The world on the beach

I've probably mentioned this before, but I have to say it again: the UAE is wildly diverse. It's one of the coolest things about living here. People come here from all over the globe and mingle with remarkable mellowness. This fact is always brought home whenever I find myself in a large public place, as I did this weekend during the World of Music festival, a renowned outdoor concert event held for the first time this weekend in Abu Dhabi.

World of Music is your typical open-air event, held on the beach. There were two stages, an enormous sound system, a flotilla of Port-A-Potty trailers, food stands, activities for the kids and clutches of guys selling everything on the market that lights up or glows in the dark. The concert was free and attended by expats and Emeratis from every walk of life. There were whole Indian families, Gulf Arabs in abeyas and dishdashas, North Africans (who dominated the musical acts) waving flags and proudly representing, Europeans soaking up the vibes on beach blankets, kids of every possible stripe running in every possible direction. The Corniche (which bordered the event) held even more diversity, but, unfortunately, diversity doesn't always equal tolerance. There seemed to be a concerted (no pun intended) effort to keep out single Pakistani guys, for reasons I couldn't fathom. These guys clustered at the entrance in a group of about 30-40. Every once in awhile a detatchment would break away and attempt to enter the venue in a group of three or four. The plainclothes security guard always seemed to know when this was happening and would herd them back into the larger pack. Usually, it costs 5 dhs to get on the beach (about $1.75). This was instituted when the beach first opened to keep this exact demographic off the sand. They reportedly would harass women in swimwear, regardless of how modest. (By 'harass' I mean ogle, not scold or preach to.) Since the concert was free--and the admission fee suspended, the security was apparently charged with keeping the status quo intact, though no one was wearing a bathing suit.

K and I attended and saw an Indian band drum its heart out to an appreciative crowd. They were good and thrilled out of their minds to be there. There's really nothing not to love about world music--so much talent, enthusiasm and global spirit in one place. There's really nothing not to love about a large public space in Abu Dhabi where the whole world gathers to chill (or rush the gate).

Many firsts and an official third

The JV softball team and I went to Dubai this past weekend to play in the big tournament of the season. Four other schools from Kuwait, Cairo, Dubai and Doha, joined us at the Dubai Softball Fields nestled in the heart of the urban beast. Each school brought both a girls and boys team, which made for a lot of teenagers in a very enclosed place.

It was a little like playing softball in the middle of a giant erector set. Eight buildings were under construction surrounding the fields and skyscraper-sized cranes towered above the action. Around 4 p.m., the heads of the construction workers (mostly east Asian guys) would appear over the nearest fence to watch the final game of the day. The Dubai fields are well-groomed and well-used. Adult leagues often play far into the night, but the JV scene must have been a new sight to see. Although the weather was surprisingly reasonable (high 80s and low 90s most days with limited humidity), no one except schools plan to play softball during the day in late April around here.

It was my first tournament as a coach, and I was not prepared for the toll it would take, emotionally and physically. There were the ups and downs of the two games per day we played (three on the last day), along with the ups and downs of daily life with a 8th, 9th or 10th grader x 14 members of the team x the 12 hours/day we spent together. We had tears in the dugout and a few fits of angst before and after tough games. We had injuries both real and psychosomatic. All of these were followed by fits of giggles, a string of private jokes I only partially understood and the endless thrill of speaking actual words to boys from the others schools. It is safe to say that no girl ever went to the bathroom alone--or anywhere else for that matter. They all traveled in a green-and-white (our school colors) pack of emotional variability. We've all been there, but it's always eye-opening to go back, even by association.

We came in third, which I supposed I should have said at the beginning. It was satisfying, because we were the third best team there. I'm not very competitive, but I like us to do our best. I would have been disappointed if we had blown it at the end. As it was, we had to play three games on the final day in order to get third. Fortunately, we beat both teams we had defeated previously in order to bring home a banner (1st-3rd place get the coveted banner to hang in the gym). The girls were happy, too--about the games, the excursion to one of the many local malls, the Doha boys pitcher, the tacos at the snack bars, even the Gatorade purchased by one of the several moms who provisioned the dugout and kept the team going between games. You get the idea...

I also saw other teams in action and realized the huge impact of good coaching--and how much more I need to learn as a coach. The assistant coach, a dad with Little League experience, saved our bacon by training his daughter as a back-up pitcher on the weekends. When our starting pitcher's arm went out, we could finish the game. Without that move, we would have been completely out of luck. Next year will be very different, though after the saga of this weekend, I'm glad it's a whole 364 days away.

Jordan does it again!

After Petra, what more could there be for a traveler to Jordan, which, may I remind you, is smaller than Indiana? In a country so modestly sized, shouldn't one world-class wonder be enough? And yet, those in the know, including Lonely Planet and my friend who lives in Turkey, would rank Petra second to Jordan's other magical place: Wadi Rum.

It's true. Apparently, size does not matter when you are dealing with a place as intensely geographical as Jordan. Wadi Rum (rhymes with "thumb" not "tomb") is a series of wadis (or desert canyons) in the southeastern corner of the country. It's a mere 90 minutes from Petra, but the landscape is a world away. Wadi Rum has stunning rock formations in the style of the southwestern deserts of the USA. They tower above red and golden sand and stand against the huge, blue canvas of sky. But, unlike the Southwest, the paved road stops right at the beginning and you can only get around one of three ways: on f00t, a Jeep or a camel.

For me, there was only one choice and it had four legs and one hump. In Wadi Rum, K and I signed up to spend a whole day seeing the desert on a camel. A whole day! On a camel! If you're like me, the thought sends you into raptures. What better and more authentic way to see Wadi Rum than on one's own personal "ship of the desert?" Camels move slowly (not much faster than a walking pace). They are quiet and excellent for the environment. Not only that, they are ridiculously--and I mean, ridiculously--cute. What's not to love?

Well...there is the matter of one's rear end. In order to spend the day on a camel, I knew (despite some horseback riding experience that came in handy) I would have to sacrifice my ability to sit comfortably and move without lurching for at least 24 hours (it turned out to be more like 48...). But it was so worth it!

For our camel trek, we had a trusty guide named Salman, who supplied the camels, his and one each for K and me. Salman's English was limited to about two words: camel and lunch, but it's amazing how much people can communicate without a common language. We felt secure and well-shepherded the entire time. Our camels were tied to his, but we were all riding. (Most camel treks are shorter because the guide leads the camels on foot.) My camel was named Shalan and K's was Balan. Two more docile beasts you could never find. We hopped on right where the paved road ended near the town of Rum. For those of you who haven't been on a camel as it is standing up, imagine what would happen if you could somehow sit in the middle of a 6-foot-tall card table as it was unfolded two legs at a time. Yep, that's right: you jerk back as the camel's stands up on its front legs, then immediately jerk forward and stabilize as the camel's back legs follow suit. Going down is the reverse and just as jerky.

Though it had been raining in the afternoons in Petra, we couldn't have picked a better day to see the desert. The sky was that crazy deep, deep blue without a cloud in sight. We walked though one valley after another with plenty of time to drink in the dunes, the mountains and the sand before that scenery fell away and more appeared. Salman stopped every so often at various points of interest. We had a big break at lunch (he opened tuna cans with his knife and we sat around at ate. Afterwards, he took a nap while K and I took pics of the camels to our hearts content). We got to the camp at about 3:30 in time to drive out with another guide to see the stunning sunset. The last hour on the camel was the hardest. Despite my (continued and eternal) enthusiasm, I was glad when Shalen folded up and I could slide off for the last time.

We stayed the night at a very small Bedouin-style camp with about 15 other people, rustic tents, foam mattresses and a pile of blankets. (Unlike in the UAE, the desert of Jordan gets cold at night). The guides played music around the fire and sang Arabic camp songs, which sounded a lot like campfire songs anywhere with lots of simple rhythm and lots of repetition. The full moon rose and lit up the sky, and we saw the constellations for the first time in a long time. We fell asleep to the sound of the desert wind rattling the sides of the tent and the campfire snapping as it died away.

Was it better than Petra? In some ways. Wadi Rum was a place of silence and beauty, big enough to swallow the visitors who seek it out in fewer, but still significant, numbers. The day on the camel was thrilling and personal. I shared it with K and Salman. I didn't have to share it with 400 school kids and 65 tour buses. Yet Petra is also a marvel of nature and human ingenuity, mysterious and just as grandiose. There's no choosing between the two. When you go to Jordan, you'll just have to see both.

Siq and ye shall find

When I told people I was going to Jordan this spring, the very next thing out of their mouths was inevitably one of the following:

Person who had been to Jordan: OMG, Petra is one of the most amazing places I've ever seen.

Person who hadn't been to Jordan: OMG, I have always wanted to see Petra. I hear it is amazing.

What they don't tell you is that Petra is an enormous secret hideout. Sure, the place features awe-inspiring buildings carved from solid rock onto sheer cliffs. That's cool and everything. But the true magic of Petra is that it is a remarkable feat of ancient engineering AND almost completely hidden, tucked away in a narrow valley by the elusive Nabateans right as BC was turning into AD (or as BCE was turning into CE, as we say nowadays). The Nabateans were ridiculously rich and sneaky. They controlled the frankincense trade and taxed the heck out of caravans coming up from Arabia and heading for the Mediterranean. Emperor Trajan finally lassoed the them into the Province of Arabia but it took even mighty Rome awhile to bring the Nabateans into the fold. The legionnaires had to find them first.

To many people, Petra is the Treasury (that famous facade in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). It is the sun hitting the columns and carved urns on the Monastery or the multicolored folds of rock that climb the rock faces. For me, it is the Siq. The Siq is the narrow passageway that leads into Petra. It was wrenched apart millions of years ago by tectonic forces and smoothed out by wind and rain throughout the ages. At some points it is just a few meters across and completely blocks out the sun. In other places it widens and provides enough sun for the few lucky fig trees and reedy bushes growing out of the rock. Along its entire length runs an ancient channel that brought piped water into Petra for fountains and wealthy homes. At the end of the Siq, you step from between the cliffs and come face to face with the magnificent Treasury. The Siq is much longer than a magic wardrobe, but the effect is the same. You enter on one side and emerge into a different world. It's the stuff fantasy is made of-- and it is absolutely real and waiting for you in Jordan this very minute. (The beginning and end of the Siq)

K and I walked through the Siq at about 6:15 a.m. both of the days we spent in Petra. We even ate breakfast on a bench next to one of the fig trees the second day. At 6:15 a.m. we had the place to ourselves and could wander freely along the path without having to worry about the horse-drawn carriages, donkeys and horses that ply the same route later in the day (when we were heading back out). Not surprisingly, the Siq echoes, but in the morning it is as still as old stone. Petra itself isn't much more awake. We watched the Bedouin who now run the cafes and souvenir stalls wake up, shake off their blankets and set out their wares. By 9 a.m. the gravel walkways between sites would be overrun with school groups and tours. But in the morning, it was peaceful and almost homey.

There are two hikes in Petra: the Monastery hike and the High Place of Sacrifice. We had two days and we took one hike each day. Both "trails" are actually staircases carved by the Nabateans to lead processions up to the holy places. The High Place offers stunning views of the the main tombs of Petra and leads you down into another smaller valley with more tombs. The Monastery is a building in the same style as the Treasury perched on a nearby mountaintop (K is pictured here in front of the Monastery). It was never a monastery in the Christian sense, though it was used as a church during Byzantine times. Between the High Place (at one end of Petra) and the Monastery (on the other end) are the remains of several Roman temples and a series of dramatic royal tombs. A colonnaded street (pictured below) connects the royal tombs to the start of the Monastery hike.

In its heyday, almost 20,000 people lived in Petra, though no one is quite sure where. Most of the buildings that remain are tombs, some big, some small. Roman and Greek influences are everywhere, and archeologists have recently uncovered a Byzantine church and an early mosque. The church ruins feature a delightful mosaic with not one but two spotted camels.

Petra declined in the Middle Ages and knowledge of the city fell into obscurity and remained hidden from the West until 1812, when it was rediscovered by a German explorer named Johan Burckhardt, who had to pretend to be an Arab pilgrim looking for the lost tomb of Aaron (brother of Moses) to gain access to the Siq.

It is safe to say that Petra will never be a lost city again. On the first day we departed (at around 1:30 p.m.) the Siq reverberated with the sound of local school groups on what has to be the coolest field trip in the world. Middle school kids (truly an international phenomenon) called out to each other and greeted tourists with enthusiastic "Hello! Howareyou!" I offered to take a picture of a group of girls only to have them insist that they pose with me. We dodged carriages and donkeys and the flashes of countless cameras. It was worth it, though, to walk in the Siq again and know that I would be back the next day to enjoy the quiet once again.

When we remember thee, O Jordan

The thing about visiting the Holy Land is that all of a sudden those Biblical metaphors make a lot more sense. For example, it's hard to really get your mind around, say, the humbling task of foot-washing until you've spent all day in the desert wearing sandals. If I'd walked into a Maundy Thursday service this past Thursday, I'm not sure if my neighbor in the pew would have appreciated the dust-caked, New-Testament reality of my tootsies. Same with the constant allusions to mountaintops, valleys and wildernesses. There are just so many to choose from. Even the densest, most poetically challenged prophet would have no problem sounding profound in such a varied landscape.

The country of Jordan is smaller than Indiana but contains a continent's worth of topography and history. The land sits on fault lines, literal and figurative, that have carved and shaped this area and its people for thousands of years. The result is dramatic in every respect, from the towering cliffs of Wadi Rum to the knife-edge road to political detente walked with skill and controversy by Jordan's royal family. What is most noticeable when driving through the country (as K and I did) is how many different Jordans there are. The landscape and elevation change every 10 miles or so, from brown scrub desert, to blue Dead Sea vistas, to red, painted desert, to green fertile fields and every tan sandstone color in between. The sites to see are just as diverse. There is Biblical Jordan, Roman Jordan, Nabatean Jordan, Crusader Jordan, desert Jordan, early Islamic Jordan, modern-day Jordan. You need at least a week and a rental car to see them all. Luckily, we had both.

Over the course of the week, we visited, in this order:

Madaba: home to most of Jordan's Christians (various stripes of Eastern Orthodox with a few Copts thrown in) and a collections of Byzantine mosaics, including one of the oldest maps of the Holy Land discovered by chance under the floor of the Greek Orthodox church. It is also the home to the best hummus in the whole country.

Mount Nebo: the promontory from which Moses supposedly viewed the Promise Land and the site of Pope John Paul II's Year of Jubilee visit in 2000. Both are commemorated enthusiastically with artifacts, sculpture, mosaics and photos (in the case of JP II's stopover). The view that poor Moses had to endure after all those years in the wilderness is stunning. On a clear day, you can see all the way to the Mount of Olives. The day we were there, we could see all the way to Ramallah on the West Bank.

The Baptism site: after much searching, archeologists definitively identified the historic baptism site of Jesus, the famed Bethany Beyond the Jordan, about 60 meters from the modern banks of the river in the country of Jordan. While there is no proof that Jesus Himself was here, there is loads of evidence that late-Roman and early Byzantine Christians believed this was the spot. The ruins of elaborate churches have been excavated since the site (a literal stone's throw from the Israeli border) was demilitarized in the mid-1990s. There is a place to touch the river itself and stare into Israel. A Jordanian solider is on hand to make sure people don't make an unauthorized pilgrimage in either direction. Supposedly you can actually get baptized, if you want, but no one on our strictly monitored tour went for it. The site is managed beautifully, access is limited and the whole area has a chill, respectful feel for being so close to a hotly contended international border.

The Dead Sea: we didn't dip, but we drove down the Dead Sea highway, up to a panoramic vista to take in the site. It's bigger than I thought. It's a startling blue amid the desert. I don't feel deprived that I didn't go in.

Karak Castle: the biggest of the Crusader ruins, this castle was the site of a famous siege and home of a sadistic overload who used to throw people from the battlements with a box over their head to prevent them from blacking out before hitting the ground. Nice. It's one of those roam-around-and-explore ruins without many handy interpretive plaques but lots of old stone staircases leading to interesting places.

Petra: goes without saying that we spent two days here, as anyone who travels to Jordan must do. This Nabatean capital/hideout at the end of a narrow, winding canyon defies description. But I'll try in a whole entry coming soon...

Wadi Rum/camel trekking! I've never been able to use the expression (grandmother warning!) "that really chaps my ass" in a literal sense...until now. Despite the pain and awkward sitting in the days that followed, I had the time of my life trekking through the red-sand desert of Wadi Rum on the back of a khaki-colored camel named Shalan. The pace was slow and it was possible to appreciate each moment of desert quiet. After a day viewing the stunning rock formations and sand dunes, we sipped tea and watched the sunset, then spent the night at a camp in the desert. For those of you who have been to a "desert camp" in the UAE, this was quite a bit more rustic and authentic.

Jerash: the Hellenistic/Roman ruins rival anything you've seen in Italy, Greece or Turkey. There is a stunning oval plaza, a hippodrome, lots of still-standing Corinthian columns, two theaters, two tetrapylons, and piles and piles of old stone. All surrounded by blooming spring wild flowers in the gently-rolling-Mediterranean-hills section of Jordan.

In between rabid tourism, there was also plenty of time to relax, read and eat. In Petra, we attended a cooking class/demonstration and I learned everything I've always wanted to know about skinning roasted eggplant (after skinning a pile of them, then mashing them into dip). In Jerash, we opted not to view the gladiator and chariot-racing demonstrations, live from the hippodrome for the first time in 1,500 years, but we heard much yelling (in Latin) as we walked by. There aren't many places in the world where you can see so much in seven days with your own wheels. Stay tuned for more pictures, both here and on Facebook...

Crossing to Jordan

No, this is not a pre-Easter post...I'm really going to Jordan tomorrow with K (and half the staff and students of the school. It would be weird--and way out of context-- to call Jordan the Myrtle Beach of the Middle East, but you get the idea in terms of numbers of people flying there this week from Abu Dhabi...).

Majestic Petra, a camel trek through desert valleys followed by a night camping, an Arabic food cooking class, the historic baptism site and the Roman ruins of Jerash and the Kings Highway are high on the agenda. Yes, we are also going to the Dead Sea, but I'm not committing to taking the classic floating-while-reading-a-newspaper photo. From all reports, even a brief swim is painful, exposing cuts you never knew you had. The expression "don't pour salt in a wound" exists for a reason. My RET colleague (stands for Republican, evangelical Texan), who always looks, well, R, E and T, actually recommended not shaving one's legs within a week of a dip. The profound rarity of this advice (given the source) is a huge indicator of the discomfort involved. I didn't have the heart to tell her I don't shave my legs in the first place.

Regardless of whether we test the buoyancy of the Dead Sea or give it a miss, it should be a fabulous trip. Stay tuned for pictures and a full report...