PETRA

Just a photo of me and one of two fellow travelers who went on a weekend trip south to Petra, the Dead Sea, etc. back in March. Here I am standing at the entrance canyon to the Nabatean "Wonder of the World" with Doretta Shull, a contract worker with the embassy here, who was here for a couple of months and wanted a travel companion who knew Jordan and Arabic. (I qualified about %60.) Picture taken by Marian Wang, a US citizen of Japanese-Taiwanese descent who teaches at my old university in Japan.

ESTEEMED ADMINISTRATORS, FACULTY MEMBERS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN ...

Paul was recently asked to represent his Level 7 Arabic class at the annual open-house and Language Center gathering: Al-Yaum Al-'Ilmi. This meant preparing a 5-minute quickie speech in formal Arabic discussing my experiences in Jordan and stereotypes of Arabs/Jordanians in my country.

I am glad to say that three speech drafts later (with help from one of my Arabic instructors), I gave a very commendable 5-minute speech in front of a largely Arab academic audience (and a few classmates) that was well received. I was the last speaker after two student reps from lower levels.

Afterwards, comments by Arab faculty members basically said that (a) my Arabic pronunciation was surprisingly close to native-like, (b) I seemed to understand Jordan quite well including references to the Bani Sakhr bedouin tribe, (c) my ideas were important for Arab-American relations (one member of a non-government news agency in Amman wanted to borrow my text to excerpt).

Very flattering, and helpful if it gives me some useful contacts locally.

FUNNY, HE DOESN'T LOOK JEWISH ...

One annoyance since I've been here this time is that some Jordanians seem to assume I'm Jewish - the BERG on the end of my name?

The first time it came up was when I called the Tourist Police to get help finding a missing camera. When I arrived at their office, the gate guard started speaking to me in Hebrew! (I know the barest amount to know what it was.) I explained - IN ARABIC - that I was American, born in Saudi Arabia, and spoke either ENGLISH or ARABIC.

Then, last week, my very nice Arabic literature instructor, Dr. Mothanna (a man), asked me if I could give him some advice about the Israeli embassy in Jordan! (How should I know? I don't even know where it is!)

What ties these two topics together this posting is that I decided to use my formal Arabic speech to clarify that my father's ancestors came to American from SWEDEN ("... I come from a family of immigrants ...") I have nothing against someone being Jewish, but in the Arab World it is not a neutral problem to have people assuming you are Jewish!

DEAR JORDANIAN INTELLIGENCE: I am a PROTESTANT, CHRISTIAN AMERICAN of DUTCH and SWEDISH background. -BERG means 'mountain' in Swedish and SUND- means 'bay'. Check the Stockholm phonebook!!!

CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME OUT OF JORDAN?

An old friend from Georgetown days (early 1980s), Dale Gavlak, had a birthday this weekend, so I invited her for a special 'reunion'. She works free-lance for Associated Press here in Amman and had done a feature story for BBC on a Jordanian wine maker who has been winning a few awards internationally - Omar Zoumot of St. George winery.

A local dentist I had gone to for a regular cleaning turned out to be a relative and admirer of Omar's, and gave me his number, so I called him to see if he wouldn't conduct a private wine tasting at his wine center here in Amman for Dale and me for Dale's birthday. Not only was he willing, he picked us up in his Dodge SUV and drove us to the wine shop in person, where he opened about 12 bottles for tasting and served up a plate of cheeses and some real pork cold cuts to accompany the wines(no small feat in a Muslim nation!) OK, wine and pork - how non-halal can you get! Two and a half hours of interesting lecture and talk later (!) we finally, a bit regretfully, took our leave to get to a restaurant before they closed.

Omar (from an Orthodox Christian background in Salt, Jordan) began his family vineyard business in 1996, but because Jordan's climate is so ideal for grape growing, a lot of his wines develop faster than in Europe, so even 2-3 years can be "vintage" for a few varietals. He has experimented with almost all the white and red grape varieties to see which work best in this climate and follows strict organic methods in growing his wines, balancing vines, neighboring plants, birds and insects - even fish farms for natural nitrates to fertilize his soil.

I had first tasted (somewhat sceptically) a bottle of his Cabernet-Pinot Noir blend at a hotel in Petra when my Japan colleague Marian Wang was here about a month ago and found it "shockingly good." She and our other travel companion, Doretta from the US embassy in Amman, had both wanted to sample some Jordanian wine, and were all raving about it as we drank.

Dale was a bit shocked to find Omar waiting for us in his SUV (the birthday "surprise") when I picked her up but thoroughly enjoyed reuniting with a former feature story personality (Omar is incredibly passionate and knowledgeable about the wine industry) and tasting some very drinkable wines.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA TIME

The one site in Jordan forever associated with the film "Lawrence of Arabia" is Wadi Rum, a huge complex of sand and towering, weathered desert mountains. It's one of the few major sites here that in all my nine visits I had never been to. So, when I found out in our end-of-the-week Arabic class that the Language Center had planned an overnight trip there the next day, I jumped and ran to see if I could still sign up. I think I was the last name.

Friday (Muslim holiday pretty much everywhere), the bus left about 8:30 am driving south and we ended up around noon at our tent camp at Wadi Rum (one of many desert tent camps along a strip at the base of a mountain much like shoulder-to-shoulder motels along Route 66). After a very fun outdoor 4-wheel drive trip in the back of specially designed pickup trucks through the Wadi Rum mountains, we UJ Arabic students ended up back at camp for dinner and a night's rest.

Things kind of took a downward trend when I noted a slightly hiphop club-styled Jordanian DJ start to set up an outdoor sound system and mixing board in the center of our camp. Sure enough, as the sun set, we were besieged by a full outdoor nightclub dance scene with busloads of Arab families descending on our camp to dance and have supper. Things didn't calm down until after 11 pm. But a few of us slipped away from the stalag camp spotlights to wander out into the desert to look at the stars - always the biggest treat for me in the desert.

The next morning, we headed to Aqaba, Jordan's only city on the sea for swimming etc. I had to get back to Amman earlier than the rest, so I only had about two hours to wander the old Aqaba fort complex (where Lawrence and the Arab camel-mounted troops of the Great Arab Revolution of 1917 defeated the Ottomans for the first time). A major highlight of modern Jordanian history. When the Arab armies finally defeated the Ottomans in Damascus, the conquered territories were split up by the French and British between various sons of the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, one becoming the king of Iraq (King Faisal) and one the king of Trans-Jordan (King Abdullah I). The very plain stone home of the Sherif from that period can still be seen in Aqaba.

PELLA HERE AND THERE

Sorry this is turning into a once-a-month blog! Excuse is I don't have internet at home and only can use it during lab hours (very limited and fickle) at the U. of Jordan.

March has been a month with lots of local travel thanks to a woman at the US Embassy here, Doretta, who is in the same Anglican Bible study on Sunday nights here. Doretta gets her car free from the State Dept., so I can't even help pay for the gas. Life is hard ... (And without a car, I very likely would not have gotten to see 1/10 of what I've seen so far!)

First trip was an afternoon trip to check out the road to Mt. Nebo (1/2 hour south), where the Easter sunrise service was planned. Doretta wanted to make sure she could find the way in the early morning dark!

The next trip was an overnight to the Desert Castles to the east, out in the desert. We stayed at an old army hosptal converted into a guesthouse by the Royal Society for the Preservation of Nature overnight. The only guests! It's located near an ancient marsh reserve with plenty of fresh water in the middle of the desert. Perfect weather the night we were there.

A colleague from Japan, Marian Wang, passed through town in mid March after a conference in Duba, so it was a good excuse to get down to the main attractions to the south, namely the Dead Sea and Petra. It rained the day of her arrival, and my heart sank, but it cleared up giving us some of the clearest views of the Jordan River valley and accross to the Country-that-shall-remain-nameless. We could even catch a glimpse of Jerusalem on top of a mountain across the Dead Sea. Petra was spectacular if hugely touristy now (there was only one one-star guesthouse when I first visited in 1974 - now there's an entire town of hotels, businesses and full-year residents!)

The next weekend, Doretta and I headed north in full spring weather (the wild flowers of Jordan are famous this time of year!) to Ajloun Castle, the traditional birthplace of the prophet Elijah (Mar Ilyas, in Arabic) near it, then down to the very economically depressed Jordan River valley to get to Pella, an ancient Greco-Roman city for which Pella, Iowa was named - the town I went to high school in. Lots of layers of civilization dating back to early agricultural (neolithic) times. You can see a large Canaanite temple to Baal, several Byzantine churches, a temple to some Greco-Roman deity (can't remember), and an Islamic mosque dating back to crusader times.

We ended up at Umm Qais (Gadara, of New Testament fame - where Jesus allowed the evil spirits to enter the pigs), with a breathtaking view way up over the Sea of Galilee to the northwest. An excellent restaurant is run in the ruins of the old city, and the views off the patio are world class! Field of yellow flowers everywhere we looked. Spring is a great time to visit Jordan!