Monday, March 04, 2013

The Nile and Jordan (2009)

(THE NILE)
 On the shore of Lake Victoria, in Tanzania 4 years ago, I was overcome with an expansive feeling while contemplating the realization that here I am at the headwaters of the NIle, the longest river in the world, the source of life that gave birth to the glorious civilization of ancient Egypt. Someday I will visit and see for myself what this life source had created. We boarded our Nile cruiser, the Medea in Aswan after taking the overnight sleeper train from Cairo. The train ride offered a glimpse of how crowded Cairo is. The hoi polloi massed to overflowing in the coach section, while thankfully we had our private cabins . It was suddenly very hot when we arrived in Aswan. Cruising the Nile offers a vast landscape of golden wheat fields and goats grazing and graceful date palms, mud houses and children playing, a narrow swath of green, then the arid desert beyond. Along its shore also lie the tombs of kings and temples to gods that survived for over thousands of years, monuments that give awe and inspiration, that man through all times is capable of brilliant invention and creativity. The creations also testify to man’s folly and cruelty, and to his need for immortality and salvation.

 (OF GODS AND MEN, TOMBS, THE CITY OF THE DEAD)
 Egyptian archaeological treasure is immense. The Cairo Egyptian Museum, opened in 1909 houses thousands of artifacts, in an aging building that’s dusty and not air-conditioned, its wood and glass exhibit cases with notes typewritten in an old Corona typewriter are relics in themselves. The Tutankhamun treasures alone occupies one large wing and only a small sample is exhibited at a time. King Tut’s gleaming golden mummy mask is jaw-dropping awesome, and that’s just the beginning. Giza with the Sphinx and the Pyramids is just in the outskirts of Cairo. You can see it from the city, the juxtaposition of images is poetry. And the Valley of the Kings is so immense, over 60 tombs have been identified, it’s unimaginable how it was like in the ages. The pharaohs had the vision, but the peasants and slaves produced the artistry and know-how to erect these everlasting monuments that has lasted over 5000 years. (EGYPTIANS) Egyptians like to think of themselves as a distinct people from the Arabs. They want to be identified as Egyptian, not Arab. Many Arabs are Muslims, but not all Muslims are Arabs, Indonesians are mostly Muslims. Israelites are also a diverse group. They are mostly Jews but there are Arabs, the Bedouins, and Druze who were grandfathered as Israelite when Israel became a nation. Among Jews, there are the Hassidic, Ashkenazians, and Sephardic. In Jordan, 42% of the population are Palestinians. Then there are the tourists.

 (PETRA, AMMAN/JORDAN)
Jordan is a country about to join the tourist trade, there is construction aimed for the tourists all over, but they have a long way to go. Aside from Petra and Moses mountain and the baptism site of Jesus by the Jordan river and the Dead sea which it shares with Israel, there's not much antiquities here after you've been to Egypt and Jerusalem. The bulk of Amman however is a new city with many shopping malls and a residential district for the rich and powerful with million dollar houses. There is a huge development in the middle of the city between the old district and the new that is a city within a city that is just like Atlantic station. The Middle East is not merely building skyscrapers they are building cities with projected population up to 2 million. Consider that Jordan has merely 5 M population with 1.5 M concentrated in Amman, UAE Abu Dhabi and Dubai and Saudi Arabia, even Qatar are building mega cities from the ground. The wage here averages 300 JD Jordanian dinar ( $1.30 to JD1) per month, so life here is tough for the middle class. Cars are expensive, the affordable car for the populace is made in Korea, There are Palestinian settlements in the old city and it creates friction, however 42% of Jordanians are from Palestine and many are related, Individuals weigh in on the Palestine/Israel conflict based on their personal relations. The newspapers have news about a journalist arrested for criticizing the parliament, Filipino female domestic workers are blacklisted here because some entrepreneur brought them in and have them work as prostitutes, why they did not arrest the entrepreneur is another story. My imbibing friends will not survive here, alcohol is served only in major tourist places. I had dinner in an Arabian restaurant and many arabs dine there with their covered wives. I can't help staring at how the women eat with their entire face except the eyes covered with black cloth, they slip the food under the veil, what a process.

Kibbutz-Kissufim

I’ve had Jewish professional colleagues who talked about volunteering in a kibbutz for a summer or for a year in the 70’s, before launching their careers. They extolled its transforming experience of personal enrichment and connecting with their roots. I happened to schedule my Israeli trip on Passover so I was very excited when my friend invited me to have Seder with her in her kibbutz, Kissufim. It is 1.5 kilometers from the Gaza strip, south of Tel Aviv, northwest of the Negev desert, which raised anxious concerns among my family and friends. But my friend’s father still live there (she now lives in Tel Aviv) and she’s going so I figure, I’ll be just as safe there as anywhere else. There were signs of the danger though, in the ongoing construction of bomb shelters in each residence.

 I rented a car and drove the 116 kilometers on sleek highways. I had no trouble as the driving is on the right as in the US and I had a GPS I named Golda. I was intrigued to learn more about the kibbutzim movement when my friend remarked that people in Israel can tell when they meet her, that she was raised in a kibbutz. I couldn’t, but I’m sure the telling characteristics are positive.

The kibbutz movement is communal living based on socialist principles of sharing with all and each provided by all with what he needs. Together with the Zionist movement it became a powerful force in establishing the state of Israel. The Zionist international organization provided the funds to buy lands in Palestine for settlement. The kibbutzim are generally in the periphery of the state as they were intended to define and secure the borders of the state. The first kibbutz was founded in 1909 by Russian youths in the southern shores of Galilee, in Degania. Kissufim was founded in the 50’s by immigrants from South America and the US. My friend’s father is one of the founders. Early life in the kibbutz was harsh. Palestine, after the demise of the Ottoman Empire was barren and ridden with malaria. The resident Arabs were poor and lived in miserable conditions. The Jewish settlers, drained marshes, irrigated the desert and planted the land and developed a thriving agriculture economy then later expanded into manufacturing, services, electronics and other industry. With the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, kibbutzim grew rapidly, until it began its decline in the 80’s, due to various factors such as economic recession worldwide, decline of agriculture revenues, ideological shift in the younger generation towards individualistic principles, income gap, media exposure to outside influences, abuse of the system, etc. Today there are about 260 kibbutzim ranging in size from less than 100 members to over a thousand. The idealogy is changing towards various degrees of privatization, and there are some who prophesizes its demise but others who maintain optimism that it can incorporate change to adapt to reality but retain its core principle of egalitarianism. Today many kibbutzim are moving towards eco-agriculture, and tourism to maintain its vitality. Kissufim now has dwindled to about 100 members, many are aging. It’s economy is fueled by agriculture, and dairy production, and it employs outside labor ( Arabs and Vietnamese) to provide its workforce. The dining room is no longer the hub of the commune, my friend’s father has a caregiver and eats at home, but his needs are taken care of by the commune. Some are moving back with young children by choice. The kibbutzim no longer raise children in separate quarters from their parents since the 70’s, like how my friend was raised, so families find the commune ideal to shield children from the onslaught of external influences. And some young couples move back to escape the stress of urban living.

Maybe, it is not a lost world.

The Lost World, The Romance of Travel-April, 2009

I remember my first yearning of seeing the world, in World History class in high school. Epochs and kingdoms and exotic names and distant peoples and places came alive in my imagination, and a deep longing took hold within me to walk the earth and breathe the air of these magical lands. The Pharaohs, Antony and Cleopatra, Mesopotamia, Babylon, Baghdad, Damascus, Constantinople, Nebuchadnezzar, KIng David, Solomon, the Ottoman Empire, Richard the Lion Hearted, Saladin; their stories conjured images in my head more thrilling than what Hollywood ever created. So it is with great anticipation that I planned this trip to Israel, Egypt and Jordan. Last year I signed up as a volunteer in a weeklong English immersion program for Spaniards, Pueblo Ingles, in La Alberca, and met Talila, from Israel who assured me that visiting Israel is not as scary as what the US media portrays it to be. I’ve wanted to go for the last 15 years, but was daunted by the perennial State Department travel advisory to this region. But I feared that these lands as I’ve imagined them might be lost forever considering the wars and terrorism that are going on in the region. Baghdad, Damascus, Persia (Iran), Lebanon, have been defiled by violence, and the Arab lands of Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Qatar, have been altered beyond recognition by glitzy development of skyscrapers, megacities, megamalls and golf courses. So I’ve decided it’s now or never, I will go! I must admit, I had some trepidation, and the fearful concern of friends didn’t help, so I purchased an expensive travel insurance that included terrorism coverage. Therefore, consider me lucky, because my trip was uneventful except for the medical challenge of subduing a virulent staphylococcus colony that grew from a yellow jacket sting on my right calf, acquired while playing golf before I left.

I flew into Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport from JFK in New York, a 12-hour flight, arriving the next day since Israel is ahead 6 hours of EST. A friend prepared me that I will be questioned in JFK about my purpose for traveling to Israel and other details of my itinerary, but none happened on both departure and arrival. Ben Gurion immigration check was a breeze, the airport is sleek and modern, everything was easy to negotiate, and there were no uniformed soldiers in sight. I arrived on the eve of Passover, so the flight was full of Jewish families going home for the holidays. I had this strange “otherness” feeling. Firstly, I’m the only one looking different, then the passengers behaved differently. The men wore their skullcaps or yarmulkas and their tallits, prayer shawls. Men and women were reading from the Torah throughout the trip and every so often the men would stand on the aisle and pray from the Torah. I sat next to a young man, Ariel, who imports mid-priced fashion from China and the US into Israel. He’s orthodox Jew. He pitched the wonders of the homeland and the self-affirmation of living in Israel, and expressed regret that his lifestyle as an entrepreneur prevents him from dedicating his life to the study of the Torah full time. As I was invited to a Seder in my friend’s kibbutz he educated me about the holiday and gave me pointers about etiquette and customs. I purchased a Kosher gift basket from the duty free shops on arrival.

 The “otherness” experience marked this trip throughout. Kosher is observed in all places, including major hotels, pork, mollusk, and shellfish are not served. As it was the Passover there was no bread during our meals, and beer can’t be served, though wine is permitted, and on the Shabbat, there was no hot meal, and the elevator was on automatic pilot, stopping on every floor. Business closed at 2 PM on Friday and didn’t reopen until sundown on Saturday, buses did not run. I wanted to fly out to Cairo from Tel Aviv on Friday. I had to take a 12:40 AM departure as there was no flight scheduled until Sunday. I inadvertently paid attention to treating my leg past 2 PM on Friday, and I couldn’t get my antibiotic prescription filled except in the Christian Arab section of Old Jerusalem. In Old Jerusalem, Orthodox, Hasidic, Ashkenazian, and Sephardic Jewish men wear their traditional clothing, it felt like you’re in a time warp. I contemplated in silence in front of the Western (Wailing) Wall, the Jewish holiest site, being cognizant of the separate men and women’s section, and according to tradition, inserted a small slip of paper in the stone crack where I wrote down my fervent wishes. The devout are very emotional in the wall, kissing and stroking the stone, crying, murmuring or transfixed in reverence. In August 2003 a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated in a bus carrying worshippers from the wall killing 20 and injuring many including children. There is a checkpoint and metal detector to go through before entering the Wall plaza. In Egypt and Jordan, Muslim countries, the hijab, modest dressing for men and women, is most striking among the women, who wear long loose-fitting clothing and scarves that cover everything except the face and hands. It’s extreme practice is exemplified by women from Iran and Saudi Arabia, which observe Sharia law, they wear the burqa, black costume with complete body and face cover, leaving only small slits for the eyes. The men wear turbans and distinctive head gears and the loose fitting galabiyya. I was at an Arab restaurant and I can’t help staring at one of these burqa-clad women, to see how they will eat. To me, with great difficulty, as they pass the food under the veil. How will they ever eat a finger- licking- good Col. Sander’s fried chicken and enjoy it? Well, McDonald’s (with humus spread on the bread), Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Starbuck’s are all over the place. The Muslims are not allowed to drink, so I was not able to enjoy my meals with wine.

 I was enthralled by the idea of following the biblical events in these 3 countries, beginning with the exodus, where Moses led the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to the promised land, through the desert and mountains and the Red Sea. The Passover Seder with my friend in her kibbutz was particularly moving with its ceremony and symbolism. In Jordan you can actually step on the same ground Moses travelled in Mt. Nebo, where he received the 10 commandments, and from this perch, viewed the promised land and the Garden of Eden. I filled a plastic bottle of water from the Jordan River, where St. John the baptist baptized Jesus Christ. In Jerusalem on Good Friday, I meditated in the Garden of Getshemane, in the Mount of Olives, where the Church of All Nations (Basilica of the Agony), Mary Magdalene’s Church, and the Dominus Flevit Church stand. In the afternoon I followed Jesus’ journey of the cross in the Via Dolorosa , the first 9 stations winding through the narrow and bustling alleys of the Arab bazaars in Old Jerusalem, and the last 5 in Golgotha. On the hill of calvary sits the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, a complex of several churches joined together and controlled by various religious communities, the 3 major ones being the Franciscan order of the Roman Catholics, the Greek Orthodox and the Armenian Apostolic Churches. The 11th station site, where Jesus was nailed to the cross, is guarded by Roman Catholics, whereas on the spot where Jesus’ cross and the crosses of the 2 criminals were raised on Mt. Calvary is now a Greek Orthodox altar. The tomb is in the main rotunda, below the magnificent central dome of the basilica, within a small chapel, the tomb was carved out of the rock and now encased in marble. There is always a long line to enter the chapel to view the tomb. The various religious communities owning parts of the basilica are far from models of tolerance and peace. For centuries, they have squabbled over property rights to the point of violence and have never found a resolution beyond the status quo agreement forged centuries ago. A wooden ladder had stood on the front window ledge since the 19th century and remains to this day and since the area is common ground, nobody dares to touch the ladder for fear of retribution from the others.

 On Easter Sunday, we braved crossing the security checkpoints to visit Bethlehem in the Palestinian territory. We learned that there are 3 levels of political authority in these areas, Israeli, Palestinian, and combinations. It is relatively safe for tourists to go to Bethlehem, they need the tourist currency, but it is dangerous for Israelis because of kidnapping potential. Attacks from terrorists have declined since the building of the border wall and instituting checkpoints, nevertheless our tour guide took precautions with some cloak and dagger maneuvers. At the Israeli checkpoint, she sat in the back of the bus and instructed us that she is a fellow tourist if questioned, and at the Palestinian checkpoint she got picked up by Palestinian Arab conspirators while we went through passport checks. We were taken in another vehicle after the border check and our tour guide joined us later. This was an exciting adventure in as much as the outcome was uneventful, except for some hard questioning by the Israeli police because I was transporting a big box, which contained the finely carved olive wood nativity set by Zacharia Bros. that I purchased to add to my collection.

The Basilica of the Nativity is one of the oldest continuously used churches in the world. It is 2 churches joined together, the bigger one is Greek Orthodox and the other, St. Catherine’s is Catholic. It is built over the grotto, where Jesus was believed to have been born. I queued to view the underground cave, where tourists jostled for entrance, and the guards did not impose order but took requests from some tour guides to let their clients in with priority and I later learned that money changed hands to get this privilege, Again, as in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the various religious communities guarding this holy site, has a status quo arrangement that had been defined centuries ago. On the way to Ein Gev, a kibbutz resort on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, we passed Tiberias and Meggido, the latter the site where Armageddon was prophesied to take place. I strolled on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, in reality a lake fed by the Jordan river and underwater springs,the lowest freshwater lake in the world, 2nd only to the salinated Dead Sea. It was the Passover holiday, and families were gathered for swimming , a picnic, fishing, and boating. A couple of fishermen were casting their nets in the distance away from the holiday crowd. This is where Jesus recruited his disciples among the fishermen, performed the miracle of walking on water and of feeding the multitude from 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes. I watched the sun set and the moon rise from the shore. We stopped at Capernaum, the old town of Jesus where he preached in the synagogue and performed miracles, viewed the excavation of St. Peter’s mother in law’s dwelling and paid respects in the modern church built over St. Peter’s house. In Nazareth we visited the Basilica of the Annunciation, a contemporary church built over a Byzantine and Crusader church and the grotto where the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she’ll give birth to Jesus. The interior of the church is decorated with mosaics of the annunciation donated by various countries. I located the US, Mexico and Japan inside the church and outside the church, in the patio, I located the Philippines. This and other holy sites are in earnest preparation for the Pope’s visit in May. In Caesarea, the Roman city built by Herod the Great, Pontius Pilate governed from this site in Jesus’ time.

 I realize after this trip that I know little of these countries, and that my feeling of “otherness” stem from my ignorance of their history, culture, language, religion, and people. The Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Egyptians and various Christian sects who people these lands are strange to me and I do not understand their wars and religious beliefs and traditions. They have a completely different alphabet, language, and calendar. These are truly foreign lands and foreign people, but the conversations I had with hotel porters, taxi drivers, tour guides, and a couple of friends have a familiar theme that boils down to cultivating close family bonds, a good job, security from harm, a bright future for the children, and belief in a divine power that will ensure a state of blissfulness after one confronts his mortality.The stranger becomes oneself in the end.