A roadtrip from Damascus to Amman... Petra... Wadi Rum... Dahab... Cairo. And then back.
We were pulled into an hour long dance-off to Usher's “Yeah” in a downtown Amman cafe, boosted ourselves up onto the ledges of Petra, felt the heat of orange sand blow against us in the valley of Wadi Rum, saw the moon sink into the smooth Red Sea.
Petra was a day of climbing and staring at the glare of the sun from cliffs. “Off the beaten path” is sometimes an understatement. I was led around by a little Bedouin girl pulling my hand. She insisted on using my and Kate's cameras to take pictures of everything, from dogs running in the dust to the inside of her mouth. In Wadi Rum, after a day of jumping from rock to rock and running down sand dunes, Jesse and I pulled our mattresses outside into the desert. We slept outside under a blanket of stars, the moon bright enough for you to read a book.
In a drastic contrast, Dahab was tequila sunrises and sheesha and sun and crystal clear water, and cats jumping onto your lap, and telling time by where the moon hung over the water at night. It was full of open-wall cafes and bars right on the coast, with mattresses spread along the beach. I stared across the sparkling Red Sea each day at (bizarrely enough) Saudi Arabia... as I lay on the beach... in my teal bikini... drink in hand. And was left feeling shway haram.
One long night bus later, and we were in the city of a thousand minarets. I have a weird attachment to Cairo. There's something homey for me about the trash-covered sidewalks that border Talat Harb Street. When I went to Cairo after my freshman year at GW, it was the first time I had left the US, and going back there always reminds me of that time in my life when I really started living.
Easter was spent in Egypt, walking around Coptic Cairo. I am far from religious, but churches always do something for me. I guess I've only ever been in churches for funerals, when I'm in need of some form of spirituality anyways. But that's what I get when I go into churches, no matter where I am. I always light a candle and think about the people who are far away and mean so much to me. I always light a candle and think of my grandparents.
After the Coptic area, we went into the oldest mosque in Africa. Everyone who I've met in the Middle East associates me, with my blue eyes and uncovered curly hair, with Christianity. When I stumble around mosques in oversized “special clothes,” I think the world can tell that I am not Muslim. By default, I become a Christian. In churches, especially the history-laden churches that I've visited here, I have seen such emotion coming from people. As I look at the texture of mosaics, women next to me kneel down, pressing their hands gently on the relics and whispering bible passages. Similarly though, in mosques, while I sit on the rug adjusting the hood of my “special clothes” and take pictures of the symmetrical courtyard, men near me pray with unwavering focus. These places have such beauty... they have sun shining through tinted glass windows with scenes of crucifixions... they have curved calligraphy in wooden walls proclaiming “la allah ila allah”... but in these places, the spirituality I inevitably feel comes from the faith of people around me.
I am not too worried about going back to Cairo. There is no doubt in my head that the smog, desert puppies next to the pyramids, and 24-hour bar at the Oedian will see me again... AUC offers an amazing graduate program at the Center for Forced Migration and Refugee Studies. Time will tell.
But for now, time cannot be trusted. In less than a month, I will be on a plane from Beirut to Boston.
I just finished a book called “Six Months In Sudan.” At one point the author describes his reasons for working in Sudan, and I've never read a statement that more perfectly encompasses my reasons, and the reasons of so many I know, to be here. “Pushed by the sharp thrill of being somewhere new and rare and exciting, pushed towards that free feeling where anything can happen. Pulled because I want to understand.”
A good friend of mine once told me that I “seek it out... I don't know what it is, but you seek it out.” This is what I seek out.
