al-Badia part II: "This is living history."

Al-Badia, part II: “This is living history.”

“See that village, far to the left?” I’m not looking for the village, I’m clenching the dusty glass mango juice bottle in my hand, watching in my peripheral vision my backpack sitting on the rock several feet away from me, out of reach, wondering about many unrelated things like how to trim the string trailing from my abaya sleeve and the production of mango juice, yet in the back of my mind trying to remember the location of my phone inside that bag. “Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s in Jordan. See that village just beyond?” Go up this mountain. O.k., I’m on this mountain in the middle of nowhere; now how do I get out of this?
“Yes.”
“That is in Syria. That’s where we’re going.”
“Just to the border, you mean.” My guide hesitates dramatically. Does he think this is funny?
“Of course. But the border is still very dangerous.” Right. “Very dangerous”. My academic advisor said we could see the border if we wanted, that our families might even offer to take us since we live so close. My guide is trying to impress me.
“O.k., let’s go.”

*****

The front gates of the K through 12 school in Naefa, the previous day: my black abaya flaps and furls around me in the strong wind. I pull my hijab lower and invite myself inside. In the courtyard, around 20 children circle in play around two teachers, also in dark, billowing abayas, who turn in my direction. As I stride toward them, faces appear in the windows of the three, bleak, utilitarian, sun-bleached buildings, the separate buildings for girls and boys. “Hello! Hello!” Children push through doorways and open windows to see me. My disguise is worthless; they have spotted my foreignness from across the courtyard. After introducing myself to the two women, one who speaks English well shows me around the school. While many of the younger students greet me with enthusiasm and curiosity, many of the older students, perhaps weary of fasting at the end of Ramadan, greet me mechanically, reciting the Islamic welcome rehearsed for guests regarding me with a haggard, almost hostile, look. As I felt like my presence was disruptive to the school, I ducked in a seventh grade math class for a while; the girls were studying decimals with Arabic numbers (not Arabic numbers as we know them), and that old fear of being called on in math class fluttered in my stomach and rose up in my throat. Realizing some of the teachers and students thought I was a prospective teacher, I was terrified at the possibility of being asked to demonstrate my knowledge of math, even simple math, for the class, even more than I was terrified of demonstrating my lack of Arabic. Alhamduillah, my math skills were not solicited, but my interest in Jordan was. Why would anyone from America travel all the way to Jordan to study, the girls asked; everyone in Jordan wants to study in America, the teacher explained. The class seemed unconvinced by my explanation about thaqafa (culture); I suppose if I were in one of those stiff desks and uniforms in a dreary school in a bleak landscape I might be unconvinced, too, even if that (what seemed to me dreary and bleak) setting was all I ever knew. A bell rang; a girl, who I later learned was a relative of my Badia home-stay family, appeared in the doorway and reached up to my hand, intending to lead me the half mile back to my house. At all times I needed an escort; even my four year old host-brother was preferable to me walking alone. But maybe this was better, after all.

*****
The clerk puts his cigarette down beside the identification documents on the rickety table to motion “discretely” to me; his glittering eyes met those of the men huddled around him. I start to get up from my observation place on the stool, but he must think my movement is too conspicuous; he motions for me to stay. Sitting up tall to see past the crowd of Bedu at the counter, he spots the old man entering the post office; he turns to me and makes a motion like taking a photo with a camera. One of the post office employees leans in from the open office window behind me, startling me with his whisper. “You see that old man?” he asks rather slyly. The old man, with a leathery tanned face scrunched into so many wrinkles and squinting, perhaps unable to see clearly, shuffles toward the counter in dirty, wrinkled thob, assisted by several men from the crowd. “That ,” he says triumphantly, “is living history.” Truly, the man looks like a veteran of the Arab Revolt.
“Are you sure it’s o.k. if I take photographs?” I ask, knowing full well they all want me to photograph not just their respected elderly, but everything – livestock, homes, university diplomas, road signs, and each other posing with all of the above and more. One boy insisted I photograph him holding each of the family chickens in turn. With only my notebook and pen in hand, I might be an unwelcome government worker; raising my camera to my face, several in the crowd straighten up and stare confidently into the lens. I wonder how and when the residents of al-Badia came to revere the camera, the photographer, and the photograph. Perhaps the photograph is a medium they can see and discuss in an oral culture, unlike handwritten notes. Despite being a woman and a student, the camera endowed me with access and authority among the Bedu which was unparalleled (and perhaps unnecessary) in Amman.
I perched on my stool, holding my camera up long after I had finished documenting the scene only to appease the eager post office employees and visitors. It wasn’t until I was leaving that the system was explained (or attempted at least) to me as a sort of welfare program. Before stepping back into the hot wind, I lingered for a moment, inwardly delighted at the abundance of red and white checkered kofiyahs (head-scarves) of the men and the facial tattoos of the old women. This was al-Badia.

*****
“Over that way…boom!” My guide chuckled, pointing to the area surrounding this snaking dirt road in the desert. Maybe it was dangerous, but my Academic Advisor had said it was fine to visit the border as long as we didn’t cross it. I checked my cellphone to ensure I hadn’t received a “welcome to Syria” message as I had received a “welcome to Palestine” when passing the Dead Sea several weeks prior.
“Uh huh, land mines?” I asked skeptically, though I had heard something about livestock wandering into the no man’s land between Jordan and Syria and meeting their demise, not in the traditional mansef dish but by stepping on explosive devices. But maybe that was a rumor. The car crept to a standstill, engine rumbling. We leaned forward into the dashboard and stared through the windshield at the red, rocky landscape before us, and beyond that, the lone guard tower. The land between us and the guard tower and the land beyond that looked no different; no lines in the sand, no fences, no ominous warning signs, only the guard tower rippling in the heat. And was life so different ten, twenty kilometers beyond? From the mountain’s viewpoint earlier that day, nothing had separated the two countries; somehow I still subconsciously expected black lines as on a map to appear on the landscape. In that moment and in the days after that, I began to understand the concept of nation-states as “imagined communities”; borders signify everything and nothing. After some moments, we turned the car around and headed back to Naefa. It was not the end of my story in al-Badia or Jordan, but that chapter in al-Badia remains unfinished. The possible conclusions are endless.