Several evenings ago, I decided to go for a stroll and find a nice spot from which to watch the sunset. I descended several hundred feet into the gorge of the enormous Dana Mountains, climbing down stone-lined irrigation channels that watered the cypress, olives, fig and grape trees sprinkled on the mountainside. I picked for my perch the crumbling ruins of long uninhabited Crusader castle. Sitting atop yellow-and-white toppled stones, look westward along the canyon’s Siq, I awaited the sunset. As brilliant lavender, coral, and amber began to streak behind the mountains, I heard the faint, far-away treble of a soft ney (Middle Eastern flute) resonate down the valley. The music became increasingly well-defined, until two Shepherds, riding atop a donkey, trailed by dozens of goats and sheep, came into view. They looked up at me, slightly startled to see a non-hijab wearing women sitting atop the ruins, but immediately flashed me a brilliant smile, and the non-lyre playing one called out in English, “You're welcome to Jordan.”
My entire time in Jordan felt somewhat like that--a travel to a long-ago past. I arrived to Dana Nature Reserve early Tuesday, July 28th, to the Dana Tower Hotel, perched atop crumbling ruins of a town that until 1970, was vibrantly and continuously inhabited by nomads of varied origins (Bedouins -Arabic, gypsies from the ‘dowal afreqee’ African countries of Egypt, Tunisia, etc, or nomads from al Hejaz, the gulf countries) for millennia. It was the very low season of an already unfrequented town, and when I first arrived I was the only guest there, and the owner Nobeera, insisted I smoke hubbly-bubbly with him (hookah) and chat. He said the hotel, a beautiful stone house, with open hallways, arches, atriums, verandas, and lounging rooms on the roof, on a mountain outcrop overlooking a 4500 foot drop into the valley below, had been his grandfather’s, and before that, family’s house for 500 years, before he refurbished it into a backpacker’s paradise with exotic rugs, local artisanry, and merry pranksters-type adornments covering every inch of floor, wall, and ceiling. His family migrated from Mecca to Dana several centuries ago he explained, as he took me to my room, a cozy closet-sized bedroom, nestled in a nook of the house, reached only by a small, spiraling staircase, with a tiny window overlooking the canyon, and through which a wild cat would slink through at night to share my pillow with me. Dana Village had been, throughout the centuries, a meeting point for different traveling tribes, and its verdant hills had seasonally supported livestock grazing and farming of apricots, figs, grapes, and pistachios. Up until thirty years ago, the village felt alive, at night friends would sit atop crumbling rooftops, the dim glow of a shared hookah amongst them, swapping tales. But with the growth of Qaddisayya, a larger village of 30,000 atop the hill, with consistent electricity and water and the increasingly cramped quarters for growing, modern families, most of Old Dana’s inhabitants moved 2 km up the road. Now, only about thirty people, four families or so (though no one can agree on the exact number) remain the largest of which is Khalawaldeh, who staff most of the Hotels, and who my driver to Dana is part of.
After I dropped off my traveler’s backpack, I set out to explore the village. It felt really ruinous and wild, with lonesome cats streaking, packs of dogs roaming, and the odd donkey or horse trotting along freely. Everywhere, stones were tumbling off of small houses, and tufts of unchecked plants growing atop roofs, along walls, and in street cracks. I wound through empty doorways and small alleyways, and crossed an ancient wooden bridge to reach the offices of the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature, which sat atop a neighboring outcrop. RSCN, an independent non-governmental non-profit organization established by Jordan’s previous King, King Hussein, to conserve and protect Jordan’s natural resources and biodiversity, converted Dana 20 years ago into Jordan’s largest nature reserve. It is over 320 square kilometers in size, encompasses four different biogeographical zones (lush Mediterranean, hilly Irano-Turanian, sparser Saharo-Arabian, and harsh Sudanian ala Arava) and houses over 800 species of plants (three of which have been recorded nowhere else in the world and were aptly dubbed Danaensis) and hundreds of animal species. In addition, RSCN engages in socio-economic projects with the local people, facilitating environmentally-friendly and sustainable professions. They employ Bedouin hunters as wildlife guides, subsidize local organic farming, and train Dana women to make reserve-themed silver jewelry and local produce-based jams, teas, and fruit leathers. In addition, RSCN works to promote environmental education in regional schools, and this was the project I worked on for several days with Lamis, an RSCN employee and Dana native.
I spent most of my time in Dana with Lamis, discussing RSCN’s reserve projects and regional environmental education. I must say, perhaps because it was the slow season, but everything moved at a snail’s pace. Before the day’s work could begin, Lamis, and Miasr (another woman, shop-keeper of the Wild Jordan store where they sell the nature reserve’s silver, tea, etc products) would insist we have three cups of tea and chat a bit about families, and local culture. (The amount of times I was asked by different people about my ‘husband and children’ was comical). It was in those slow hours talking an atrocious English-Arabic hybrid (for most Jordanians speak at the very least, a little conversational English) to these two hijaab-wearing, married young women that I learned the most about Jordanians. Hearing them talk about education (both, though from poor, very large families, are University educated), conservation (the importance to village livelihood of being stewards of nature), family life (sending their children during summertime to participate in volunteer clubs that feed and befriend the very destitute), religion (as they prayed several times a day), lore (the entrancing Kohl-lined eyes of Arabic women are meant to imitate the black facial stripes of the eternally elegant and paeanized white Oryx), was illuminating in the most interesting ways.
As my very independent, defiantly feminist self, I still had severe qualms with the mandated extremely modest attire and head garb. Lamis tried to explain it to me, piecewise throughout the week, and said as we were driving to girl’s elementary school that her sister was the headmistress of, that dressing according to the laws of Islam paradoxically affords women greater security, as she is able to do more things independently and free of harassment. When we arrived at Maysoor’s school, immediately a crowd of the previously-skipping and singing little girls came up to ask me in unsettlingly accurate English, how I was, what my name was, where I was from, how I liked Jordan etc… The headmistress, immediately brought a cup of tea, and she and the girls told me all about (in the usual mixed Arabic/English hybrid) the school and its environmental focus; their trip to Aqaba (Jordan’s port city), one girl’s recent Marine Conservation Research Project, their knowledge about the Dana Nature Reserve, conservation songs they had written and recorded (one called, mohemat al bea’a, the importance of nature). Three of the girls ran off to change into shimmery blue smocks, and returned to put on a wonderfully entertaining, five minute musical about the food web. I was so impressed with these little girls’ enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity, perfectly pronounced (though still beginning) English, and their passion for the environment. One girl in particular, Aseel, left a big impression. She asked me all sorts of questions about Obama, King Abdullah, and (yes) Hannah Montana, and showed me her PowerPoint (the school was amply equipped with computers…I swear the more I travel the more abysmal the US educational system seems) on the English alphabet, numbers and colors. When we walked outside, she insisted I take pictures of all sorts of things, the painting of the Jordanian flag, the banner with the school’s name, films of her and her friends singing (in the deep, enchanting Arabic vocal style, no less) traditional songs. When I left, she demanded I take a bag of dried flowers she had prepared, and promise that I would never forget her.
I was sitting for dinner at my hotel, and Abed, a Khalawaldeh employee who worked at Reception, and who I had gotten to know quite well over the last couple of days, was sitting with me. He asked me in Arabic, what is your favorite part of Jordan? Immediately, the breath-takingly gorgeous gorges, rolling hills, Wadis winding through valleys, and windswept rounded circular rock columns came to mind, but after a second more, I realized it was the unwavering hospitality of the people. Take Abed, who had no need whatsoever to sit with me, but chose to do so anyway, engaging me in conversation, telling me jokes, etc. Then there was Lamis, who I expected only to teach me a couple things about education, who invited me to her home on Friday, to meet her mother, eleven siblings, and dozens of nieces and nephews, feed me until I was bursting full, and not let me leave until she had packed an entire bag of food for me to take with me. There was Lamis’ brother, who happened to be heading south to Aqaba the same Saturday morning, August 1st, as I, and insisted on paying for my bus fare, carrying my bags the entire way, and haggling with the Aqaba taxi driver to ensure I got a fair price to the Israeli border. There was Wateel, who while driving me to Dana, gave me a lesson in spoken Arabic, sang a family song for me, and called me Osfoor, little bird, an affectionate Bedouin nickname. And then, an incredible Bedouin wildlife guide, Sala’, who told me all sorts of lore about the arm of the hyena reputedly resolving barrenness and his observations of the social norms of the Tristam’s Crackle bird, who invited me to spend my last night in Jordan in the desert with him and his cousin, burning Juniper branches for fire, drinking SamSam Bedouin tea, and learning to the fullest extent the Bedouin hospitality concepts of “a’ash oomoloh” bread and salt and ‘macahwea’ making a sister of a stranger.
It was thus, I reflected, late Thursday evening toward the end of my trip, as I sat atop a stone house in the process of sliding down the slope, looking Westward to the Arava desert of Israel, an incredible week in Jordan and a magical month in the Middle East. I was writing down some thoughts and observations, watching the near full moon turn ivory, yellow, gold, and orange as it sank in the sky, when I heard the chilling howl of a wolf in the distance. The wolf, in Bedouin lore the symbol of noblesse, stood in a moonlight silhouette atop a canyon cliff 20 km to the West. And then, softly, in a barely audible rhythm, I heard the beating of drums thousands of feet down, down and far away in Rashaydeh a tiny Bedouin village in the depths of the Dana valley. The drumming continued for 15 or so minutes until the moon with a final wink, reddened, rounded and rolled away behind the furthest mountain, and silence fell across the deserts, gorges, canyon, and valley of the Dana Nature Reserve.
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