Let's see, where was I...
May 11, 2009
We woke up well rested after a night in the Eco-Lodge, a virutal resort, especially when compared with our lodging for the rest of the trip. To the typical fare we'd had the day before they added halva which made my day that much better. If you've never had halva, well, you're missing out. Someday I will figure out how to make it and post a recipe. Hopefully.
Anyway, after a good breakfast we again hopped into our "jeeps" and drove off across the desert to where our driver had left the bus the previous day. On the bus we drove up the Arabah to the southern tip of the Dead Sea with Israel just across the way. It was pretty barren (for the most part): dry, flat, sandy. I rather think that life can often look like that to various people at various times...but the Bible constantly reminds us that God is with us, especially in the desert.
"Ah, the Saved...what happens to them is best described as the opposite of a mirage. What seemed, when they entered it, to be the vale of misery turns out, when they look back, to have been a well; and where present experience saw only salt deserts memory truthfully records that the pools were full of water." (C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce)
From there we cut back up a wadi to the top of the plateau and then drove back south, past Bozrah, the capital of Edom, to Shawback (spellings may vary but it's pronounced more like Show-beck). It's a bit off the tourist route, but it does have a pretty good crusader castle ruin, in addition to the "fake" bedouin camp we stayed at: Jaya Camp with our host, Saleh Rawashdeh.
We arrived just in time for lunch...well, right after tea that is...we had mansaf! Of course, you all know exactly what that is, but just in case... :) Mansaf, as I understand, is a fairly typical Bedouin dish. They probably don't eat it daily - it's more of a special occasion meal: the arrival of guests, a wedding, a funeral, etc. Anyway, it consists of flat bread (tortilla-like), rice, some sort of meat (in this case, chicken), some cilantro, some nuts (peanuts), and a sort of white sauce spooned all over it. Oh, and have I mentioned that it's all on one big platter? And you eat with your hands? We had several platters and crowded and average of around 6 people around each to eat. It was a messy business. Stupid Americans, don't know how to use their hands properly. Nevertheless, it was a fun and tasty meal.
After lunch we spent some time (with several breaks for tea) learning about a few aspects of Bedouin life. They first showed us how to grind and mash grain. Then we spent a while trying to figure out how to plow a field with a donkey and then sow it. Fortunately the real plowing and planting time is long over, so our efforts are not responsible to feed the family in the future. After a tea break we went out and herded goats in a circle for a while. There were more people than goats so it really wasn't all that exciting, but perhaps we got just a little taste of it. We then continued walking over to a nearby hill top. There we had more tea and spent time throwing rocks at other rocks. We're an easily amused bunch, what can I say?
A few people headed back to the camp at that point, but the brave and intrepid explores among us headed down the hill to the wadi bottom. (Which, by the way, is a really fun combination of words.) On our way down we stopped at a mosque/sheik's tomb. I don't remember the name of the sheik, but he was supposedly a friend of Saladin. As we walked up the wadi towards camp we paused to explore some caves that had obviously been lived in at some point and admired the terracing in the region. We considered making an assault on the castle that night, but decided we should wait until morning when we were more rested and had more light. :)
Instead, we made our way back to camp where we shortly had dinner. After dinner we sat in the bedouin tent, drinking more tea and listening to a man sing and play a one-string violin-type instrament made from a petrolium can. It was impressive. When he finished we hung out in the tent for a while, talking and playing games, before making our way to the tents for the night.
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