Mary, Mary, Why Ya Buggin?

When I was studying art and architecture in Florence, Italy a couple years ago, one of my classes was about women in medieval/renaissance art and religion.  We read about icons of the Virgin Mary, appearances by her, and the miracles attributed to her in Tuscany.  Despite learning a lot, it all seemed academic and far-away.  I mean, when people are malnourished and suffering from plague, the ordinary can seem miraculous.  However, despite my belief that these sorts of miraculous appearances stopped with modern medicine or the printing press, the Virgin Mary (or Miryam al-Adhra in Arabic) is apparently still maintaining a busy schedule these days.  In the last month, she's appeared in no fewer than five churches in Cairo alone.  Concentrated mainly in the poorer Coptic neighborhoods in Imbaba, Shobra, and Helwan, she has taken the form of a water stain, a crying icon, and at the church nearest to my house, a blue orb of light floating outside the sanctuary.


After hearing about this from an atheist ex-Muslim Coptic Art Historian (wow, that's a long title), we got in the proper mindset and trekked up north to see the Virgin Mother and get ourselves saved.


We passed by police barricades and about a hundred riot police with shotguns to enter.  Apparently, a few nights before, after word of Mary's appearance had spread, a mob showed up, shouting insults at the Copts inside.  This is particularly odd as Mary is the only woman to have her own chapter in the Qur'an and Muslims also believe in the virgin birth.  Maybe a little respect is in order for the Theotokos?  Thankfully, the often negligent government took some precautions to protect the church tonight.


In any case, with my whiteness and my friend's lack of hijab, we got in with no problem.  Once inside, as the priest chanted mass, people excitedly showed us cell phone videos they had taken of the previous night's appearance. One has to wonder how the various cults of medieval Christianity would have developed differently if videos were being taken of stigmata, bread becoming flesh, and Mary being everywhere.  

From the video, Mary appeared on the roof where all those streamers end.

The videos I saw definitely showed something.  It seemed to be a blue, glowing orb floating between the central and right cross on top of the church.  At risk of falling back into my usual pattern of blasphemy and disrespect, it reminded me most of Ghostbusters.


DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS, ST. MARK.

STICKERS!

After looking at pictures children had drawn of the previous appearances, we sat outside for a while, waiting with the rest of the crowd for Mary to appear again.  After waiting for an hour in the cold, the Virgin Mary Laser Light Show did not begin as expected, and we headed back home.

Tales from up the Nile

I spent the last few days traveling up the Nile to monasteries and towns near Assyut, El-Minya, and Samaloot.  Instead of writing the play-by-play, which would pretty well resemble my previous post (not much sleeping, lots of prayers, bad fool) I'll instead share a few sights I saw and people I met.

Brother Too Tall
After a tumultuous and freezing entrance (which I'll mention later) at the monastery of Our Lady of the Mountain at Dirunka outside Assyut, the monks were quite welcoming to me, as if, having passed the test of entrance (despite being neither Egyptian nor a Copt), I was now a part of the family.  After chatting with a monk that looked like Arab George Harrison for a long time, he suggested I talk with Br. Hedra AKA Brother Too Tall, because he used to live in America and could give me a different perspective.  I'm usually wary of when an English speaker is presented to me, because they almost always present a very different and rarely accurate portrait of the true state of affairs.  Nevertheless, I sat down for tea (YAY SUGAR) with him.

Now in his 30s, Brother Too Tall had chased the American dream with a passion for much of his life.  He immigrated to the U.S. when he was 16, settling in Reston, VA.  He got misty-eyed with nostalgia talking about the public library there and a quintissentially American Pleasantville existence.  After studying programming in college he got the job he wanted and was settling down.  "I thought I would never leave the U.S. again.  Everything I had ever wanted was there."  After a decade in the states, he felt the call to come home to Egypt and become a monk.  I asked him why he came back, what made him decide to change his life so radically.  "I just knew."

After a few more cups full of glorious sweet tea, I asked him how long he'd been in the monastery.  "Well," he started, "I became a monk in 2003.  And it's....What year is it now?"

The Girl with the Green Eyes
En route from Deir Mukharraq to Gebel at-Teir near Samaloot, I had to go from the town center, cross the Nile, and then hitch to the monastery on the mountain.  I walked through the busy market center of Samaloot, a run-down Nile valley town that time seemed to have forgotten.  More goods were transported by donkey cart than by truck.  As I walked through the busy vegetable market, where old women sat amidst piles of their produce, I saw a woman ahead.  She wore a yellow-starred black hijab, but curiously, a big cross hung down on her chest.  Apparently, Copts in Upper Egypt often wear the hijab.  With her flowing dress and green eyes, she seemed like she was plucked from medieval France.

Realizing that I was staring, I walked on, making my way to the pick-up truck that would take me to the river crossing.  As I waited in the back of the truck, sure enough, the green-eyed Coptic woman, along with her sister and her mother got in two.  Many of Samaloot's Copts live across the river, near the monastery.  They were going home with their vegetables.  The green-eyed one's mother had a permanent frown and the kind of wrinkled face that appears in National Geographic.  They each had small purple crosses tattooed on their wrists, and they joked loudly with the rotund Muslim woman who was riding with us.

As the small boat docked on the other side of the river, she came over to me.  Had she noticed me looking at her?  Finally, she said, "Excuse me, I need my vegetables."  Oh, I was in her way.  Right.

The Catholic
The Council of Chalcedon that began the schism between the Coptic Church and Western Christianity remains fresh in Copts' minds.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, they're not too fond of Catholics, and make many thinly-veiled references questioning whether Catholics are even Christians at all.  Since I can't very well claim to be Orthodox or Coptic, I have to go the honest-but-still-quite-dishonest route to say that yes, I am a Catholic.  Even still, this usually doesn't go very well.

At the monastery of Dirunka, where I arrived at 5:45am after an overnight train ride, I sat shivering at the gate for two hours of questioning.  It was really cold that morning.  After explaining that I'm Catholic, Brother George Harrison asked, 
"Are you Coptic?"
"No."
"Are you Egyptian?"
"No."

He was puzzled and quite skeptical.  "I'm sorry, we don't have room for you here."  This was a lie.  They had lots of rooms.

With my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, I then asked, "Perhaps, is there room in your manger?" (So I don't know the word in Arabic for manger, but I said stable, and I think it got my point across)

After advancing from the gate to the entrance to the main complex, I went to the visitors office, where I had to register as a guest.  After repeating my name a dozen times, I looked down to see that I had been put in their guest book as "Edward Yohanna al-Katholiki."  They had made up a middle name, and given me "The Catholic" as a surname.  Nice.

The Coptic Soft Pretzel and Nuns with Orange Soda
After mass, Copts gather outside the church, chatting with the various priests and brothers, munching on the communion bread.  Though I didn't take communion, I didn't feel any such prohibition for the after-church bread.  It was like a giant soft pretzel.  Score one for Eastern Christianity. Though you can make the theological argument that the eucharist should be unleavened since Jesus was celebrating passover at the last supper, you never win arguments with a soft pretzel is on the other side.  Delicious soft pretzel.

The picture I didn't take this weekend was also at Dirunka, and also involved food.  After the day-time visitors had left and their work was finished, the nuns were gathered in the little square by the commissary, chatting, laughing, and downing bottles of Mirinda.  It made me really happy.

Egyptian Shumba

A week into the Egypt leg of my Watson adventure, I feel stupid for not coming sooner. As beautiful as Jordan is as a country, Amman just doesn't compare to Cairo by any measure.

After a few days bumming around Cairo as a tourist, devouring bowls of koshari, taking 'oud lessons, and exploring the souqs and alleys of my neighborhood, I made my first monastery visit.

To get permission to do this, I went to the Coptic Cathedral, where they promptly rejected me, sending me to the monastery offices at another church. In classic Egyptian bureaucratic fashion, the priest at this church said I needed to get a letter from the cathedral before he could issue a permission. Oy vey.

I used the only weapon at my disposal - looking pathetic and sad, and a Coptic guy drove me to the cathedral and vouched for me to some Abba, who was very skeptical of the intentions of a Catholic, a LATIN Catholic. (sidenote: isn't it funny how you can often tell prejudices from grammar and pronunciation? Eye-rakki, eye-talian, using Jew as an adjective, and pronouncing a hard o in Cath-o-lic. Anyways...) After some begging and ring-kissing (yeah, that happened), I got the letter allowing me to visit Deir Anba Bishoi and stay for a few days with the monks.

Arriving in Wadi Natrun the next day, the monk at the gate told me that while I could visit the monastery, due to the fast for advent, visitors were only allowed to stay in the papal palace at the monastery.

"Does your letter of introduction say that you can stay there?" the monk asked.

"Sure," I replied, having not read the letter (Arabic hand-written by old people is really hard to read).

Well, upon further examination, I wasn't allowed anywhere near the papal anything. Nice try. I went into the old church and got my first taste of Coptic prayers. In a hall thick with incense, the monks chanted, playing tambourines and cymbals as pilgrims came in to touch and pray before the relics of St. Bishoi.

On my way out, I stopped briefly at the Well of Martyrs, where the Bedouins who massacred the monks in the Middle Ages washed their swords.

With no clear idea of where I would sleep that night, I decided to try Deir al-Baramous, another of the Wadi Natrun monasteries that thanks to a lovely old Coptic abuna in St. Louis, I have a letter of introduction to.

After some intense questioning by a couple of monks, they decided that an Americani Katholiki could stay there for a few days.

Now I'm just going to come right out and say it: monastic life sucks. I like reading about monasteries and their histories, the works that get produced in them and even ecclesiastical politics. But I usually do those sorts of nerdy things within a normal schedule of eating and sleeping. That wasn't to be found.

The first evenings prayers were interesting enough, trying to follow along in Arabic and Greek to understand what was happening in Coptic kept me going despite my stomach growls. After reading most of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers (I have a post coming on St. Moses the Black, who had a great sense of humor), I went to sleep hungry. I had missed the one meal of the day.

I didn't get much sleep on the mostly wooden bed and pillow that seemed especially ascetic. That wouldn't matter much as I was awoken at 3am for the next set of prayers. Expecting another hour-long episode of chanting. I was dismayed to find that I was still standing in a smokey church four hours later. They had kicked us pilgrims out before communion. So I couldn't even get some bread for my trouble.

My fellow pilgrims read the Bible and saints' lives in our room. Now I don't believe in God under normal circumstances, and I especially don't believe in Him having not eaten in about 36 hours or slept more than three. I took a nap.

I woke up at noon when a pilgrim asked me if I wanted to eat. Okay, God and I are back on good terms. The meal was bread and fool, mashed fava beans. My friend Andrew once remarked that even good fool tastes a little bit like vomit. This was really bad fool. Nevertheless, I demolished a plate of it. There was a saucer of molasses that I just started taking licks of, Bear Dinner-style.

Back to normal, I spent the afternoon reading more about the Desert Fathers, including St. Macarius, who founded al-Baramous, and St. Moses the Black, who is buried there. I alternated between thinking, "these are some alright dudes" and "wow, that's kinda messed up." Asceticism isn't my cup of tea. I think today these behaviors are termed anorexia and self-harm. Or at least being really emo for God. But I digress.

More prayers and less sleep, and it was finally the next day. I declined the invitation of my novice host (who was a great guy and wore a baby-blue dishdash) to stay another few days, and I headed back to Cairo, a city where I can buy a baked sweet potato on the street at midnight for 50 cents. In other words, home.

[A note on the name Deir al-Baramous: Deir means monastery, so that's self-explanatory. Despite being better known for Moses the Black, Baramous takes its Coptic name Pi-Romios from two Roman brothers, sons of the emperor who came to the desert to meet Macarius and then proceeded to fast themselves to death. Smart.]

Location:Cairo, Egypt

Cold Jordan

With my time in Amman drawing to a close, I recorded a couple songs. One of them, "Cold Jordan," is a traditional that I first heard covered by the Grateful Dead. Maybe it's my tribute to my home of the past four months. It's a little bit Jesus-y, but there's a long line of good songs with Jesus in them, notably Kris Kristofferson's "Jesus was a Capricorn," the traditional and Nirvana's cover of "Jesus don't want me for a sunbeam," and Kanye's "Jesus Walks," which is just a great song.

Anyway, "Cold Jordan" is a good song about the river and the apocalypse. I also did Jolie Holland's "December, 1999," which is just how I feel right now. She's my favorite singer, and I believe every one of her songs, which I think is pretty rare.

These songs are availale at www.drop.io/tedssongs

Catch you on the Cairo side.

In it to Bedouin it

After finishing up my volunteering and visits with Iraqis, I headed out to the desert for Thanksgiving and Eid al-Adha with Katkuta and Nawaf, a Bedouin guy I know.  He lives in Wadi Musa near Petra, and I had stayed in his cave a few months ago.  After he picked us up at the bus station, we drove down to a wadi, seasonal creek valley, near the Bedouin village.  Nawaf, his uncle, and his nephews were working on a dam to provide water for sheep in the mountains.

The Approach

Along the way, we had to scale a 25 ft. cliff face with a rope hanging down from it.  I wasn't sure of my own rope-climbing abilities, but I saw Nawaf's uncle, who is 70, doing it in sandals and a dishdash, while smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.  He even adjusted his kuffiyeh halfway up.  Apparently, the secret to aging well is tea and cigarettes.


At the top, the Bedouin boys (including Awidh, a Saudi paratrooper who is Nawaf's nephew) broke rocks to make the approach to the dam easier.  Then, they broke more rocks because they're boys, and throwing big rocks off a cliff is fun.  I made a fire for tea, while Nawaf's uncle boasted about the gun he has up on the cliff.  Another hour of rock-breaking, and we were heading down, by which I mean climbing down.  Nawaf had to go back home to get some supplies, so Katkuta and I started walking to Wadi Araba, a desert on the Israel/Jordan border.  Nawaf told us not to get into a car with strangers, and he'd pick us up later on the road.

Hiking out of the wadi along a possibly ancient aqueduct

After an hour or so, a white Lincoln with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia plates pulls up.  It's the nephews and they tell us to get in.  After a short drive, we got to the edge of a valley.  In front of us was Wadi Araba with the lights of Southern Israel in the distance.  As we sat on the ground looking out, the Bedouins cranked Dr. Dre and Akon from the car stereo.  It was a little bit surreal, but quite a sight.


Soon, Nawaf pulled up in his pickup truck and we descended into the desert below, going off-road for a while before ending up at his tent.  While Nawaf and Katkuta cooked thanksgiving dinner (meatball curry with potatoes), Awidh and I went out to get firewood.

By moonlight, we gathered brush. Très romantique!  However, when we had filled the back and were ready to go, the truck was stuck in the sand.  After a half-hour of gunning the engine and then digging out, we gathered some brush and put it under the tires.  The truck finally got out.  Exhausted and relieved, we came back to camp.

Thanksgiving Dinner, 2009

After gorging on the meatballs (after fasting all day, save tea and water), the predictable thanksgiving food coma set in.  After the requisite arak and campfire, I fell asleep.  It wasn't after 8:30pm.

Camp at dawn.

The next morning, I awoke at dawn.  Awidh was already up making tea, and we watched the dawn.  Très romantique!

Sunrise in Wadi Araba

After lounging around camp for a while, we went into town for Eid.  I'd been to Nawaf's house before and met his six (or seven?) kids, ranging from 3 months to ten years.  Most of the day was spent serving as a jungle gym for Abdul Salam (his four-year-old) and Ola (his three-year-old).  Neighbors and relatives came and went all day, bringing gifts and candies for the kids.  It was a wonderful mixture of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

The day after Thanksgiving was Eid al-Adha, the Festival of the Sacrifice in Islam.  It commemorates Abraham's offering of Isaac and subsequent sacrifice of a ram.  I thought about this during Eid quite a lot, and I can't help wondering a bit about Abraham.  I mean, three major religions revere this guy.  However, I'm of the belief that when God is telling you to kill your child, it ain't God talkin'.  I know the story is supposed to show Abraham's devotion to YHWH and that whole deal, but what parent would even think about doing that?  That's insane.

That aside, Muslims generally celebrate by sacrificing a sheep, goat, or even a camel for the holiday.  They keep a small amount of meat for themselves, and give the rest to poor families, migrant workers without families, and others in need.  But as many of us are wont to do, I just skipped straight to the meat.  In fact, there was a traumatic event in between.

Never bond with an animal you know is going to be killed shortly.

The brothers and cousins go to work.

It is finished, mostly.

Several years ago, I gave up eating mammals for ethical reasons.  I empathize with sheep, cows, and pigs.  I don't really empathize with chickens or fish.  Anyway, I suspended my dietary restrictions because Iraqis and Arabs have lamb at pretty much every meal.  This was really hard to watch.  Pain and panic filled the sheep's eyes as it bled out, struggling.  It spasmed for several minutes afterward.  I'm glad I saw it to understand where meat comes from.

I could write a bit more about the other events in the desert - a foot race down a sand dune, a few fires, and a lot of shai, but I'll leave it at the sacrifice.

Eid sayyid

There is no angel here

During my last class at at Ashrafiyya School, after the obligatory cake and Mirinda, the conversation somehow shifted to kidnapping.  One after another, men and women told stories of how their brother, their father, or their son was taken and held for ransom.  They argued about whether paying the ransom, sometimes as much as $100,000, hurts one's chances for resettlement with the UN or IOM.  They argued about whether it was the Shi'a or the Baathists, or just criminals who had abducted their loved ones.

Finally, one soft-spoken woman raised her hand.  She's a mother of two, an electrical engineer who's waited for seven months to immigrate with her family to the U.S. or Canada.

"I was kidnapped," she said as the room quieted down.

She then proceeded to tell the story about the time she got into a taxi in 2006.  She was leaving the hospital where she had been visiting her father.  After a twenty minute drive that should have taken ten, she got confused. She wasn't back at home yet.  She began seeing trees all around.  She lived in Baghdad, a treeless city if there ever was one.  She asked the driver to stop the car.  He stopped and took her out.  He told her that her family would have to pay for her life.

"I start to pray," she said to the class.  "I read the Bible every day.  I know that when there is danger, God will send an angel to save you."

She saw him pull out a gun.

"There is no angel here.  This is a bad place."

As she knelt in those woods, crying and praying, a police car drove by, unaware of what was occurring just yards away.  It spooked the would-be kidnapper sufficiently that he jumped into the taxi and drove away, leaving her there.

The Long Goodbye

Although I have three weeks left in Jordan, I've begun winding down my various activities, which mostly means roping other people into taking over my classes.  When I told my class at the Chaldean Church that I was leaving, they were really sad.  One student led me out of the room during a break, while they very noisily planned a surprise party for me.  My Arabic isn't perfect, but it's good enough that I can understand when a group of seniors are arguing over who will bring what to a barbecue in my honor.

So the big day came last Friday.  Various Iraqis had told me times ranging from 10:30AM to 1:30PM as the starting time.  I knew I wanted to get in on the cooking, so I came at 11.  We cooked semach masgoof, basically a big grilled fish.  A student I'll call Yohanna, with whom I've cooked/eaten previously, was in charge of the grill.  

After a long sear, Abu Iskander added a spicy tomato sauce.

When we finally started to eat, I was simultaneously in the best and worst possible situation.  There was this mass of great food, but I was surrounded by a roomful of people who think of me as a son or grandson and want to fatten me up.  As I ate, the pile of food on my plate got bigger, not smaller, as everyone added a large portion of fish, briyani, salata, and tabbouleh to my plate.  My plastic plate began to bend and crack under the mound of delicious Iraqi food.


After everyone was stuffed, we went into the church, where I gave out "diplomas" for the three month course in English that they had just completed.  Seeing how happy and proud they all were was really gratifying.  This is probably the last of my teaching during my Watson year, but it really has opened doors for me in the Iraqi community.  I can just hope that the communities I visit in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco are as open and welcoming as the Iraqis in Jordan have been.

Me and Jethro

When I went on the pilgrimage a few months ago with the Chaldean Church, one of the most striking natural aspects of the trip was the road from Salt in the north to the Dead Sea.  It's a valley called Wadi Shu'ib (after the Biblical character Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses) and it's a long valley that eventually lets out in the River Jordan.  I estimated that from Salt to Shuneh al-Janubiyya (a jumping-off point for Bethany, the spring of Moses, or the Dead Sea) was about 15km.  That'll be a nice and easy hike.


Despite my compass and usually sound sense of direction, I got us stuck at the top of a big ridge, looking down on the road we wanted to walk on.  After trespassing through someone's olive grove (where I found shotgun shells), we were so very close to the road.  We jumped into a pile of rusty metal and trash, and we were once again on our way.  Crisis averted.


The hike was beautiful.  While the ridges on each side of the canyon are rocky and without any greenery, the valley has a small stream and is almost tropical.  We snuck in/walked in to a citrus grove and ate clementines for a while before moving on.  Later on, we made it down the creek, a little muddy stream that was running cold in mid-November.  After several hours hiking, the sun went behind a ridge, it was getting dark, and despite our rigorous training regimen of shisha and shawarma, we were exhausted.


I flagged down a car to take us the rest of the way to Shuneh.  The driver told us he had seen us hiking earlier.  Crazy aja'nib, foreigners.  We had walked something like 22km before quitting.  The bad news when we arrived in Shuneh was that there was no bus to Amman.  However, the guy who picked us up said he was going back to Salt and was glad to take us.  Both Andrew and I fell asleep during the drive back to Salt, which is always a good decision while hitch-hiking.


We got on a bus in Salt and were back in Amman in no time.  Though I like to think I'm better than eating at western establishments in the Middle East, nothing seemed better after 22km than Popeye's Chicken.  Andrew and I demolished a family meal, before retiring to my apartment, satisfied on all fronts.


------
Sorry for the lack of pictures.  I was too lazy to upload them here, but they're all on facebook:


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034349&id=19101971&l=bfcec0f41e 
They cover Kerak, Umm Qais, Makawir, and this adventure in Wadi Shu'ib.

If Islam had been invented in Minnesota

Amman has been comparatively cold for the past week, and all the Jordanians and Iraqis are breaking out their winter clothes, which is funny to see with my smug sense of superiority after living in Minnesota.


One of the other teachers at the Ashrafiyya school for Iraqis where I volunteer always wears a hijab.  However, yesterday, she wore a thick knit hat and a big scarf around her neck.  I realized that for four Minnesota winters, I had worn the hijab daily without even realizing it.


I should probably stop before I get more blasphemous, but saying "peace be upon him" followed by "dontcha know" is a wonderful wonderful thing.

It's a Holiday for a Hanging

After a long rainy week in Amman, I decided to take a trip on Sunday.  Sunday is a work day here, so all of my gainfully employed friends couldn't come along, so I went alone.  I decided on Makawir as my destination.  Makawir (Machaerus in Latin) was the site of Herod the Great's pleasure palace on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea.  Many believe that this was where Salome danced for King Herod, where Salome's mother Herodias tricked him into executing John the Baptist (Yahya ibn Zakariyya to Muslims, Yohanna al-Ma'madan to Chaldeans).  What follows is one of the better stories in the Bible:

On his birthday, Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee.  When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and the dinner guests.

The king said to the girl, "Ask me for anything you want, and I'll give it to you."  And he promised her with an oath.  "Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom."

She went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?" "The head of John the Baptist," she answered.

At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: "I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter."

Mark 6:21-25

Getting to Makawir was no small feat.  Buses don't go all the way to the site, so I took a bus to Madaba, about 15 km to the north, then hitch-hiked down.  The first ride I got was with a guy who was either a baker or bread-enthusiast.  In any case, his truck smelled really good.  I tried to pay him, but he wouldn't have it.  He took me to his house, and showed me the road that I had to keep walking.

I didn't see anyone around, so I sang songs for the hour I was walking on this road.

I walked for another hour, passing on a ride with a dozen sheep in a shepherd's truck.  Eventually, I got another ride.  An old man who was just excited that someone had come to his town took me to about 2km away from the site.  From there, I hiked with the top of the mountain peaking over the hills.  The thing about hiking in mountains next to the Dead Sea is that because the drop is so far, every hill you climb is topped by blue sky or grey clouds.  It's an incredible feeling.

Coming to the top of a hill close to the site

Herod's Palace - Machaerus

[If you're trying to be a legitimate king, why do you live in a hollowed-out volcano like a supervillian?]

When I got to the mountain, it was just me and the birds.  As I sat on the western edge of the ruins, looking out over the Dead Sea to Jerusalem, the Holy Land kind of hit me.  While I fell off the religion wagon a pretty long time ago, these sites still have incredible significance to me.  With winds whipping over the site and small black birds flying overhead, I realized that I'm going to miss Jordan when I leave.  While I've had my ups and downs during my time here, Jordan is a beautiful country with a long history.  I am lucky that I stayed here long enough to visit the backwaters and market towns on top of seeing the famous sites in Petra, Jerash, and Amman.

After my moment of reflection, I was back to a rigorous schedule of galavanting.  In the middle of the triclinium was a large hole that at one time was under excavation, but the funding for this dig was obviously not there to continue this project.  I debated whether or not to climb into this hole, and I thanked Ol' Tom Watson for the opportunity to ponder this question.

Yes, it's a ladder into a hole.

While my friends are making big decisions about life, jobs, relationships, and other VERY IMPORTANT THINGS, my most difficult decision in a long time boiled down to: "Should I climb into this hole?"  While my heart said yes, when the top rung of the ladder cracked under my foot, my bowels said no.  I didn't have any rope, and there was no one to hear me scream, so I saved my energy for the caves in the surrounding hills.  It's likely that one of these caves was the prison that held John before his execution and was the probable site of the beheading.  I dutifully pulled out my headlamp and climbed in.  However, no bloodstains or Baptist-shaped chalk outlines were extant.

Having spent four hours traveling to Makawir and three hours exploring the site, I began the trek home, exhausted.  The traffic in late afternoon is practically non-existent, so when faced with the choice between hitch-hiking after dark in the middle of nowhere and riding with the sheep, I chose sheep.  This had good and bad consequences.  Thankfully, I made it back to Amman in just over two hours, in time to visit with Fr. Raymond and go to mass at the Chaldean Church in Jabal al-Webdeh before he goes to America for a month.  On the other hand, I smelled like sheep.  In a major way.

Also, unbeknownst to me, Fr. Raymond's early departure meant that I was being honored at this mass instead of when I actually leave.  So at the end of the mass, while he's speaking to the congregation about the English program and my service (yadda yadda yadda) and all my students are smiling at me and coming over to shake my hand, I'm frantically trying to remove the visible dirt from my hands and face.

After pleasantries and gifts, I refused a few dinner invitations and went home for the most glorious shower I've ever experienced.  Al-hamdulilah.  Thanks be to God, indeed.

It's a Werewolf Bar Mitzvah / Spooky, Scary / Boys Becoming Men / Men Becoming Wolves

So while I started this blog to chronicle my year in the Middle East, my large percentage of introspective time leads to lots of living inside my head.  I day dream and write a lot of weird stuff.  Sometimes this needs an outlet, like a blog, for example.  So if you only want to hear about Jordan and my life here, you can stop reading and wait until the next post.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a love song about zombies (which I've posted along with a few covers and originals at drop.io/tedssongs).  Generally speaking, I like zombies a lot more than werewolves.  I mean, compare Dawn of the Dead  to Teen Wolf.  Filmwise, I don't think it's really even a contest, no matter how great Michael J. Fox is.  The zombie oeuvre is much stronger, spanning genres from comedy (Dance of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland) to horror (Night of the Living Dead, all of Romero's work) and action (28 Days Later [look, I know rage zombies are not traditional zombies, but it's a pretty good movie]).  However, writing the song got me thinking why there aren't more songs about zombies in comparison to the fairly large number of songs about werewolves.  The conclusion I reached is that  becoming a zombie is a pretty simple experience.  First it's fear, then it's hunger.  Specifically for brains.  While running away from zombies for two hours leads to good action and lots of witty repartee, it doesn't necessarily translate well to song.

Becoming a werewolf is a far more complicated issue.  Due to the cyclic nature of werewolfism, the transformation involves fear, hormones, anger, personality changes, guilt, and a loss of control.  It's kind of like being a teenage boy.  This mess of emotions often leads to musical awesomeness.

So without further ado, here are my top five (and one extra) songs about werewolves:

1. TV on the Radio - "Wolf Like Me" YouTube

"Wolf Like Me" gives the impression that turning into a werewolf is an exhilarating experience that makes you feel alive.  With the pulsing bass drum like a heart beat and the guitar cutting through, the transformation they sing about is one of power and embracing one's wildness.  Key lyrics:

My mind has changed my body's frame 

But god I like it
My heart's aflame, my body's strained 

But god I like it

2. Blitzen Trapper - "Furr" YouTube

I only got into Blitzen Trapper this past year, but I really like a lot of their stuff.  I think this is their best-known song, and it's a more emotional view of becoming a wolf.  Interestingly, they sing about both turning into a wolf and coming back to humanity, a side of the werewolf experience that isn't often explored.  Also there's a great harmonica solo.

For my flesh had turned to fur, yeah
And my thoughts, they surely were, turned to
instinct and obedience to God.

3. Warren Zevon - "Werewolves of London" YouTube

Probably the best-known werewolf song on the market.  Warren Zevon was a weird guy who wrote some pretty amazing songs, and both his awesome howl and sense of humor come through on the track.

If you hear him howling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again

4. Cat Power - "Werewolf" YouTube

Everything Chan Marshall sings sounds haunting, so when she sings about werewolves in a slow minor key number, it's killer.   She sings about the werewolf's pain, a kind of counterpoint to TV on the Radio's fist pump of a song.  It's a song about resignation, about the return of a known hurt.

Cryin' nobody know, nobody knows my pain
When I see that it's risen; that full moon again

For the werewolf, for the werewolf has sympathy
For the werewolf is somebody like you and me.

5. Five Man Electrical Band - "Werewolf" YouTube

I'm not sure how I came across this Canadian werewolf jam.  But it's awesome, in a ridiculous Canadian '70s rock way.

I know he's my own flesh and blood
But he makes my blood run chilly
Cause I saw him from my window
And he was on the heel
Just screaming at the moonlight

****BONUS****

Tracy Morgan/Jordan - "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" YouTube

This appeared briefly on an episode of 30 Rock, but apparently they recorded a full version, which is hilarious.

Then my teeth turned into fangs and my nails into claws

And I nearly dropped the torah when my hands turned into paws

I growled and I roared and my rabbi did as well

It was a rocking werewolf zoo at Temple Beth Emmanuel

I promise I'll get back to talking about the Middle East and Iraqis soon enough.

Mistake

"Teacher, there is mistake on your shirt. 'Socks' is spelled s-o-c-k-s, not s-o-x. You should buying new shirt."

I think my final few weeks of teaching Iraqis will be spent on baseball. Cultural education, as it were.

Baby, that's all we need

[ed note: I don't think I've written about my students enough lately, so here is one short snippet and some predictable shenanigans.]

After church yesterday evening, I went to the house of "Abu Miryam" and his wife, who are students in my class at the Chaldean Church.  Like most of my students, they're getting up there in years, but they both have great senses of humor.  While we waited for Umm Miryam to arrive, Abu MIryam told me more about his life in Iraq.  In the 1970s, he owned a hotel/restaurant complex in Baghdad.  In the 1980s, he sold it for what I figure to be about $500,000 and traveled to Sweden and Hungary to get away from the Iran-Iraq war.  He returned, only to see his fortune get reduced to practically nothing as the Iraqi dinar fell off a cliff during the First Gulf War.  He came to Jordan with his wife last year, leaving behind their house in Baghdad.  Their daughter, "Miryam," finished medical school in Baghdad in 2008, and is now in the U.S. studying for her boards.  They hope to join her soon.

In addition to English, Abu Miryam is also studying Chaldean Aramaic, which most Chaldeans know a bit of.  If you meet a Chaldean, he or she will almost certainly remind you that Chaldean Aramaic is "al-lugha Yesua," the language of Jesus.  Abu Miryam can speak it, but had never learned the writing, which is very different from Arabic.  He showed me his notebook, which was filled with an assortment almost-Hebrew letters and their Arabic equivalents.

As Umm Miryam prepared the food, Abu Miryam, with his dentures now removed, asks me, "Do you like Djani Wallllker?"  I answered in the affirmative, and while he got the glasses, I pondered whether my project should've had "Drinking with..." before the "Endangered Communities in the Middle East" in the title.  Soon, Umm Miryam emerged with a feast, including homemade spicy pickles and olives along with the usual Iraqi meats.  After another glass of "Djani Walllker," I told them I had to go.  Abu Miryam had a concerned look on his face.  "It's not safe out there at night.  You shouldn't travel alone."  This wasn't the usual Arab invitation to stay the night; he was really worried.  Umm Miryam quieted him down.  "This is Amman, not Baghdad."

I wandered down the hill to get a taxi.  When I got in, the young driver asked if I was a foreigner.  Yes, I replied.  Do you like foreign music?  Of course, I answered.

Then a familiar bass line kicked in, and I knew it had been a good night.  In the streets of Abdali, I sang along as the music played:

"Colt 45 and two zig-zags, Baby that's all we need..."

Mother of Camels!

After an emotionally-impactful but blog-inappropriate (death and mourning, Iraqi-style) evening on Friday, I traveled to Northern Jordan with a friend on Saturday.  I've previously written about how much I like riding buses in the country.  I should amend that to say **moving** buses.  Once underway, however, I enjoyed each part of our trip to Umm al-Jimal (Mother of Camels, the Bedouin name for a Nabatean city).  Stopping in the sleepy market towns of Az-Zarqa (home of Al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) and Mufraq (home of nothing that I know of), we made it to the two thousand year old city just after noon.

Thumbs up to Northern Jordan.  Thumbs down to the Red Sox offense.

It sits about 10 km from the Syrian border, on the foothills of Jabal Druze, the Syrian region on which I did the bulk of my undergraduate research.  All the rock here is volcanic, so the buildings are made of an amazing black stone.  And thanks to the desert, the city is pretty well intact, including a castle, Byzantine Churches, lots of houses, and water storage units, which still contain some dirtywater.

Some of the churches were quite incredible.  The one that really stood out had a Latin inscription above the right aisle portal, which is unusual, because most of what I see here is in Greek, even in Roman cities like Jerash.  Umm al-Jimal was  built from the 1st century BC to the fourth century AD, and I would guess that the church was towards the end of that time.  The right half of the lintel was faded and had something growing on it, but I could spot VALENTINIAN in the top line, who Wikipedia tells me was Roman Emperor from 364 AD - 375 AD and a Christian, which would make sense with the timeline for the site and his patronage of a church here.  There's also a reference farther down to the consul and the magister equitum, possibly listing all of those responsible for the construction.  Then again, this lintel might have been reused for a later Byzantine church from an earlier Roman one since this site was occupied even after Roman authority waned.  In any case, the church was quite beautiful, with a small set of steps at the back of the apse leading to nowhere (heaven?, cue beginning of song).

Lintel on the right portal of the church

Also quite interesting for me was what I found inside this church - a boatload of mosaics.  A couple fragments in the nave had been uncovered, but dirt covered most of the floor.  I walked to the apse and started brushing it away, and sure enough, there were floral patterns and crosses underneath.  While the good ones are probably long gone, having probably been on the walls, there is a lot here and no one looking.  I didn't see anyone else in the three hours were were in the site.  Realizing that brushing off mosaics with my bandana was not the best way to preserve the site, I let my guilt win out over my curiosity, and I stopped.

I did find one lone tessera in the altar area, which was probably one among millions that once filled this church.

After galavanting around the ruins for another few hours, we began the journey back to Amman.  We didn't get far.  After flagging down a van to get a ride back to Mafraq, the Bedouin man driving said he had to stop at his house for five minutes.  Arriving at his tidy house next to a small olive grove, he invited us in for a drink.  While I have some criticisms of Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea, the titular concept is spot on.  That is, after one cup, you're a stranger.  After the second, you're a friend.  After the third, you're family.  Well, I could write a sequel called A cup of tang, a cup of water, and a cup of Diet Pepsi after our visit to this guy's home.  If I thought back to another experience with Bedouins, it could easily be called 7 to 10 cups of tea.  Anyways, over various drinks and a huge platter of eggplant, fried potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers, we relaxed in his diwan.  With my friend dozing off on his cushion, I was quite content.  Sitting in a friendly stranger's (sorry, family member's) home and making small talk is what I find so incredible about my time here.  While I'll always remember the incredible things I've seen and will see in the months ahead, what will stick with me are the people I've met, even for just a couple hours, who have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome in whatever town I find myself in.

After our "delay" in his living room, we got back to Mafraq, then Zarqa, then finally Amman after sunset.  Getting out of the city is something I need to do to stay sane, and the people I meet in the great unknown that is the rest of Jordan are a great asset in understanding the country.