On Petra

In the 1980s, the Jordanian government turned Petra into an official tourist destination. The Bedouins who previously occupied Petra's caves were made to leave, despite their continuation of the cavernous living that the Nabateans began here. In 2008, ten Bedouin families remain in Petra. All of them offer some tourist service--they run cafes, sell jewelry and other goods, and offer "taxi rides" on donkeys, camels and horses. Bedouin children run up to passing Germans and Swedes and in perfect English offer compliments and necklaces for 2JD. These people, like gypsies and pirates, have traditionally been nomadic. The requirement that those Bedouins living in Petra contribute to the tourism industry somehow means that goat-herding has become a secondary priority, and learning English, European languages, and Japanese essential to survival.

What would Petra be today if it had not been so heavily tourified? Would its inhabitants be migrants, traveling between here and the desert, speaking languages that only fellow Bedouins and Jordanians can understand and pursuing trades that their ancestors have pursued for centuries? Would Petra be deserted, lost, empty?

This ancient metropolis is stunning. It reminds me of a time I have never known--when cities were self-contained and self-sustaining--when a city's residents were a people, with a shared ambition or culture or believed purpose.

Yesterday we climbed to the High Place of Sacrifice and the Monastery. From both, the rolling hills, cascading mountains and sandy deserts of Jordan unfold before naive, non-native eyes as untouched, unexplored, full of potential. To a student or historian, this unfolding serves as a physical manifestation of centuries of historical events, discoveries, destinies, battles. These soft, soundless lands muffle violent conflicts and trying passages that, though bereft of any remaining witnesses, are so deeply embedded in the collective memory that our modern decisions, both large and small, are determined by them. It is on these lands that Christianity was built--it is here that Islam flourished--it is just across that sea in the distance where Jews are creating new dynamics with their fellow Peoples of the Books.

Yet thousands of years ago, a Nabatean priest was performing a sacred ritual at this very spot; a Nabatean family was mourning the loss of a loved one; a young boy was collecting sticks for a fire. The basic processes and priorities of life remain the same--though the spaces have changed (what used to be the high altar, perhaps the holiest of places in Petra, is now a stomping ground for scarcely dressed foreigners with Nikon cameras and sun hats), the way that we as people interact and grow has perpetually defined our existence.