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  He was quite surprised by my iPhone: what was I doing, he wanted to know, with an outdated 3G?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.