Week Three

Week Three:


This week was kind of the grind week. The first few days were difficult due to a combination of Ramadan fasting and little sleep. In addition to the Jordanian friends I’ve been making, I also became close with a group of students studying under the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship and living in the same research establishment in which I am currently living. They left on Tuesday, of course making the last three days extremely important for last minute Jordan experiences and late nights at coffee shops with friends. I was very sad to see them go, and the building is definitely much quieter without them, though I do have to admit I was relieved to get some sleep on Tuesday evening before iftar (the meal to break the daily Ramadan fast).

The big excitement of the week was yesterday actually. I rented a car and went south to explore the area around a small city called Madaba. Madaba is an old, predominantly Christian city, situated on the plains south of Amman. It has a long history experiencing an ebb and flow in importance, depending on regional political dynamics, until the reign of the Ottoman Turks, when Madaba and all of what is now Jordan saw a general decline in everything from economics and development to culture and learning. It was originally a Moabite city and is mentioned in the Old Testament, in Joshua and in Numbers. Under the Byzantines, Madaba was an important Bishopric and it remained so under the Umayyad Caliphate through the 7th and the 8th Centuries. The city is best known for its mosaics which go back to the Greek and Roman eras; the most famous of these Mosaics is in the Church of Saint George (also known as the Church of the Map), depicting the eastern Mediterranean world and in particular many of the sites holy to the three major monotheistic religions.

Before I went into the town itself, I decided to head even further south by about 30 kilometers and explore the old fortress of Mukawwir, which sits on top of a prominent hill near the Dead Sea. The fortress was also once a Moabite settlement and is also mentioned in the Old Testament as a site captured by the Israelites when the Moabite King refused them passage through his territory. The fortress is most known for being the site of John the Baptist’s beheading, for which there is a memorial (both Muslim and Christian because John, or Yahiya in Arabic, is a Muslim prophet as well). I was really the only person out and about because the temperature here has been hovering around 105 degrees Fahrenheit, making the trek up to the top of the fortress nice and refreshing. On top, the fortress was amazing. Being sort of wired for the military, I couldn’t help but try to imagine assaulting a place with such incredible natural defenses: it would be a logistical and tactical nightmare. After checking out the fortress, a small goat path down the opposite side seemed to be calling my name, so I decided to see what it wanted. About a mile later I ended up on top of another mountain overlooking the Dead Sea from which I could see a good portion of the Jordanian bank and even, despite the haze of millions of liters of evaporating water, could see the West Bank relatively clearly.

On returning to Madaba, I was able to meet up with an old friend from my semester abroad who lives not far from The Church of Saint George. She led me around Madaba a little and then we went to Mount Nebo, where Moses is said to have died after seeing the Promised Land. After returning from Mount Nebo, I met up with Dr. Nizar Qbilat, another friend and my teacher from semester abroad, who took me to meet his family (very extended family) and to hang out at one of the rivers. I was pretty surprised to find that the area was actually very green, with bright wildflowers, and a large group of people swimming.

After dropping off Dr. Nizar, it was time for iftar and for me to return to Amman. And that was my adventure for the week. I hope you enjoyed and thank you for your interest.

Respectfully,

Brennan Roorda