Dead Sea

Sunday and Monday I wasn't feeling well so I decided to rest at the hotel rather than go to class. I think it was because of the Bedouin food but I'm not sure. Monday afternoon I was feeling a little better so I decided to go to the Dead Sea with the driver from the hotel. Turns out the guy's name is Abu Fares not Samir. We first stopped in Madaba which is a city south of Amman. There we stopped in an Orthodox Church with beautiful murals and paintings. I had never been in one before so it was definitely a cool thing to see. In order to get to the Dead Sea in Jordan you have to wind your way down 400m below sea level by going through mountain passes and different valleys. We passed tons of bedouin tents and herds of sheep. I always find it weird to see the aspects of Jordan that you would typically find in Third World countries. It seems like the country is in a transitional stage in terms of being totally developed. You look around and you see Mercedes-Benz's, skyscrapers and 5 star hotels, and then you realize that it's still not safe to drink the tap water even in the city and that once you are 20 minutes outside of Amman there are still people living in tents who migrate looking for water to drink and suddenly the only bathrooms you can find are these weird holes in the ground. It is actually pretty hard to describe the differences. I wanted to talk about the poverty you find and the unemployment but to be perfectly honest if you go to certain parts of Los Angeles you will find the same thing. I've heard that if you really want to appreciate where you come from you should go somewhere else and I've found that that's definitely true. Though we've gotten past problems of having potable tap water, we still have some of the issues of poverty and unemployment and maybe they are some of the results of development rather than problems that development can fix. Either way, I was just struck by some of the poverty that I've seen here and I think it's pretty awful that I have sort have ignored that issue back home until coming here.

The drive also allowed me to get to know Abu Fares better. We talked about how he was in the army and also an engineer who used to live in Saudi Arabia. He talked about how good his life was back there and about how much he loved being an engineer. Though he never said a negative word about his  life here in Jordan, I could tell by his face that he is upset about not being able to do what he loves and that he's not completely happy with his position now. He is really knowledgable and knows a lot about how things work and it made me sad to think that all of that knowledge is going to waste. I think that it's a problem that we have back home in America too and I could really identify with what he was feeling.

As you get closer to Israel you start to see checkpoints set up by the Jordanian army. The checkpoints consist of 3 armed military personnel and an armored vehicle with a mounted machine gun on top that is being held by another soldier. It was one of the first signs of real conflict or hostility that I had seen between Israel and Jordan and it was a little bit stirring. I hadn't mentioned to anyone that I was Jewish until it came up on the Wadi Rum trip. The news was met with surprise as people wondered what the hell I was doing in this country, if I was scared, or if I had been hurt because of it. It also came with a bunch of misconceptions about Jews and Judaism and it made me think that people view Jews with the same ignorance and prejudice in some parts of the world that we sometimes see Muslims with. It's not really something that I think about living in a community surrounded by liberal, like minded Jews, but it was pretty interesting to think about. People here really only refer to Israel as Palestine and the Palestinians that I have talked to generally say something along the lines of loving America and having nothing but contempt for Israel which is understandable given their experience back home. I think it's also interesting that they see the two as separate entities with distinct goals.

Abu Fares also said that the soldiers were looking for "Iraqis". When I asked him why and what he meant he gave me the vague answer that Iraqis tend to cause problems with the locals and he definitely showed some distaste towards them. I tried to ask for something more specific or substantive but I didn't get much of an answer. I know that the influx of Iraqi refugees has been tough on Jordan and I really wish that I could have found out exactly what he meant.

The Dead Sea is pretty amazing. For those who don't know, it is more than twice as salty as a normal body of saltwater and the high salt content allows you to float on the top whether you want to or not. They tell you that you should swim on your back and that if any water gets into your eyes or mouth you are to immediately wash it. Also, the saltwater hurts really badly when it reaches any open cuts and I definitely found out about some that I didn't know I had. It's truly amazing to just float on top of the water and even though I tried to sink down, the water kept pushing me back up. I'm really excited to go again on the Israeli side. The last thing that I did before leaving was rub the mud of the Dead Sea on my back where I had a really bad sunburn. The mud is supposed to have really good healing properties and maybe it was the perfect example of the Placebo Effect but my back definitely felt better afterwords. I tried to take some pictures of the Dead Sea but each time I've driven by there has been a haze over it that makes for bad pictures. I am about to go meet an American writer at a library downtown and then when I get back I plan on updating the rest of the blog.