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.