This is the last installment. It includes what happened after the wedding, some talk about Jordanian thoughts on US foreign policy, and some stories from my American friends in the Badia.
After the Party
Aubrey
and I left the party with our family and called Dr. Raed, assuming he would
take us to Amman. Instead he said that Dr. Fozzy would take care of us. Ok
Raed…
At
this point, it was about 8 PM.
We
found Dr. Fozzy, and he offered to take us to Amman on the Bedouin Barty Bus.
As we left to get our things, he called us back with a counteroffer. Becca, he
said, this man speaks fluent Hebrew. He said hello to me in Hebrew, and I
responded—in Arabic. My Arabic has officially made me incapable of speaking
Hebrew. It was really funny, but I wanted to know more. Sure enough, he was the
bride’s father (and Luqat, the girl we had been hanging out with’s) and he
wanted to host Aubrey and me for the night. In America, if a man in his mid 50s
that I had never met before invited me to stay with his family after a wedding
had invited me to his house, I probably would have called the Police. Dr. Fozzy
said it was his cousin, and that it was fine. I told Fozzy that if anything
happened it was his fault. He laughed and said he would take his chances.
I
called Dr. Raed to confirm that this was OK, and he said that we were fine staying
with Dr. Fozzy’s uncle. Cousin? Uncle? Who cares? Family is family.
We
got our stuff from the Bedouin barty bus, said goodbye and thank you to our
Bedouin family (that has of course invited us to come back any time), and left.
Dr. Fozzy gave us a firm handshake and assured us that we would see him soon.
He will be speaking to SIT when we go to Petra in about a month, seeing he is
an archeologist in the area. With that, Aubrey and I loaded our things into the
car with Luqat and her family and took off. We spent the first 10 minutes of
the car-ride trying to speak to this family and their kids in Arabic. Then it
became really obvious that the oldest of the girls were almost fluent in
English. It was really embarrassing.
Thinking
that we didn’t know any Arabic, Luqat decided to start teaching us. The first
lesson was how to pronounce her name. the q sound is a guttural sound that to
say correctly requires you to nearly vomit. Arabs do it super naturally. I’m
jealous. We eventually got it. She then taught us that every time we say
anything about a future plan/event, even if it is just getting to their house,
it should be followed by the word Inshallah. It is by far my favorite Arabic
word. Literally it means “if Allah wills it,” but it also means hopefully.
Given how last minute planning is here in every way, it makes sense that all
plans will go through if God wills them to be.
We
got to their home and settled in their large house. They had us put our thing’s
down in a large room lined with firashes (the same mattresses we had sat on in
the badia) and then brought us into their TV room. Within minutes, the floor in
the middle was covered with food: Shwarma, bread, makluba, cheese, oil, zatar,
and copious amounts of tea. This was definitely a Bedouin family that had moved
to a CD. and realized that this was a
Bedouin family that had moved to the city. They brought us into the room with
the TV and served us a massive dinner.
We
met about seven kids (including 2 boys named Mohammad) and multiple couples.
After everyone but the family left, we learned that this family has 4 girls and
one adorable 4 year old named Mohammad that loves FC Barcelona and Messi. They
HATE Ronaldo. We watched Arab’s got talent for a while, until the father
switched the cable to the Israeli TV network that was filled with Hebrew TV
shows. I was so confused. Why does this Bedouin Jordanian man know Hebrew? Why
does he have Israeli TV? He said that he teaches Hebrew, but the why part never
came into play.
Not
to mention the more pressing question: how the hell are we going to get home
tomorrow? The dad told us that the next morning, everyone has school and he has
work, so that we would wake up with only the wife home and he would take us
back to Amman at around 2. Works for us. As we were getting ready for bed, Dr.
Fozzy called the family to make sure we were OK. If I didn’t trust the genuine
nature of Arab hospitality before this moment, I certainly did now.
We
woke up to a 12 year old girl coming into our room and telling us to eat
breakfast. We walked into the TV room where the brother was already sitting
watching some American crime show. Jordanians love crime shows. CSI, Bones, you
name it—they watch them. As guests, we were plopped in front of the TV. In the
Arab world, taking care of guests means keeping them safe, and if that means sitting,
watching TV only, it’s no broblem.
The
dad, Musleh, got home at about 3:30 in an army uniform. My goal was to figure
out why he knew Hebrew. The uniform made the situation make more sense—the
Jordanian army coordinates a lot of things with the Israeli army, and if the
soldiers are to work together, they have to try to close the language gap.
We
said goodbye to the family only after them making us bromise that we would come
back. I have no doubts that I will. They were wonderful in so many ways. The
ride back to Amman was about 45 minutes, and it was among the most interesting
conversations I don’t recall many of the details, but there a lot of points
that got us thinking. Here are some of the good ones I remember.
Zarqa,
the city where they lived, is one of the largest in Amman. It was formed with
virtually no urban planning as it was originally a Palestinian refugee camp
from 1967. Over time, tents turned into homes, paths turned into paved streets,
urban centers developed, stores popped up, and a society emerged. Now, Zarqa is
roughly 50% Palestinian.
At
one point in the conversation, Musleh looked at us and asked if we were
recording the conversation. We assured him that we weren’t spies and then our
conversation turned to foreign policy.
He
mentioned that US foreign policy in the region is a large portion of the reason
that groups like Al Qaeda have so much power. The United States has created the
monsters it is trying to remove now. The US is so strong militarily, though,
that no one, even Russia, can challenge it. Thus, the Jordanian army/government
has decided just to work with it. This has very interesting implications for
Israel. The population of Jordan is divided about their feelings otward the
peace agreement between the two countries. East bankers are OK/apathetic with
it, because they know it is good for Jordan economically. The Palestinian
population in Jordan is less OK with it, but since there is nothing they can do
with it, they don’t challenge it. Having said that, Palestinian-Jordanians in
Amman that are more integrated into Jordanian society feel very differently
than Palestinians (Palestinian-Jordanians?) from Zarka and other refugee camps,
as they have been raised with a different mentality toward the prospect of
returning.
He
said that he could identify Jews and Israelis from the questions they ask when
visiting Jordan, and yet, he was surprised when I told him I was Jewish.
Apparently after I had already been dropped off, he asked Aubrey if I was
actually Jewish. I guess his radar isn’t as good as he claimed.
After
returning to my Ammani host family and taking a shower and a nap, I had my
first chance to reflect on my experience in the Badia. This week was filled
with so many crazy adventures, and I’m so happy that I had the chance to see
this different place in the world. Most westerners never get to see it, so I
hope that the posts that I’ve provided you with have given you an adequate glance
into this different way of life, and the values of those that live in it.
APPENDIX: Some of my friends’
stories
- One boy lived with a sheikh and got to watch a tribal court meeting in which a group of sheikhs was trying to figure out how to handle a situation in which a member of one tribe stabbed a member of another tribe (that didn’t die, thank god). They resolved the conflict in a way that did not at all involve the formal government. The ability to solve conflicts without the government is one that he thought of as incredible.
- One girl was there when her host sister’s family received an official proposal for marriage. The man came by and sat in a room with the men while the woman sat in the adjacent room trying to shush the kids so they could hear what was going on. She was eventually kicked out of the room with all the kids—and this friend hates children.
- Two girls lived with a family in which the parents were very chill and the older sisters were “satan’s best friends.” They were forced to wear Hijabs and not allowed out of the house at all for the first three days.
- A bunch of people went to a festival in which Dr. Raed (who is originally from the badia), was given an award. At this festival, the event was set up with a stage and three tents around it with a massive courtyard in the middle. One of the side tents was for women and the other two were men. The Americans got weird looks when they crossed the gauntlet to mix, although some of them had no problems.
- A few friends went hiking in a beautiful wadi with their Bedouin host brothers. The brothers brought along meat to cook and a full on feast. In this beautiful natural habitat, though, the Bedouins had no problems leaving all of their blastic trash everywhere. This saddened me, but then I realized that littering in Amman is the only thing people do anyways—finish a bag of chips, drop it on the ground. I realized I was blending in when I did it too. And then I realized what I did and ran to pick it up—something my host sister thought was hysterical.
That's all for now. As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments.
B
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