Feeling Safe in the Middle East

School holidays are a traveler's nightmare in South Africa:  everything is booked up months, if not a full year, in advance, and neighboring African countries are not immune to the frenzy.  For Brandon's Easter vacation, we came up with a neat, heretical solution-- travel to a predominately Muslim country.  After exploring  options to Morocco, Thailand and other countries in Africa we decided on Jordan. The fact that my good friend Yvonne’s daughter, Stesha, is working in Jordan as a Peace Corp volunteer clinched the decision.

We had a great time spending our first full day and second night in the desert at Wadi Rum (where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed) and were happy to have Stesha join us.  Our Bedouin host, recommended to Stesha by other Peace Corp workers, was very welcoming, and clearly an enterprising man, as he managed several different groups of visitors all with different time frames.  He was quite surprised by my iPhone: what was I doing, he wanted to know, with an outdated 3G?  He was very happy with his iPhone 4 and urged me to upgrade!

We rode a canopied truck out into the desert with an Australian couple, currently living in Dubai, and made several stops for sightseeing and hiking.

After a long, eventful day we arrived in our camp for the night.  The complex was quite impressive, given the remote location, with electricity from a generator, and a bathroom featuring a shower and flush toilets (not always a given in Jordan).  There were a dozen other people staying with us, and we all enjoyed the evening meal of grilled meat, vegetables, and delicious salads.
To top it off, the night we stayed there was a full moon illuminating the desert in a soft, silvery light.



The next morning we rode back to town, caravan-style.  It was great fun, except for the fact that the saddle on my camel was incorrectly positioned.  In protest, the camel unexpectedly sat down in the middle of our journey, unceremoniously dumping me in the sand (which, fortunately, was extremely soft).  The camel ride was definitely a highlight.

We followed up our time in Wadi Rum with an all-day excursion to Petra.  We were amazed by its size and beauty.  I could have easily spent another couple of days exploring the place.  Mike and I walked up several hundred stone-steps to view the impressive monastery, while Brandon not-surprisingly opted for donkey transport.  At a cafe opposite the monastery, we conversed with another American family, currently living in Moscow -- turns out the husband recently was appointed as U.S.  ambassador to Russia.

After one last night with Stesha we headed north to Jerash.  The city features some of the Middle East's best preserved Roman ruins.  Brandon was very excited to see structures he studied in history class at St. Bens, including the Hippodrome and the temple of Artemis and Zeus.

Umm Qais, in the far North, was our next destination.  It, too, has Roman ruins, though not as spectacular as those in Jeresh.  We had a memorable meal at a nice restaurant amidst the ruins, overlooking the Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee -- very beautiful.  It was hard to fathom all the ongoing unrest and violence in Syria, a few minutes away, so tranquil was the setting.


Our time in the capital, Amman, was very limited, but again I was struck by how safe I felt to walk around the city, day or night.  Unfortunately we did not budget enough time for getting lost on the way to the airport and ended up missing our flight, though we were able fly out that evening.  As a result our time in Dubai was limited to getting to the hotel and passing out.  Will have to explore next time.


Overall our eight days in the Hashemite Kingdom were marked by wonderful adventure and crazy driving -- in a setting and society dramatically different from what we have become accustomed to in South Africa.  It was great to travel with Stesha for the first couple of days and receive a rudimentary education in Jordanian history and culture.  For me, the most striking contrast was how safe it felt, particularly for women.  While men both in Jordan and South Africa are allowed to have multiple wives, and the de facto status of women is subjugated to that of men in both societies, violence towards women and children is an entirely different matter.  In Jordan, as Stesha explained to us, women are expected to maintain their family's honor in their dress, decorum, and interactions with men.  Violence is uncommon except in the rare case of infidelity (I'm not saying infidelity is rare, but honor killings are).  I was pleasantly surprised to see that most men where likewise conservative in their dress code and behavior.

What struck me, as we walked around the cities of Aqaba and Amman at night, was how safe we all felt.  Shops were open late, people were milling in the street conversing, and everyone we encountered was extremely helpful and gracious.  I had become accustomed to South African life, where everyone retires early behind locked gates with high tech security systems.  I realized how much I miss the freedom of being out at night.  That, in itself, is reason enough to return home and not continue working and living in South Africa indefinitely despite the great beauty of the place and the amazing work experience.

Compare and Contrast

Since the last posting, many frequent flier miles have been accrued, ceasars  performed, and households swapped.  After a stint in Seattle (extended for Mike, abbreviated for Brandon), Mike and Brandon returned to South Africa in early January to a new home in Mtunizini and a new routine.  Comparing our current housing to our previous hospital provided lodgings in Eshowe is not really fair or productive, considering that even in its dilapidated state, our previous house was far superior to that of the typical resident of KZN.  Suffice it to say that our new home is very comfortable, with amenities we take for granted but sorely lacked in Eshowe, including functioning wifi we installed, which is a luxury here.  Additionally, the estate we are living on is very beautiful, with great hiking/biking trails along the Zini river, a resident herd of zebras, interesting birds, and a nice swimming pool to cool off in during the heat of the afternoon.

The town of Mtinzini is very sleepy, with a small super-market, 4 or 5 restaurants, a couple of primary schools, a small library and post office, and the obligatory correctional faciltiy.  From our house it is about a two minute drive to a park that encompasses the Zini River estuary,  a great beach  (with hellacious undertow), and some nice hiking and biking trails through forest.  It is definitley much hotter and more humid here than Eshowe, but fortunately we have a great breeze most of the time, and the house does have aircon and ceiling fans which help make it comfortable.

Monkeys seem to be every where in this town in the early morning and late afternoon.

Our friends Connie & Charlie at Mtunzini Beach

The picture below is from the local dive bar/back packers hostel featuring 'tame' zebras.  Shortly after this photo was taken, the zebra turned and kicked Mike in the ass (literally) with both its rear legs.  And soon after that the bar's resident snake handler displayed a few of the extremely poisonous local snakes he had captured for our enterainment.  The large forest cobra was very unwieldly and nearly bit his captor a couple of times, temporarily escaping his control after one such attempt.  All very amusing.....

Brandon has just completed his first month of High School (grades 8-12 in S.A.) at Felixton College.  The contrast with his previous school in Eshowe is striking:  at Felixton, the kids wear real uniforms, instead of the gas attendant like jump suits required by the Convent school, the class rooms are air conditioned, the facilities far superior (including a very nice computer lab, sport fields, etc), the academics, it seems,  more challenging, and the overt Chrisitan trappings far more muted.  So far, Brandon seems to be enjoying Felixton, and making friends among his classmates, though it is still 'early days', so time will tell if this sentiment persists.

Mike may help out occassinally at Felixton with IT system admin stuff,  in addition to consulting on some data admin work at Eshowe HS and teaching a computer class for 3rd graders at a primary school in Eshowe.  In rural South Africa, IT, much like medicine, is the domain of the generalist, rather than the specialist.  All aspects of technology -- from fixing desktops, managing users, deploying servers, maintianing networks, digging trenches and laying cable, supporting applications, managing licenses, and even development -- typically default to a single, harried individual who often has to perform another function, such as teaching a class.  Breadth, rather than depth of experience, is what counts most.  Compare this to a large organization in the U.S., where several people may be dedicated full time to managing a single application.

However, it is in the area of basic educational attainment that the contrast between here and home is most salient and disheartening.  It didn't dawn on me until recently when I was filling out the death certificate of a young woman, and I had to circle none for education, not even first grade.  The patient worked as someone's housekeeper her entire, abbreviated life. Her sister, the next of kin, unable to sign her name,  left a thumbprint instead.  Later,  I asked my student nurse to translate a conversation explaining to a patient about her "uterus" but I first had to explain to her what a uterus was. The secretary in the human resources office types slowly with one finger. And the pass rate for high school is 30% for an individual subject, 40% cumulative. I just realized how non-existent education was for the black South African until the end of apartheid and the large chasm in education that still exists here between black and white citizens. Not just a lack of healthcare workers and resources, but a lack of basic understanding about one's healthcare in general; the basics we take for granted -- Why there is never any soap in the bathroom or facilities to wash one's hands on the wards between seeing patients. Why the same antibiotic that has no benefit continues to be prescribed by nurses and doctors. It seems insurmountable at times.

Connie and Charlie recently left for Seattle, via Berlin, after a very enjoyable stay with us.  Brandon missed several days of school to share their safari adventure at Zulu Nyala Game Lodge (about 2 hours from our house).  It is a very nice, low-key lodge.  New animal sighting highlights include a family of cheetahs, and a tiny chamelon.  Very cool.

We look forward to sharing our house with many more guests while we are here, so keep an eye on flights to Durban and give us a shout if you plan on coming.