Thursday, November 29, 2007

Who do you want to be?

Last June I went back to Jordan to really tour the country. Lawrence of Arabia style, Well, with a bicycle rather than the old fashion camel and I was only able to cycle from Aqaba( south of Jordan) up to Irbid ( north) which took me six days. Camping out in the desert, eating breakfast ,lunch and dinner with the locals.

It was an experience cycling along the desert highway in Summer. I was cought in a sand storm, dust blew into my nostrils and i felt chocked.It was extremely hot,halusinatingly hot, and halusination I did experience. It was around 2 pm on our third day,from Petra we were heading to Amman. There was no shelter, shops or anything along this streach of highway, I had only a bottle of 1.5 litres of water left and i had to stop.As there was no shelter to sheild us from the heat we decided to pitch the tent while the wind was blowing hard.We managed to put it up eventually and when we got in , it was hotter than it was outside. I could feel my brain start to boil, and as i sat beside the highway , i pointed at cars and lorries shouting out to them " are you a bedwoin" over and over again. I realized what i was doing but didnt know why I was doing it.i recalled the action but didn't recall the purpose of this insane act. it was over after about an hour.and at 4 we moved on.

Who do you want to be?

No I'm not talking about that insane guy calling out for bedwoins. It was the people that struck me the most and got me thinking about the person I want to be.
During the 6 days we stopped several times at numerous places. Sometimes in front of an old run down house, where twice we were invited in and asked to have meals with the family. Not just that, they even( those two incidents) offered us water and some food supplies for our journey.
Those humble men just wanted to help us and felt happy as we walked in their homes, a sparkle in their eyes welcoming an unknown guest.
Another incident was when we stopped to rest at a wealthy housing area.We were tired and stopped in front of a big house with fancy gates.We were there for less than 5 minutes to catch our breath and have a drink when a man walked out the house, out through the fancy gates,straight to us and asked, "what are you two doing here?".With a very unwelcoming gesture, we had to explain ourselves as if we did something wrong.

who do I want to be?

that humble man that has little and gave everything or the wealthy guard of the castle that made us fled?