The Bedu

Marium

Some photos from the multimedia project I'm doing on the Bedouins of the Sinai.




Our bedouin guide, Farhaj Suleiman...loves the desert but lives in the city of Nuweiba...says that the desert is in the blood of every bedouin, regardless of where and when they are born. They always come back to it.



The aunt of one of the old bedouin guides. The white sheet that hung behind her illuminated her face that was covered with a black shawl.



Salim, one of the bedouin guides. It was a full moon the weekend I was in the Sinai.




After dinner, our young bedouin cook doused the fire and waited as we finished our food.



Farhaj said something that really struck me. He said that the life of the bedouins as they know it will finish in 5 years because of borders and privatization of land.
He hoped that his children would understand the life of the real bedouin, the lives of his father and his father before him. "Its in our blood," he said.

He asks one question: One day the Sinai belongs to Israel. Another it belongs to Egypt. Where do the bedouin go?

Are you Egyptian, he was asked.

No, I am a Bedouin.

Bakh-ing in the Muslim World.

Marium

Our translator had trouble explaining to us what “Bakh” meant in English. Sitting in the Sinai in the middle of the night, we were learning different sayings in Arabic with six Bedouin men. Why were we in the middle of the deserted desert? It was part of an excursion called Bedouin night, a time when Bedouin men take people to the desert, cook food, play music and dance.

“Bakh,” one of the men said, flaring his nose and baring his teeth.
We looked at him with blank expressions and watched his face fall. Our translator was unable to explain what bakh meant.
“Bakh,” she said, motioning us, forcing us to understand, “you know, Bakh.”

Talk about lost in translation.

And then the meaning of Bakh materialized in a series of comedic performances.

One of the men, Salim got up and slowly started ambling towards the white pickup truck that we had driven to the mountains. In his starch white thobe and his red and white kufiya wrapped around his head, he slowly tip-toed over to the car, sneakily looking at his friend who was about to get something from the truck. Salim hid underneath the truck, crouching low before his friend unknowingly walked over the the car.

Salim leapt out from underneath the car and yelled, “Bakh!” and everything fell into place, as his friend fell to the ground.

Bakh in Arabic means “Boo” and we got to see Bakh in action.

Laughing, we watched as Salim scurried off into the darkness followed by our raucous laughter as his friend chased after him. Watching two adult men in their white thobes and red kufiyas “bakh-ing” each other certainly put things into perspective for us.



Bakh, Boo, laughter and jokes are all the same wherever you go. Even if it is the Arab world.

Salim rushed back to the camp-site, wheezing and laughing. He smiled as he realized that we finally understood what Bakh meant. He whipped out his cell phone and then proceeded to show us videos of people “bakh-ing” each other, videos downloaded from web.

Even the bedouins have better cell phones than me, my friend Zoe exclaimed.

Salim boyishly shoved the cell phone under our noses making us watch cats jump on dogs, men jumping from trees and a dog bakh-ing a monkey. It is still beyond us how a dog could actually say “bakh” which it does in the video but thats one thing that even translation can't help us figure out.

After the men lost interest in playing pranks on each other they started playing games. It was the weirdest competition I have ever seen. Men in their later 20s and 30s, possibly even 40s were trying to see who could stand on his hands and lift his legs, while squatting on a rock.
It has to be one of the strangest things I have ever seen in my life. But one that made me laugh at the absurdity of it all. Here I was with my friends, lying under big thick blankets, about to sleep on the sand in the desert, and the bedouins were playing like a couple of children.

I fell asleep with a smile on my face as their laughter rang in our ears, late into the night. No one was apparently successful in the squatting game. But Salim did manage to bakh someone else.
Score: Salim 2, everyone else: 0

We'll have to get him next week.

Bakh!

A Request

Matt

Hello good people. I write today with a simple request for book recommendations for my time here in Egypt. My roommate, Amr, works at the American University of Cairo's library and he has offered to check out books for me to read. Ideas in relevant topics like Mubarak, Nasser, Sadat, political Islam, Arab history and Arab literature are certainly welcome. Beyond the regional and religious reading, my other current interests include nationalism, Black Power, Henry Kissinger, and US foreign policy. There are also plans to read works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ayn Rand, Sayyid Qutb, George Packer and Olivier Roy. Also, I should probably read something about Thebes or Alexander the Great. A progressive education has left me in the dark in all that ancient jazz.

Feel free to post in the comment section or email me. Comments would be great, though, so other people can benefit from your advice.

Many thanks.

Still Alive

Matt

Hello all. Sorry for the extended silence, but there has been much transition recently and precious little time to spend at the computer. Work with FINCA in Jordan finished up well with the completion of a few projects and another visit or two to the Palestinian refugee camps. After a brief visit to Petra, a contender for one of the New Seven Wonders of the World (deservedly so), my travels took me to Cairo where I have just finished my first week of classes at the International Language Institute, a wonderfully professional outfit. With 5.5 hours of class time per day (all in Arabic) and couple hours of homework, the academic frenzy has begun again.

Rock formation in Petra

Cairo is a remarkable place with tons of energy and blaring music and traffic and just about everything else you could ever ask for in a large urban center (including the only subway on the continent of Africa). The cafe culture is refreshing, with men playing card and backgammon every day until the early morning hours, reliably smoking sheesha and drinking a cup of tea. I have invested in a chess set so I can meet these men, practice my Arabic, and relive the unfettered glory of my days as a competitive chess player. Swoon ladies, swoon.

As I adjust to a new life in Cairo, I will begin to write more frequently. Currently a piece about Hamas and Fatah is in the works and I still owe you the second half of "Scattered Thoughts from Jordan." Thank you for your patience with this.

Lastly, it is with great pleasure that I inaugurate a new feature here at Tar Heel Travelers. Please allow me to introduce "Globalization At Its Finest", an ongoing photo-documentary project which highlights the rapid pace of technological, cultural and economic integration happening around our world. All the authors are invited to share photos around this theme and you at home are welcome to send photos which we can publish here. The first entry:

Cell phone call on the way to work.

Thanks for reading. Check back soon.

Earth to Friedman

sam

Another July terrorist attack in the United Kingdom and another unsubstantiated claim by Thomas Friedman that Muslim leaders have failed to condemn acts of terror.

Following the July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks in London, Friedman contended that "to this day -- to this day -- no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden."

This assertion was absurd at best and pernicious at worst. Note the ample documentation of fatwas against terror in general and bin Laden in particular by al-Muhajaba and UNC's very own Charles Kurzman.

Nevertheless, Friedman is at it again today, writing that "in the past few years, hundreds of Muslims have committed suicide amid innocent civilians — without making any concrete political demands and without generating any vigorous, sustained condemnation in the Muslim world."

As a great English teacher of mine once said: "No, Tom. Sometimes yes, but this time: no."

Not only does Friedman's argument ignore religious condemnations by traditional luminaries like Grand Imam Muhammad Sayyad Tahtawi of Al-Azhar University in Cairo and not so traditional but no less popular luminaries like Al-Jazeera talking head Yusuf al-Qaradawi, it also ignores the political realities of significant Middle Eastern countries, as Juan Cole noted two years ago.

In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak routinely cracks the heads of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Many attribute his role in the alliance against Hamas to fear that a Hamas-stan in Gaza might spark an even stronger Islamist resurgence at home.

Here in Jordan, the government rounds up politicians associated with the Islamic Action Front, the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing, on an almost weekly basis.

This, of course, is to say nothing of the less than peachy relations between secular and Islamist groups in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Syria, Palestine, Turkey and other parts of Friedman's uber simplified Muslim world.

So, Tom, neither "vigorous" nor "sustained condemnation in the Muslim World?" Really?

I suppose this is simply our luck.

this is your luck

maryam

In a list of the most commonly used statements in the Arabic language, this phrase would be in the top ten. The phrase’s frequent usage speaks so much about the personality of the society. I’ve never been one to believe the view of your life depending on your luck but in Arab culture it is more of an accepted fact than a belief.

Here so many events in one’s life are referred to as your luck. Marriage is commonly called “naseebak” or your luck. Your current job, status of living and even grades can be commonly referred to as your luck. It’s certainly not an atheistic point of view because your luck is from God.

I originally would be annoyed when anyone would use this phrase to refer to parts of his or her life because of the laziness that seemed to ooze from it. Accepting your luck seemed to be a lazy way of accepting circumstance and never fighting for something better.

I’ve grown a lot since those original thoughts.

I have a fighting spirit because I’ve seen things change purely from the hard work of everyday people. I know that I can work with the system to help others and myself. I know there is hope.

But what if you’ve never heard a good ending from a story dealing with the government? What if all your work is thrown back in your face by the system that was set up to protect you? How can you define citizenship if its definition exists in a world you’ve never seen? And what’s the point of marrying your true love if you end up losing your family, friends, home and all you own?

This is your luck not because you are too lazy to change it, but because it is happening to you. To you, your family, your country, your people. And there is no simple answer to why this is happening to us. Why the oppression, injustice, torture and despair? And why to me?

Because this is your luck

Humanity Rages like a tempest,
but i sigh in silence
for i know the storm must pass away
while a sigh goes to god.
-K. Gibran
A poet’s voice

The many faces of King Abdullah

sam

I see King Abdullah. Many places, really. In the back windows of ambulances, amidst the din of boisterous falafel stands, beside family photos atop the mantle in stone-floored living rooms.

The meaning of this widespread iconography is complex. Some people display his picture out of love, others out of respect, some out of habit, still others to fit in. But what is absolutely certain from these images is that in addition to the whole head of state thing, Abdullah is a man of many interests. His website attests to this:

"He is a qualified frogman, pilot and a free-fall parachutist. His other interests include automobile racing, water sports, scuba diving and collecting ancient weapons and armaments."

Now, I have no idea what a frogman is (though I did turn up this helpful primer on defending against frogmen. You can thank me when you successfully thwart an amphibious assault on your military base or beach house) and try as I might, I could not find any pictures of Abdullah scuba diving, wielding ancient weapons and armaments, or scuba diving while wielding ancient weapons and armaments.

But here are a few of my favorites:

Family man King Abdullah with Queen Rania, Princess Salma, Princess Iman, and Prince Hussein. This portrait is from Hardee's.

Urban camo King Abdullah.


Soccer star King Abdullah.

Senior yearbook picture King Abdullah...that's a lie. (the Arabic text reads "We are all Jordan")

Actually, I think this selection is more believable as senior yearbook picture King Abdullah. With the cloud background, large tie knot, and happy-but-not-too-happy smile, sometimes I think I'm looking at the Deerfield Academy Class of 1980 yearbook, right next to Thad and Thatcher, complete with a Pink Floyd quote beside it.

University graduate King Abdullah.

Desert Patrol King Abdullah from the City Hall of Salt.

Steroid King Abdullah...not really.

Romantic comedy King Abdullah. (autographed copy)

Desert Patrol King Abdullah discussing strategy with Desert Patrol Prince Hussein.
(I think the camera caught him by surprise on this one) King Abdullah.
Star Trek King Abdullah. Apparently the King is a big Trekkie and he appeared as an extra back in the day. Ask Tar Heel Travelers' very own resident expert for more details.
And my personal favorite: environmental steward King Abdullah. Posted on an entire wall of the Ministry of Agriculture, this features Abdullah, in full military regalia, watering a sapling.
I would have preferred to see him doing this in the Star Trek outfit, but hey, I'm not the king.