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I've been back a couple of weeks now, and I find myself thinking often of my time in the Middle East. I followed my colleagues' blogs obsessively after I left, hungry for the sounds and sights I had grown accustomed to during my travels. I hear news stories and can picture much more vividly where the events are occurring. I long to swim again in the Dead Sea. I'd even love to have another mud treatment.

Since I can't go back right now, I've worked on developing a pretty rigorous reading agenda, and so I thought I'd share with you what I've been reading and what I plan to read as I think about designing my course, "Nefertiti's Daughters," to be offered as part of the Core curriculum in fall, 2009.

I'm an avid reader, and so even before I left for the Middle East I looked for books to give me some context and a taste of the region I'd be traveling to. I read Geraldine Brooks' Nine Parts of Desire, and while I was overseas I read Finding Nouf, a wonderful mystery set in Saudi Arabia, and Three Cups of Tea, which is a truly inspirational story. When I got back I surfed a bit and also asked friends and colleagues for recommendations. A big box just arrived from Amazon; here's what's in it:

The Map of Love, by Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif
Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam, by Asra Nomani
Persepolis, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi
Married to a Bedouin, by Marguerite van Geldermalsen
Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
In Search of Islamic Feminism, by Elizabeth Fernea
Qur'an and Woman, by Amina Wadud

I can't wait to dig into these books, and also to track down a few films. Many of these, I suspect, will find their way into my Middle East course.

For now I'm content to be an armchair traveler. My journey will continue, this time in the comfort of my home in Winooski, Vermont (where I don't have to haggle with drivers and I can brush my teeth with tap water), and I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for texts you think I should read or view, please let me know.

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My colleague Tim Brookes, director of the Professional Writing program and co-founder of Writers Without Borders, is presently in Egypt on the Faculty Internationalization Initiative. You'll enjoy his observations of a day in Cairo:

When I threw open the curtains I had no idea what to expect. Perhaps the kites wheeling overhead that I saw in India and Pakistan. Instead, perched on the roofs of every house and hotel, tall and short, near and far, left and right, were satellite dishes. I counted roughly 550. All beige, all tilted more or less the same way, they had the alertness and keen sense of purpose of anti-aircraft batteries, yet without any aggressive barrel they seemed benign, earlike. It was as if everyone in the city had signed up for a futuristic interstellar monitoring project, and was straining for signs of extra-terrestrial life.

After gazing in astonishment for a few minutes it dawned on me that my legs, where the 9 a.m. sunlight was falling, were starting to burn. Sunburn at 9 a.m.? It didn’t seem possible. It was the title of a bad thriller.

I tottered off to breakfast, which had that small-European-hotel muttered-conversation feel, croissants and eggs and bad coffee, until I tottered back out of the breakfast room and saw a couple of people had taken their breakfast onto the potted-plant fifth-floor terrace. Sunburn and eggs at 9:30. Couldn’t imagine it, myself.

Napped again, found out how to work the wi-fi internet, got the helpful guy on the desk to write out directions in Arabic to the WHO, which came out as World Half Organization, and directions back to the hotel, printed in Arabic and English on a card with a map. Maps are, of course, a Western vanity: the taxi driver used the time-honored method of pulling over every few minutes to call to someone on the side of the road and ask directions. Luckily, I’m now more or less used to this, and was pleased at my lack of panic and dismay.

In fact, I was getting more and more excited. Laura was right: the novelty, the challenge that brings out the best in you—this is what it’s about. I was even starting to enjoy the heat, or at least to redefine it, to take it on as part of the journey: it was a badge of honor, even—given that it enveloped my whole body—a uniform. As my Aberdonian friend said, “It was guid.”

Taxi $30

Unlike the WHO country office in Karachi, which has been built on an unused bit of desert on the outskirts of town and my taxi driver couldn’t find it even when we were parked out front, the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office of the WHO is a marble monument, a cross between a mausoleum and a bank. Very reassuring. I could sense infectious diseases being daunted by its very façade.

My contact, Jane Nicholson, had kindly agreed to see me right before shooting off on holiday, and there was an air of great activity in her office, which included lists of publications in progress. I wish I had written some of them down: technical stuff, they tended to have titles such as “Incidence of Boll Weevil Fever in Rural Areas beginning with the Letter F,” and “Ground Water Testing Using Only a Cotton Swab and a Toothbrush.” She herself had that English habit of saying “Yes,” and “Right, then,” to sum up and convert conversation into planning into action. She listened intently to my explanation of why I was in Egypt (an absurdly rambling affair that includes autobiography, bibliography, travelography and pedagography) and at once began to suggest a list of people I should see.

She was joined by her colleague Dr. Kassem Sara, a short man with a high forehead, an energetic manner and alert eyes, who had just returned from prayers.

Kassem had several endearing habits. Every time we were alone in his office he immediately asked, “Would you like something sweet?” and offered candies, freshly-baked breadsticks, tea, coffee. He also had that Arabic physical familiarity, taking my arm, guiding me into a room or an elevator. He was from Syria, he explained, pausing at a map to show Damascus, the road across the desert through the ancient city of Palmyra to Xxxx, his home town on the Euphrates. Right in the cradle of civilization, I offered. “Yes, we are very proud of that,” he said. But now he had been in Egypt for fifteen years and saw it as his home. Egyptians are friendlier than Syrians, he said, and besides, his children refuse even to visit Syria. I got the impression, though I may be wrong, that Egyptians see Syrians as backward.

He also taught me to say “Bism’allah.”

“It is what we say when we begin something,” he explained. “It means, `in the name of God.’ You and I are beginning.”

“The French would say, `Allons-y!’” I said. I’ve always liked the phrase for its energy, its élan.

He nodded. “Allons-y!” he repeated, committing our collaboration to energy, and to God.

He had his driver take me home after he himself was dropped off at his family’s home, which was above a mall. “It’s noisy and there are too many people,” he said, “but….” As he got out he asked me something I didn’t catch. He repeated: “Do you have psoriasis?” Psoriasis. No wonder I didn’t understand the first time. No, I said, I’d had an accident, and ran my hand down the length of my right arm to show where the scabbing had been. “Ah,” he said, his face lightening. Then, as if apologizing as well as explaining, “I am also a physician, you see.”

In the meantime, Kassem and Jane had drawn up a list of roughly eight dozen people I should meet, and Kassem had started me on the journey of meeting them. The eminence grise and collective memory of the organization, they said, was Dr. M. Haytham Al-Khayat, a teddy-bear of a man who was downstairs in an office the size of a library, sitting low in an armchair with that posture some academics develop in which they seem torpid but are watching everything that happens with such awareness that they observe the movement of microbes, and know the end of your sentence before you have thought of the beginning. He listened to what I said, but I could tell he knew it all and was absently using the unused portions of his mind to play Tetris.

“Yes, but the person you must talk to is Dr. Zuhair Hallaj,” he said, with the air of one solving a chess problem involving checkmate in a mere sixteen moves. So Zuhair, the head of communicable diseases, was called in, and within minutes had grasped everything and was calling the head of communicable diseases at the Ministry of Health so arrange for me to meet him the following day.

Let me explain something. Much travel literature by Europeans features the author waiting in some dim and stiflingly hot governmental corridor for days waiting for the lowliest functional to return from tiffin and stamp a crucial document that will, in a fashion that can only be described as Oriental Kafka, allow him to visit another governmental functionary who will likewise be out for tiffin, but will finally return and stamp the document with a stamp that cancels out the first stamp. These accounts are by no means exaggerated. To have me visiting someone barely below the level of the Minister on my first full day in the country was staggering. To tell you the truth, I was already a little daunted, and began wondering, in the corner of my mind usually reserved for Tetris, what on earth I should wear.

The four of us came up with a list of the top public health stories in Egypt: traffic accidents (a recent crash on the road to Syria had killed 44 and left more than 200 in hospital), street children, Hepatitis C (one Egyptian in three is infected), schistosomiasis (a success story in Egypt, which might have implications for dozens of other African countries), and avian flu.

Kassem, meanwhile, was extending the mental list he was making of people I should meet. Even as their names came up in conversation I was starting to feel uneasy, all over again, about my lack of Arabic. Names they threw out sounded suspiciously similar to each other. I wrote them down, spelling phonetically, as quickly as I could—a method that, combined with my appalling handwriting, pretty much guaranteed future confusion.

Back at his office, Kassem offered me sweets all over again, and showed me some of his work, including a monumental project: a unified medical dictionary in Arabic, English and French. Knowing how much perception and understanding of disease is affected by the assumptions and history of one’s culture, I could begin to imagine the difficulties involved. Not to mention the fact that our understanding of disease is dynamic, changing so often and at times so rapidly that when I was working on my asthma book I discovered that the entire conception of asthma was in the process of changing so dramatically that the current edition of Morland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary was already hopelessly outdated. A panel convened by the NIS even wanted to change the name to Reactive Airway Disease, which might have been more self-explanatory but ran into the difficulty that nobody in the real world would have known what they were talking about.

Kassem agreed, and came up with a subject that showed an entirely different range of difficulties. How were he and his colleagues to name clitorectomy, widespread in Africa? They wanted, frankly, to choose a word that was accurate but ugly, to indicate that the practice was repulsive to them. “Clitorectomy” sounded far too scientific, as if those practicing it had good medical reasons for doing so. “Female circumcision” likewise sounded too acceptable, as male circumcision is standard practice in both Jewish and Moslem faiths. Even to go with the phrase of choice, though—“female genital mutilation,” or FGM—posed problems, as religious conservatives might feel that by using such a phrase, the dictionary was implicitly criticizing male circumcision. (Fine by me: speaking as an uncircumcised male, I’d regard any assault on my foreskin as genital mutilation.) So the editorial team had to have a series of consultations with religious leaders, who (and Kassem sounded a little surprised at this) unexpectedly endorsed the FGM language. Shortly afterwards, perhaps by coincidence, the Egyptian government even came out and issued for the first time an explicit condemnation of FGM. The more I looked at Kassem’s robust volume, with its more than 100,000 terms unified in three languages, the more I imagine Dr. Johnson looking on and being pretty damn impressed.

My final act of the working day was to buy a cell phone, which I achieved with the help of no fewer than four guys at the Mobilini office two doors down from my hotel. One told me of the virtues of the individual phones, and I argued him ("Simpler! Simpler!") down to a Nokia that did not include a flat-screen plasma TV or GPS system. (Though it may include Tetris, come to think of it.) He was the one who also showed me how to insert the chip. He, however, had no understanding of my question, "How do I pay for the actual calls?" This only evolved over time. He told me I needed a SIM card, which spoke in Arabic, so another of the guys took over the task of making my new phone speak English, which was a Rosetta Stone experience that took ten minutes and left his thumb exhausted. Somewhere in there I had to buy yet another card that seemed to be for actual calls once the phone was all chipped and chipper, and I got my actual phone number off something that looked for all the world as if guy #3 was offering me a stack of free CD's to choose from, all apparently identical. I was wrong about that, but now wholly off base as they *did* then offer me a free Mobilini backpack, but even that confused me as guy #1 had clearly been badly work down by my state of basic incomprehension of cell phone technology and he began to lapse into French, called the backpack a cadeau (gift). By the time the whole transaction had been accomplished, I half expected a new generation of cell phones to arrive by truck, making my Nokia obsolete. Then guy #3, who had been in a kind of silent supervisory capacity until now, stepped in and advised guy#1 how to create a receipt on the computer and print it out. Finally, I signed a contract that was completely in Arabic, so I may well have signed away my rights to a fair trial, or the Egyptian edition of my next book. I walked out feeling immensely pleased with myself, but not as pleased (or as sensible) as the hotel desk clerk, who asked to see the phone, gave little chortles of glee, declared Nokia a good make, showed me how to access my menu and my messages, and finally did the most important thing of all: he called me on it, and we had a very jovial brief conversation on our cell phone, three feet away from each other across the counter. I was so grateful I gave him the free Mobilini backpack to pass on to his children. We both agreed it had been an excellent day.


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Well, I've been home a little more than 24 hours. I've slept long and hard in my beloved bamboo fiber sheets, had a long, luxurious shower in my own bathroom with my favorite products, dried off with a fluffy towel (the towels in the Middle East could easily substitute for loofah), breakfasted at my beautiful copper-top bistro table, done mounds of laundry, and acknowledged that in enjoying all these things I'm somewhat of a soft American. But I'm also a proud, capable, accomplished traveler who succeeded in taking a trip unlike any I've taken previously.

I've experienced in practical ways that as an American I live very differently from others around the world. This was brought home from me in myriad ways. In one hotel a sign next to the bed reminded me not to smoke in bed. I don't think I wore a seatbelt during the entire trip. Egyptians, both in the big city and the small villages, buy raw meat that hangs (and attracts flies) by the side of the road. Yes, meat doesn't always come shrink-wrapped on a pink styrofoam tray. I tried new food and discovered that hummus in the Middle East tastes different from hummus at an English department reception in Chapel Hill, NC. I never felt unsafe, even in the big city of Cairo wandering at night in search of a restaurant. I ate cautiously and avoided mummy's tummy. I mastered brushing my teeth with bottled water and washing out clothes in the sink. (Big thanks to Joanne Farrell for the tip about soap from Dick's.) I answered to an armed guard and walked through a metal detector when I visited the University of Jordan campus. (Imagine if that's how we arrived at Champlain every day!) I observed military police everywhere -- at checkpoints on the way to the Dead Sea, on the bridges over the Nile, at all the tourist sights, in the bazaars, in huts on the roadways along which we walked to dinner. Their presence both in Jordan and in Egypt is ubiquitous. And, on a completely frivolous note, I learned that I can survive with only one pair of earrings for two weeks.

Lee wrote yesterday of seeing the burqa-clad woman rowing on the Nile as we left for the airport on Sunday morning. There were lots of pictures we couldn't take, but those are the images that will remain with me forever. I think my favorite is of the group of women we encountered by the infinity pool at the Dead Sea resort. They were dressed from head to toe in outfits that resembled black track suits with hoods that covered their hair. And yet they were at the resort -- three friends probably in their twenties -- and they went swimming. They stroked across the pool just as Lee and I had done a few minutes earlier and laughed and chatted along the edge for a while before swimming around a bit more and getting out. They seemed completely non-judgmental of those of us in modern bathing attire and completely un-self-conscious of their own appearance.

I'll remember too the children whose studied gazes we attracted. Walking in the village and riding the local ferry in Luxor, we saw so many children. They seemed particularly interested in Lee, whose hair is longer than mine and streaked with blond highlights. I wondered whether these children ever see their mothers without their veils, what we looked like to them, what they thought about as they stared so unabashedly.

On our last night in Cairo we attended a whirling dervish performance (absolutely amazing -- photo forthcoming. The man you'll see pictured whirled for thirty straight minutes before a packed crowd in astonishing heat to music that was simultaneously loud and haunting). As we sat in our seats two girls (sisters or friends -- we were never able to establish that) came to sit next to us. Their mother didn't seem to approve but allowed them to remain next to us. The bolder of the two (through some intensive cross-cultural pantomime we were able to determine that her name was Yasmin and she was nine years old) took the seat on Lee's left, smiled up at her, and immediately reached into her jeans pocket. She produced two pieces of wrapped gum, which she presented to us with no words but with a huge smile. We took the offering and initiated conversation as best we could. Mostly the two of us kept smiling at the two of them; it was an incredible experience -- a temporary friendship inaugurated with a piece of gum.

I imagine I'll be telling stories for a long time, and I look forward to getting together with the other Champlain faculty in the fall and beginning to plan how we'll translate our experiences for our students in the classroom. The Middle East is a large and complicated region, and it's important not to generalize. I'll try not to do that by remembering the individual people and their stories -- Jamal and his two veiled wives, Mosse and his bittersweet desire to leave his family and go to America, the women whose stories we don't know but whose everyday actions touched us profoundly, the children whose curiosity is universal and beguiling.

The trip of a lifetime began with the frustrating wait at BTV for an uncertain flight to JFK and ended with an unexpected 10-hour layover in JFK on the way back to Burlington. It was fun to begin the trip in the company of Gary Scudder and Al Capone and to end it with Jen Vincent -- excellent companions all. And it was invaluable to have Lee along to help process everything as it unfolded and to provide the comfort and security of the familiar in an unfamiliar place. We read Three Cups of Tea and Finding Nouf, regionally appropriate books for Middle East sojourners, we bolstered each other when spirits occasionally flagged or hasslers became too insistent, and she carried my bags when my back was bad. We talked about what we brought that we couldn't have done without (tissues and the anti-bacterial hand wipes, my hat), what we didn't need (the lightweight sweater I brought, in case the evenings were cool -- ha!) and what we'd do differently (learn more useful Arabic phrases). We became more seasoned travelers , we both grew a lot personally and professionally, and we fantasized a bit about where we might find our next adventure.

Thanks to all of you for keeping me company along the way. It's been gratifying to have this format to describe, to share, and to think through what I've experienced.

Ma as-salaamah!

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I’m somewhere over the Atlantic en route to JFK and thought, since I’ve got hours in front of me, I’d write up some impressions so that they’re ready to post when I’m back.

My first overwhelming impression, other than the chaos and the noise ( a recent New York Times article described Cairo as the world’s noisiest city, and now I can vouch for that), is that Egypt is most definitely part of the Middle East. Several people lifted eyebrows when I told them I was traveling to Egypt as part of this “Middle East” trip, and sometimes it’s referred to as the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region, but after my first week in Jordan trying to absorb what it means to be in the Middle East I definitely found that flavor in Egypt as well. I wish I’d had more access to English-language newspapers as I did in Jordan (the anti-Israeli bias in the Jordan Times was amazing to read, but that’s another story), but they were not available at the small hotels we were staying in. I was lucky, however, to have the experience of staying both in a small village in Luxor and the capital city of Cairo – two very different perspectives. I was also lucky to have a very able and adventurous traveling companion along for the ride. Both Lee and I found this trip to be different from any of the other traveling we’ve done, but of course our past trips have always been for pleasure or to conferences with specific agendas. On this trip we sought out people to talk with whom we otherwise might not have engaged, and I have to say that as a solo female traveler I doubt I would have been able to have had these conversations. Very few of our impromptu chats were with women; in the village of El Gezira we encountered no women who spoke English, although we were greeted every morning and evening as we walked through the village with smiles and calls of “salaam.” Those women seemed to enjoy seeing western women as much as their children did, and they appreciated it when we cast admiring glances at their children. I guess maternal pride is universal. Most of the women we encountered both in Luxor and in Cairo were, judging from their apparel, Muslim, which definitely added to the Middle Eastern flavor. Most had numerous children. I wish I could have talked with them about this, because every man we spoke with, to a person, bemoaned the large families, including their own. “Like flies,” one driver said to us, gesturing to the kids in the road. “Egyptians have too many children.” When one of our drivers asked if we had children and Lee said no, he burst into a big smile, caught my eye in the rear-view mirror, and said, “That’s a smart woman.” We didn’t dare ask how many veiled wives he had at home …

Women definitely live much more conservatively than men. A small anecdote: We rode the local ferry from the West bank of Luxor to the East bank several times. The first time we noticed that waiting until the last minute to board seemed to be somewhat of a local sport. The horn would blow and the ferry would pull away from the dock. Men, not all of them young, would then rush to climb aboard. We were particularly impressed by one guy in a flowing white robe. With one hand he scooped up his robe; the other arm was unavailable because he was carrying a toddler! And yet he managed to straddle the railing and make it over onto the bench, not even out of breath. I half-expected the entire ferry to burst into applause (I wanted to, once I was over my horror), but it seemed to be business as usual. However, we never once saw a woman run and leap for the ferry. I guess it isn’t done. The women perform equally amazing feats, though, namely shepherding flocks of children through the busy streets and onto the ferry while balancing enormous loads on their heads. Boy, I’d like to learn that skill. Lee posted a picture on her blog (leeofarabia.blogspot.com) that she took surreptitiously of a woman with a crate on her head. What was in the crate? I took inventory as Lee photographed: three live hens and a huge rabbit. No hands. Several children. Much traffic. Wow.

In Cairo we stayed in Zamalek, the embassy district, which is quite lovely. We met for an afternoon with women’s studies faculty from the American University of Cairo and discussed all sorts of gender-related issues both historical and contemporary. It was nice to have the opportunity to do this near the end of the trip after I’d seen things that intrigued or puzzled me. Thanks to Helen Rizzo I’ve got some great reading ahead of me. When Cyndi Brandenburg returned from Morocco in June she said to me that she thought an entire course could be constructed around the veil, and now I’m certain she’s correct. It will be fun to think more about that from multiple angles. If anyone has any ideas along these lines, please feel free to be in touch with me.

Friday is the holy day, and so although I had hoped to visit Islamic Cairo we decided it might be a good idea to leave the holy people to their holy day and not be intrusive westerners. Instead Lee and I, along with Champlain economist Jen Vincent, explored Coptic Cairo, visiting the Coptic Museum and the Hanging Church. The museum, although un-air conditioned, had some beautiful works, and I especially enjoyed the section on the icons. The church was overrun with preschoolers; I guess Egyptian kids take field trips too. Nevertheless we managed to squeeze inside where there was a mix of tourists and Christians praying, and we lit a votive candle, feeling for a moment as though we were in Europe rather than the Middle East.

After a rest and several games of Scrabble on the roof terrace (Lee and I each made a bingo word in one game – a first for us. I made “traveler” which seemed appropriate, especially later in the game when I made “hot,” and Lee made “feasting,” somewhat ironic since we’ve had a difficult time tracking down great meals on this trip), we ventured to Khan el-Khalili, the renowned Cairo open-air marketplace. We had a bit of an adventure there; stepping out of the taxi we were immediately beset by vultures of the human variety who wanted to “guide” us. Apparently some men (again, no women in sight) make their livings by directing tourists to certain stalls, thereby getting a cut of any purchases made. The man who attached himself to us kept reassuring us “I’m not a terrorist,” and we kept reassuring him that we didn’t think he was a terrorist at all (but thinking to ourselves that he was worse – a pain in the ass we couldn’t get rid of). He wanted to take us to the section of the market where handcrafted goods were sold, which sounded good to us (the market is huge, and so we kind of stupidly agreed to follow him), but after winding through several alleys filled with garbage, flies, more garbage, and innumerable cats and kittens, which are ubiquitous in Cairo, we finally said, “No more!” He insisted it was just around the corner, we insisted we were going no further, and there was a bit of a standoff. I finally told him somewhat rudely to leave us alone and he stalked off, reminding us again that he had asked for no money; he only wanted to be helpful and to practice his English skills, which was probably at least half true. We watched him disappear, waited a few minutes for good measure, and then found our way to the vendors, where we were promptly accosted by men who wanted to, yep, help us spend our money. Fortunately we had gotten good haggling lessons from Gary Scudder and Al Capone in Amman, and we made a couple of decent purchases. I think our tutors would be proud. One man, however, when we offered him 200 Egyptian pounds when he had initially started at 300, said, “You break my heart!” and then promptly sold to us for 200. Jen Vincent shared a similar story from her adventures in the market; she bought from a young boy, a haggler-in-training, who told her “You cut my throat!” when she offered him a lower amount. There’s a certain amount of drama to life in Cairo, even when you stay out of the taxis.

Our last full day in Egypt dawned sunny and hot (what a surprise), and we headed out with Jen Vincent for our hotel-arranged excursion to the pyramids, complete with our own personal Egyptologist. (OK – that’s what the email said when I arranged it with The Longchamps, our charming boutique hotel. But in fact it turns out that Loi has a certificate from a local institute of tourism and hospitality and is specially trained in Egyptian history.) We had an air conditioned car and driver (a rare treat on the streets of Cairo) and we began in Saqqara, a less well-known site. Loi gave us a thorough overview of the world’s oldest building constructed of stone, the step pyramid at Saqqara. He also kept away the touts (although there weren’t nearly as many as we experienced in Luxor) and through a little baksheesh arrangement of his own got a guard to open a closed tomb so that we could have a personal tour. We lunched at a local resort between Saqqara and Giza and then it was on to what everyone associates with Egypt – the Great Pyramid, the lesser pyramids (they’re not really inferior), and the Sphinx.

I have to say that it was awesome being there. Hard to know whether to snap pictures like crazy or just soak it all in, so I tried to do both. It’s quite a privilege to see two wonders of the world in two weeks!

I’ve got some great pictures to post, and even more to show anyone who is interested. But for now, breakfast has been served and the lights have been dimmed. The boy across the aisle from me has bedded down on the floor and his father has put the airline-issued blanket over his head. (“The first burqa-clad man we’ve seen,” I whispered to Lee.) It’s time either for more Scrabble or a book.

Thanks for reading!

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Here I am in Cairo, the last stop of the epic two-week Middle East trip. Cairo is not as hot as Luxor (thankfully) but extremely crowded, dirty, and noisy. You have to be here to truly grasp what is said about Cairo. I don't have much time now, but there will be more words and some fine pictures coming later -- perhaps from JFK if there is wireless there or when I return to Burlington.

Lee and I fly back to the States tomorrow - sad to be nearing the end of this very interesting trip (it's been a trip in more than one meaning of the word, and not a "vacation" at all!), but happy to return to the way of life we know best. I think all of the Champlain travelers will be thinking about and talking about their experiences for a long time, and our students will certainly benefit from what we've seen firsthand.

Stay tuned for some photos.

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Here's the document I've been working on when we've had no internet access. Enjoy!

JULY 6: OK – I’ve been in Egypt almost 12 hours now, and I *still* haven’t figured out what that phrase “Walk Like an Egyptian” means. And the Egyptians are probably trying to figure out what the American is walking like; the stiffness in my back persists, and sometimes I walk downright funny. Most of the folks we’ve met, though, have a limited command of English, and so the word “waddle” probably isn’t in their vocabulary.

Our intrepid driver Jamal arrived precisely on the stroke of 10AM to collect us from the Dead Sea resort. We were in tears on the curb, distraught over having spent only two days there. Well, not really, but we wished for more. Mustafa, the guy who checked us out, said, “You come back soon?” We said, “We hope so!” And he said, “If I don’t see you soon, I track down your mobile number and call you, so you come back.” For some reason, in the middle of the desert, that struck us as very funny.

Riding with Jamal is an experience. Al Capone, who recommended him to us, told us that his English was “impeccable.” I’ve learned that Al and I have different definitions of impeccable, but Jamal’s English is good enough to make conversation. He also likes hand gestures, which we find a little scary while hurtling along at 120 kilometers. Let’s just say riding with Jordanian drivers would cure Sebastian of his fear of flying. We talked a lot about family with Jamal; he has two wives (one who veils and one who doesn’t) and five children. We also discussed religion. He is Muslim, but has never practiced. It was fascinating to me when he began to explain the ritual ablutions that men make before praying five times a day. He said, “If you sleep with your wife, you must wash immediately.” I was floored that a middle aged Muslim man (practicing or not) would mention sex to two women in his back seat.

When we bid goodbye at Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, it was like parting with an old friend. We promised him that if we ever return to Jordan, he’d be the first person we’d call, and he’d be our only driver. We also wished him luck with those two wives. (The Koran says that a man may have up to four, but only if he treats all four equally. We don’t quite understand how that could ever work, and Jamal seemed equally perplexed. But enough about that.)
I’m proud to say that we navigated our way through three airports today – first Amman, then Cairo, then Luxor. I can also report that it’s as hot in Luxor as every guidebook said it would be. The pilot announced that it was 42C when we landed, and by my rough calculations, that’s well over 100F. Maybe closer to 112?

Our driver from El Nakhil hotel (“The Palms”) was waiting, however, and took us on a most fascinating drive across the Nile to the West Bank where the hotel is located. Before we got to the Nile we passed lots of concrete huts across from another body of water that may have been the Ashwan River. We saw amazing poverty, livestock of every variety, more donkey carts than cars, and a woman in full black burqa driving a motor scooter. When we got to El-Gezira, the village where the hotel is located, we took a winding one-way dirt road to the bottom, where the hotel is nestled in a sort of cul de sac. We saw many women sitting in stoops and small children playing in the narrow roadway. When they spotted westerners in the back of the van they all smiled and waved. (Update on Tuesday: We’ve now walked through the village many times. The women are unfailingly polite and smile shyly as they say salaam. The children run around wildly and stare at us openly. They are fascinated by westerners. There’s one donkey that we see every day grazing on some very dry straw by the doorway. The area leading into the hotel is truly a slum; through the open doors we can glimpse the single rooms these families live in – concrete walls with benches that are lined with cushions. That’s pretty much it, although we have seen a couple that have old TVs.)

Outside of the village the overarching impression is GREEN. After the never-ending brown that was Jordan, here along the banks of the fertile Nile it’s very lush – trees, grass, flowering shrubs, crops growing (and people tending them in the extreme heat).

At the hotel our host Salah is like our own personal concierge. He showed us to our room, promising as he turned on the air conditioner, “Everything always work.” Then he brought us to the rooftop terrace and pointed out the sights while we were served cool glasses of lemonade. Middle Eastern hosts certainly make sure their guests are hydrated! He asked what we’d like to do while in Luxor and helped us plan an itinerary. When he learned that both Lee and I are affiliated with universities he told us about the nearby colleges of hospitality and art & design, where I think he teaches part-time. (His English wasn’t impeccable … but at least as good as Jamal’s.)

Evidently folks who come to Luxor get up early to see the sights because of the oppressive heat. (Those of you who know me well can imagine my enthusiasm for a 6AM wake-up knock … but in retrospect it was a very good idea.) Our driver, bearing boxed breakfasts, collected us from the rooftop terrace where we were having tea and toast and off we went to the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens where we were, by our calculations, the only Americans among throngs of European tourists. We visited several tombs, but mostly we were harangued by guides and vendors who wanted our money. They were relentless, even thrusting merchandise into our hands and backing off when we said we didn’t want to buy it. We did take a lovely walk up a very steep and rocky hill with a man wearing an elegant flowing robe. He very graciously offered me his arm and also stopped twice to take our picture. His robe had pockets. Who knew?? From them he withdrew trinkets to sell to us along the way, which we didn’t want. I suspect we offended him with the token tip we offered; he shook his head and asked for a 50-pound note (about $10) when a couple of pounds is customary. This was only our first experience with the “touts” – men who very aggressively try to sell you either a service or some merchandise. These men (even small boys) don’t take no for an answer. (Update on Wednesday: We’ve been in Luxor for several days now, and it is extreme here. We can’t walk to the waterfront without numerous men and boys offering to take us across the Nile (about a 5-minute boat ride). They walk alongside of you for quite a while. We feel like shouting NO! at them, but we’re aware that it wouldn’t be polite; we’re two well-bred American women, after all. But still. We had hoped to walk through the souq, but it was even more oppressive there; each man tried to get us into his small stall for tea and to show us his wares. “Egyptian price,” they all promise, meaning they know we are tourists and we have no idea what a fair price will be. In our travels through the bazaars and souqs we’ve only seen one woman selling things. As we passed she said, “I help you spend your money.” Lee and I looked at each other and laughed; that’s one of the things we do for each other!

July 9, 2008: Today we made our first big concession of the trip. After seeing the main sights of Luxor – the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, the Luxor Temple, several smaller tourist attractions – and making an abortive attempt to shop for a few gifts in the main souq on the East bank, we were tired, we were hot, we were dusty (dirty, even), and mainly we were sick of being hassled. We decided to leave El Nakhil and the village of el Gezira and spend our last night at one of the larger hotels on the East bank. We realized that we wanted to fit in just a bit with the western tourists over there. And we wanted light and air conditioning. At El Nakhil, our room was so dim that only one of us could read at a time because we only had one book light. And only our room was air conditioned. Two games of Scrabble in the shade of the rooftop garden one afternoon (things tend to close in the afternoon in Luxor because of the extreme heat) left us drenched. And so we found a room at a very reasonable rate at the Iberhotel … which had a pool! We bid farewell to our wonderful host Salah knowing we made the right decision (waking up to a village-wide power outage, which Salah calmly explained as “routine,” pretty much confirmed the decision for us)and spent our last day in Luxor doing a few errands on the East bank, cooling off by the pool, and even getting pedicures. Read a detailed account on Lee’s blog (leeofarabia.blogspot.com) and see a picture of our fancy toenails. One of my goals on this trip was to understand a bit better how Muslim women conceive of beauty, and I’ve been more and more perplexed by this as I’ve witnessed the degrees of veiling both here and in Jordan. Our Egyptian beautician, who trained in Cairo, happily explained to us how Egyptian women prepare for their weddings and then subjected us to threading, which I’d only read about before. Let me assure you – having the fine hairs on your toes plucked out by the roots is no fun. And women undergo full body threading before their wedding night.

Some lasting impressions of Luxor (besides the heat):

--the donkey on the street leading to our hotel

--the kindness of Salah, who not only arranged great guides for us but also personally took us to the village mosque and accompanied us on visits to local papyrus and alabaster factories

--the vehicle in which we rode to said factories – no dashboard, a shell of its former self, and yet it got us there (albeit, dare I say it, with no air conditioning)

--the enormity of the tombs and temples and the vastness across time that they represent

--the fact that Luxor hasn’t had rain for 16 years and yet is amazingly varied in its landscape, most striking from above as we floated in a hot air balloon at sunrise

--the sunset as we had a drink at the “tiki” bar on the bank of the Nile, where there were men in robes drinking Egyptian beer, a lone mute western man, surprisingly excellent facilities, and a litter of 8 puppies the bar’s owner proudly showed off to us

--the guestbooks at the Tutankhamun restaurant, a local joint that our guide Mosse introduced us to after our sail on the Nile. We were the sole diners, having arrived at the uncommon hour of 8:30PM for dinner. Our waiter lavished us with attention as well as grapes from the arbor above our heads. We were more than happy to add our names and comments to the books he clearly cherished, and we showed him where his restaurant was listed in our guidebook.

--the boys playing soccer in the street in front of the El Nakhil the morning we left. I’ll try to post a little video of that. I’m left wondering what their future holds.

Onto Cairo!!

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Hello from a wonderfully air-conditioned room at the Longchamps in Cairo. I found this place on the internet a while back, and Gary stayed here earlier this week. Jen Vincent is arriving later today, and we have a date to see the pyramids together on Saturday. But meanwhile, I've got some business with folks from the American University in Cairo later this afternoon, so this will be a short post -- just enough to say I'm in Cairo, and it's as loud and smoggy and chaotic as everyone promised it would be.

I'm going to post several pictures from Luxor that I've been saving, since I only had the internet cafe there. (We visited three internet cafes, and we never saw a woman other than one German tourist who sat next to me. Mostly -- at least in Luxor -- they seem to be frequented by young Muslim men who smoke constantly and watch YouTube videos.) I've also got a much longer post that I've been working on that I'll finish and put up later. Lots of random thoughts about Upper Egypt.

Meanwhile, enjoy the photos. Some are of the antiquities, some of al Gizera, the village we stayed in on the West Bank of the Nile.

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Here we are in Luxor, where it is hotter than I ever imagined it could be. Makes Petra last week seem downright chilly.

There's no internet at the El Nakhil ("The Palms") but I'm blogging in a Word document that I will upload at some point. There is also no television, no telephone, no alcohol. Cold bottled water, however, is in good supply, and we have a wonderful host named Salah, who attends to everything. I think he is a bit disconcerted by two American women traveling alone. We've had an escort everywhere -- young Egyptian men who speak a little English and who desperately want to please us by doing things like pulling off the road "one minute, madam" and returning with two postcards of Nefertiti for us. The stories they have are amazing; last night's escort is a 32 year old man with two small children who has never left Luxor but is desperate to. His mother arranged his marriage because he had no girlfriend by the appropriate age. His wife is veiled (I got up the courage to ask), but he says it doesn't matter; he doesn't love her, but he has an English girlfriend who visits Egypt to see him for a month every year. On the way to dinner he took us by his cousin's wedding (I think everyone on the west bank is related) which had been going on for five days. We have heard the music every night ...

Well, I'm soaking u the AC here, but I have no ideas what this is costing so I'll sign off and hope to write again from Cairo in a couple of days. We fly there on Thursday and meet with some gender studies faculty on Thursday afternoon. The timing is perfect, as I have accumulated lots of questions to ask.

Saalam!

We've had a variety of adventures. Today's main one (we ventured out on our own, although yesterday's guide was sitting by the waterfront and spotted us and came running over) involved taking the local ferry across the Nile from the west bank to the east bank. Yesterday we saw so many Eurpoean tourists that we decided tank tops and shorts would be OK (but at the last minute Lee put on a loose-fitting light white shirt, to emulate the Arab men in long white robes who never look hot) and so I was the only one with bare shoulders. We were the only westerners on the ferry, and I certainly attracted my share of stares and even a few downright dirty looks. Wish I spoke a bit of Arabic to eavesdrop on what they were saying about the American hussy. The most exciting thing I saw? Well, it's a tie -- either the man in the long robe carrying the small child who DID NOT want to miss the ferry and jumped on as it was about five feet out of the dock or the black burqa-clad woman carring the three hens and the one rabbit on her head in a cage.

At 5AM we got up to take a hot air balloom over the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens, and when we were on the east bank we visited the Luxor Temple and the Mummification Museum. Maybe I'llbe able to post a couple of pictures eventually.

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As much as I hate to leave this place, we're off to Egypt this morning. There are other places to see and other people to meet. Our intrepid driver Jamal is arriving at 10AM to take us back to Amman to the airport. I wonder what adventures he has planned for us along the way?

Not sure how internet connection will be in Egypt, but Gary has posted from the Hotel Longchampes in Cairo, where I'll be staying later in the week. But first, Luxor, home of some of Egypt's most spectacular antiquities. I don't have any academic meetings set up there, but it is where both Nefertiti and Cleopatra hung out, and so I should be able to learn a thing or two about beauty from the sights.

And so, good-bye from the land of the Black Iris. Westward to where the Nile flows.

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The Dead Sea is beyond belief -- Biblical history, natural beauty, a view of Jerusalem across the water, and the finest hotel I have ever stayed in. Jamal, our driver for the hour-long journey, spoke passable English and even lived in California for three years. He proudly narrated the sights along the way, at one point offering to pull over so that we could take pictures (It was a 2-lane road and cars were going past at about 100 kilometers! We declined the offer.) and at another point said, "Good shopping over there. We stop?" The drivers have been a real experience.

After clearing security (there was very intense security on the way to the Jordan Valley -- we passed through two heavily-guarded checkpoints, and when we arrived at the hotel gate our car was completely wanded with some sort of screening device and the trunk was searched) we were greeted with ice-cold washclothes and freshly squeezed pineapple juice ... and that was even before we checked in. We bobbed in the Dead Sea and bathed in mud (see pictures for proof). It's scorchingly hot -- over 100F -- and the sky is again relentlessly blue.

And so I write from the lowest point on earth. I think I'm never leaving.

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It's amazing how well one sleeps after a day of hiking uphill in 100F heat. I slept so deeply that I almost missed breakfast, and there have been chocolate croissants every day! But I learned that Petra can really take it out of you; Lee and I have coined a phrase: Petra calves. We're still walking like little old ladies two days later.

After a day of being "totally tourist" in Petra we wanted to get out among the people of Amman a bit more on Thursday. Taking Al Capone's advice we headed to the Citadel, a "Hop-on, Hop-off" point for the brand new Tour Amman sightseeing bus. Brand new -- in business for only three weeks. Suffice it to say that they've got a few things to figure out. For instance, although the brochure is in flawless English, the driver didn't appear to speak a word of English. We paid and he drove. There was no narration, and we had no idea where we were going. He pulled up in front of a mosque and we got out. The call to prayer had just begun being broadcast over the loudspeaker -- a haunting, wailing cry. We asked when the next bus would be along (hoping that that driver would speak some English) and pantomimed with our watches. 10 minutes. We didn't go into the mosque (I was unsure whether it was the one that is open to westerners) but instead stood fretfully on the sidewalk, unsure of where in Amman we were and how we'd ever get back. But 10 minutes later we saw another Tour Amman bus pulling up. Same driver! Evidently this works somewhat like taxi service -- he drops you off and comes back. We got on, a bit despairing of actually doing or seeing much of anything on our last day in Amman. But eventually we picked up ... a guide! He exhibited the gracious Arab hospitality we've grown accustomed to and tended to us with impeccable manners and less-than-impeccable English , although better than the driver's. We were, after all, the only customers, and so we got a very personal tour of Amman, along with some chuckles. Most interesting, I think, was the King Hussein Mosque and gardens (we didn't go in but he encouraged us to get off the bus and take pictures). There were several families picnic-ing along the main sidewalk -- all women fully covered and small children. I wondered if the men were in the mosque.

We saw several high-end neighborhoods and our guide filled us in on inflation in Jordan as well as the price of gasoline. We've heard from almost all the men who have driven us that the average Jordanian male has two or three jobs to keep pace with rising costs, especially the cost of home-owning. They all drive cars though; I don't think I've ever seen more traffic, although I've heard it's 100 times worse in Cairo.

Lee and I finally made it back to the souq downtown where we wanted to do a little shopping. Again, the crowds were Jordanian -- lots of veiled women, including one who didn't even have eye slits in her burqa and was being guided along the sidewalk. I brushed against a woman and immediately felt bad -- like a big oafish westerner. I've never been anyplace where I've been in the minority, but we haven't seen many western tourists; yesterday we spotted four Americans in a small park near the souq, but otherwise, we're surrounded by Arabs, just as we were surrounded by Bedouin at Petra the day before.

One valuable lesson I learned after a couple of days was to get things written in Arabic. The cab drivers are willing to take you anywhere and are equally happy to haggle with you about what it will cost, but it helps to have things written in their language. Lee and I chose Wild Jordan for dinner, and what a choice it turned out to be. A restaurant operated by the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature specializing in organic food, we had fresh fruit smoothies, wonderful meat and vegetables, and spectacular dessert high on a hill overlooking Amman. Imagine our surprise when fireworks went off over the Citadel -- on the eve of Fourth of July, we felt as though they were meant for us.

There are things I'd like to do in Amman, but the Dead Sea area is next on my itinerary. The internet connection has been shaky, but I'll try to post a couple of pictures later. I'm sure I'll have a connection there, as it's a very nice resort (that's all there is along the Dead Sea, apparently), but I'm not sure how things will go once I arrive in Egypt on Sunday.

But meanwhile, it's the weekend in Jordan - Friday and Saturday.

Happy Fourth of July to all of you who are stateside. Have a hot dog for me, and I'll have some hummus and pita for you (the humus is quite tasty here, and I'm sure that's a surprise to those of you who know how scornful I've been for years of the hummus served at every English department event I've ever been to).

Ma assalaameh.

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Hello again! I promised a report of our day at Petra, which is, after all, one of the Wonders of the World. With the gang -- my Champlain colleagues Gary and Al and my wonderful best friend and traveling companion Lee Burdette Williams -- I set off shortly after 6AM for the three-hour drive with a very skilled (if silent) driver. We wanted to get an early start, in part because the guidebooks all recommend about three days at Petra and we only had one and also because of the intense heat.

Petra is one of the truly amazing places on earth. I'm going to attach a few pictures, but my simple camera work and my writing skills can't do justice to the awe-inspiring scope of the place. So some impressions, and then some pictures.

Grand, majestic, silent, unrelentingly blue sky, dry, dustier than anyplace I've ever been. The Bedouin children are breathtakingly beautiful, even as they are haggling with you to pay them to take their picture (Lee and I took a photo with a little girl that we wanted to bring back with us to the States and educate at a prestigious women's college) or arrange a camel ride. One came up to us and tried to sell us a piece of the rose-red stone; when we demurred she pressed a small rock in each of our hands and said, "Gift, gift." And then she walked away, expecting nothing more than we take a piece of Petra with us. They ride donkeys fearlessly up and down the steep canyon steps and greet each foreigner with "Weelcum." They also sell cold water, which to us was priceless. I'm not sure how much water we each drank in the course of 12 hours, but it was a lot.

I also had my first camel ride, and I promise you a picture of that, because it's quite a sight. Camels are ungainly, unfriendly, they are taller than they look at first, and they smell bad. Very bad.

I had a bit of a rough time because you faithful readers of this blog know that I pulled a muscle in my back pretty seriously the day before leaving Burlington. The spasms had ceased by the time I got on the Royal Jordanian flight ... well, perhaps I just forgot about them because I was fretting so much about whether or not I'd actually be able to get to JFK for the Royal Jordanian flight. But I had been feeling almost back to normal until the three-hour ride to Petra. When we got out of the car I was very stiff, and it worsened during the day. My companions were the best -- slowing down and resting when I needed to (which was often), carrying my small pack, making sure I didn't stumble and do more harm, encouraging me to the very top so that I could see the monastery (800 steps -- many of them crumbly). The climb is not for the faint-hearted, and I couldn't have made it alone. Even Gary didn't harass me too much.

We returned to Amman bone-weary and covered in red dust, but completely grateful for having had the experience of witnessing one of human history's most mysterious and enduring places. We encountered tourists from around the world (wearing shorts like us), veiled women, black burqa-clad women, archaeologists, and Bedouin goat-herders. I'll post some pictures now so that you can get a taste of the place.

And you might want to check out the blog Lee is keeping during the trip as well: leeofarabia.blogspot.com. She's a much more eloquent writer than I am, a keen observer of the world in her own right, and she has promised to post different pictures.

Today (Thursday) Lee and I have been on our own; Gary flew to Egypt very early this morning and Al left for Vermont at noon. We had adventures worthy of non-Arabic-speaking Americans. But more on that later.

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Good morning from beside the pool at the Amman International Hotel. I feel as though I'm a couple of posts behind, both because we've been BUSY and because my computer is hopelessly slow. I guess it's still jet-lagged. In any event, it's 11AM in Amman, and Lee and I are recuperating from a long, hot, and totally amazing day yesterday in Petra.

But to backtrack a bit: I've just uploaded a picture from Tuesday afternoon. Gary Scudder, Alfonso Capone, Lee, and I spent the day Tuesday at the University of Jordan. We attended Global Modules-related meetings, had a tour, and a lovely Middle Eastern lunch. In the photo you'll see the Champlain folks as well as Rula Quawas, professor of American Literature and Women's Studies as well as Inas and Lazaward (I'm sorry that I can't recall the spelling of their last names), two literature professors who participated in the Global Modules program with Champlain this past semester. The campus is gorgeous; we found it interesting that the person who took us on the tour was a member of the university's "public relations" staff, and he had to get security clearance to take us into the library. (Of course, we had to go through armed security simply to enter the main gates of the campus.) What was most interesting, though, was the lunchtime conversation, in which Rula, Inas, and Laza talked about what they can and cannot teach in terms of American literature. Short answer: no sex, no religion, and no politics. (Wow -- that rules out most of my favorite texts!) They all press against those constraints a bit, and it was amazing to hear Laza talk about the response one of her female students had to Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening.

After our day on campus we rested a bit in the air-conditioned hotel and then ventured out to downtown Amman. We took a taxi. The ride was remarkable only in that we had nothing in our laps. When the driver picked us up at the airport on Monday we had to make the long trip to the hotel with our suitcases on our laps sans seatbelts. Funny what you take fro granted as an American!

Once downtown Gary, AL, Lee, and I roamed around the ruins of the Roman amphitheater and shopped a bit in the souq. We had dinner at a place amidst the bazaar stalls, all choosing lamb dishes. I decided, since I'm hoping to teach a gender-focused course, that I needed a proper headscarf, and I'll try to upload a picture of that shopping excursion shortly.

It's been fascinating to observe the women here. Many more were veiled on the UJ campus than I expected; there was a mix of Western dress and the whole range of conservative covering -- headscarves to full burqas. Did I mention the heat? It was close to 100F, and Lee and I have constantly remarked that we can't imagine what it's like to be shrouded head to toe in black in such heat.

And speaking of wardrobe, when we all told Rula that we were planning to go to Petra the next day, she remarked that it was forecast to be the hottest day of the summer. "Wear shorts!" she commanded, in her inimitable way. "Shorts?" we gasped. We haven't even seen a man wearing shorts, let alone a woman. Rula told us that since Petra is a tourist destination it would be perfectly acceptable to wear shorts, and that we should, due to the heat. And so we did ... and we were very grateful.

But more on Petra later. The computer is tired, and there is cool water to swim in.

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Well, I have arrived in Amman, Jordan. Who would have guessed that getting out of Burlington would be the biggest challenge of the day-long journey? I was scheduled to fly to JFK at 4:30PM to catch the 10:30PM Royal Jordanian flight, but when I got up on Sunday morning the Burlington flight was already delayed by more than an hour. With Mike Lange's experience forefront in my mind (Mike missed his Burlington flight and had to wait a week to get to Morocco), I was nervous. Met up with Gary at BTV and we waited, sometimes patiently and sometimes less than patiently. At one point we were booked on both Delta and Jet Blue, happy to jump onto whichever boarded first. Delta won -- severe thunderstorms in the New York City area finally passed and we left at 7PM.

Getting checked in at Royal Jordanian was an experience unlike any other I've had traveling. The line was miles long, and that's no exaggeration. There were huge families wielding carts loaded with the largest suitcases I've ever seen, cardboard cartons shrink-wrapped for travel, dogs, cats, birds ... and did I mention the howling children? An agent spotted Gary and me standing (perhaps forlornly) with my one small suitcase. He asked if that's all we had and commanded, "Follow me. Quick!" He escorted us to the front of the line -- the very front -- and we were ushered through. Lee was waiting at the gate, very glad that she wouldn't be experiencing Amman on her own. (Royal Jordanian only flies a couple of times a week from JFK, and so if I had missed that flight, who knows when I would have arrived.)

Happily settled in seats 16A and B, we departed into the night sky with books, travel Scrabble, airline food, and each other for company. And I slept -- exhausted, no doubt, from the ordeal of getting out of little ole Burlington.

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