Sitting on the public beach in Aqaba. It’s evening. The sun will set soon, behind Egypt and Israel, which are nearby and visible around the corner, on the other side of the Red Sea. On this side, less than 20 kilometers south, is the Saudi border.
Jordanian families are out enjoying the evening. The local women all wearing dresses to their ankles and head scarves, a few in full burqa. Some of the men wear long thobes to their ankles, but most males are wearing Western-style clothes.
Suddenly, the loudspeaker from the mosque on the other side of the street sings out the call to prayer. A group of four female tourists arrive, Japanese perhaps. They stand in front of me getting close to the local families, taking pictures of the families and then selfies with the families in the background. There is a warm dry breeze off the sea.
What a treat to be here, in this place, with these people, enjoying life at this moment. Being on this trip makes it easy to connect with the miracle of being alive because my days are so astounding. I spent most of the last two days snorkeling in the Red Sea. I saw astonishing coral reefs and fish in bright yellows and blues and oranges. I lack the words to describe this undersea world–or the waterproof camera to document it.
So often in our lives, in my life, things run in a familiar groove. The people that I interact with most days at work or home or my cohousing community are familiar. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, in a region of incredible beauty, cultural diversity and artistic wonder. Amidst the raft of daily chores and work duties, the sense of wonder usually gets lost.
Being abroad makes clear how much the United States is a work-oriented culture. We are busy with work, pre-occupied with work. At least I am usually am. Here—and in Tanzania on a year-long leave-of-absence a decade ago—rather than thinking about the daily work challenges, I think about other things, like the words to share my experiences with others.
I won’t make a grand commitment to bring this ‘travelers mind’ back to Oakland. I will settle for watching Jordanian boys in jeans do flips in the Red Sea and looking at the women wearing long black dresses and stylish scarves talking with each other, with seeing a young man walk by eating from a can of Pringles or glancing up at the huge flag of the Great Arab Revolt of 1917 on one of the world’s largest flagpoles.
Tomorrow is May 1. I catch a bus back to Amman and then onto Madaba to visit Kings Academy. I am not going on to Egypt or Saudi Arabia. I am turning back.
Night slowly falls. The street lights of the Israeli city across the Red Sea shine in rows along the black hills. A boy shouts as he jumps off the pier and into the water. Two women walk into the water holding a child’s hand wearing, it seems, all their clothes. (I sometimes think I look like them, with my long sleeves and protective head gear, hiding from the sun.)
The sound of the water lapping the shore becomes audible as people drift away and back to their daily lives. Then a new family arrives to set up their blanket in the sand. Another little wave crashes into the land and another and another…
And I hear.
No Foreign Lands 