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| The parents at Giza |
First things first: a little catch-up on where I've been for the past three weeks.
After a week and a half of leading the parents around Egypt, our explorations had taken us to all my favorite parts of Cairo, to a backstreet fish restaurant in Alexandria, down the Nile to see all the sights of Luxor and Aswan, and finally up the coast of the Sinai Peninsula through glittering dance beat bumping beaches of Sharm to the quiet shores of Dahab. In some ways it was kind of a microcosm of my time in Egypt so far--with the crucial exclusion of one of my favorite places in Egypt, Siwa--and it felt good to be showing them all the dusty wonder of this country I've come to call my new home. I think they had seen much of the best and the worst of this comparatively chaotic country and left it understanding why I had wanted to stay there. I may have even planted the seed of a second trip in their minds if I stay long enough.
Furthermore, thanks to their complete lack of knowledge of Arabic, I was afforded an exhausting number of chances to speak lots and lots of Arabic. Bartering for this and that knick-knack (and what would have been an extremely overpriced camel ride at the Giza pyramids that was made worth it for seeing camel drivers actually physically pick up my dad and deposit him on top of a camel) is actually something I quite enjoy, though sometimes Mom or Dad would wander off in the middle of the bartering session leaving me there to only shrug apologetically at the shopkeep. I should have explained that the friendly chatting that often interrupts the price settling sessions is an important--if inefficient--part of the process to get the lower price. Either way, I'm getting kind of fluid in a lot of my less complicated conversational Arabic, and suddenly I'm understanding much more of what people say to me, all of which I am unspeakably happy about
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| Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem |
Anyway, in the end I think they were leaving Egypt with a good taste in their mouths, and as we drove up the eastern coast of Sinai staring at the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Aqaba I almost forgot to worry about Israeli border security not letting me through because of the Syrian stamp in my passport. Nonetheless, after going through Egypt's Taba side of the border, the process of getting into Israel was slowed up from the very beginning when my bag check revealed a collection of short stories by a Syrian author. After the frowning bag check girl suspiciously put my books back in my bag the questioning began shortly after they saw the Syrian stamps in my passport.
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| The Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem |
I'll do away with any dramatic tension right away and admit that nothing too exciting happened with the questioning. I was asked about my studies and my "job" and my reasons for being in Egypt as expected. Things got a little awkward when she asked me about whether I had learned about the Israeli/Palestine conflict in school, and then what I thought needed to happen to resolve the conflict. It made me laugh to be asked such a complicated question (something like "Quick! How do you solve one of the world's longest running, pervasive conflicts?"), and I gave a satisfactorily vague answer about how both sides were not blameless. The border guard also asked me a lot of biographical information, and all about my time in Syria, and forty-five minutes of such wandering questioning later, I was out again. Two and half hours later, presumably after they had looked into and checked out the information I gave them, they sent us on our way.
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| Petra in the morning light on my birthday! |
Fast-forward through a mostly unimpressive four days in Jordan (during which I decided that all the hype about Egyptians' exploitative reputation pales in comparison to the downright deceitful and purposefully rude Jordanians), and I was back at the Jordan-Israel border, this time at the King Hussein Bridge/Allenby border crossing connecting Amman to Jerusalem. And of course, I was waiting all over again.
And this second time around, as I was sitting in the waiting area I began to think about the dehumanizing feeling of the whole border-crossing process. It feels like you're cattle being herded through the various security checkpoints, and then you wait. You wait if you are Arab. You wait if you have spent time in Arab countries other than Jordan or Egypt. You wait if you mention having Arab friends. You wait if you are Muslim. You wait if you are learning Arabic. They don't tell you how long you'll wait. They don't tell you what they are doing with the information they've taken about you. In their demeanor, you are not innocent until proven guilty, you are guilty until proven innocent. And so these thoughts stomped grumpily on through my head as I waited for them to call my name, as a Jordanian-American woman wearing a hijab next to me talked a bit incessantly about how she had to do this every year, and every year they kept her for over 7 hours. She was handling it considerably better than crabby me, and in retrospect I wish I had talked to her more instead of participating in the conversation as minimally as I could politely manage.
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Old-school checkpoint of sorts. This also happens to be where
the minibus dropped us off in Jerusalem, "Damascus Gate." |
Once through, we got in the shared taxi (which was really just a fancy minibus) to Jerusalem, and I eavesdropped on the passengers' conversations--all of which were in an Arabic very similar to the kind spoken in Syria. It was interesting to me that none of them were Jewish Israelis. I guess they take the more expensive taxis? Or it was just a coincidence that there were none in our vehicle. Still irked by my experience at the border, I was inclined to attribute it (probably unfairly) to some sinister Israeli plot to confine Arabs in some way, but my ire evaporated within a few minutes of stepping out into the exciting, lively, welcoming city. And so began what has been nothing but a fantastic stay here in Israel, that has left me with quite a lot of affection for this country that stand in stark contrast to my political opinions. It is in this contradiction, I'm realizing, that this issue so often founders, and I'll write more about it in my next post (I think) as I put my thoughts into words.
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| Jerusalem graffiti...seemed pertinent |
For much of this trip, I've felt like my brain was teetering on the edge of something I've been meaning to figure out for quite some time. No doubt I'll have more time to work through my thoughts as I sit at the checkpoints over the next few days.
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Seen at the "Garden Tomb" where Jesus may have
been buried...also seemed pertinent... |
