I was in Wadi Musa Jordan to see the ruins of Petra, one of the seven wonders of the modern world, when our Bedouin tour guide called me “cousin.” This was the first time I had ever been called “cousin,” and I was unsure how to take it. I was traveling with seven friends from Ben-Gurion University. The eight of us were equal parts male and female, equal parts Germans and Americans, and we were five Catholics to three Jews.
We arrived at the Cleopetra Hostel Thursday night as restaurants were opening for the Ramadan dinner rush. Aware that our drivers had been fasting all day, the owner of the hostel, Mousef, fed them for free before he told us where we could buy dinner. I stepped out of my room onto the maroon carpet of the hallway where Mousef was in the middle of a conversation with the Germans. He recommended the restaurant Burcharits. Everyone laughed as Max, one of the Germans, tried to pronounce Burcharits with an Arabic accent. This was how Mousef figured out we were studying Hebrew. He explained that the pronunciation by an Israeli, or someone studying Hebrew in our case, is a dead giveaway.
The restaurant seating was on the sidewalk lined with a white cobblestone fence about waist high that gave way to a scenic view of the city’s lights running up hill. The streets were filled nearly exclusively with men and young boys. The few women I saw were all tourists, although one of my friends claimed to have seen a woman walking hand-in-hand with a young boy a few steps behind a man. The four girls in our group attracted many wondering eyes, but nothing that made them uncomfortable.
The next day, Mousef arranged a driver to take us to the front entrance of Petra. It helps to think of Petra as a state park; to see all of the amazing ruins it has to offer requires a lot of hiking. We decided to higher a tour guide fearing we might get lost and miss something along the way. The realization that we were in a desert and that every possible man made structure stuck out made many of us wander frequently from the guide. His knowledge of ancient Petra was limited to its rediscovery in the early 19th century, which did little to keep our attention. At first when he wanted our attention he called us “friends” or simply asked, “please.” That changed once he heard us throwing around Hebrew phrases. From then on we were “his cousins,” which he called out with a sharp laugh that made us uneasy. Even when he had our full attention his sarcastic bite did not change.
At one point I stepped into a conversation he was having with Colby. He was explaining to her that every once and a while he leads a group from Tel-Aviv who tell him they are not Jewish. He told her that he is too smart to fall for that and he is very capable of judging whether or not someone is Jewish.
The next morning, Colby, Rosanna, and I returned to Petra while our other friends enjoyed Eilot. This time we explored without a guide. Along our walk, we passed by a different tour guide who told his group that to the east of Jordan was Iraq and to the west was Egypt and Gaza. For some reason he seemed to have forgotten that piece of land between Jordan and Gaza where his cousins come from. Petra was as much fun the second day as the first. I enjoyed haggling with the Bedouin for a camel ride and for a Roman coin. After a couple of hours, however, the constant pestering of the people selling trinkets and donkey rides wore down my patience and it was time to return home.
Mario Uriarte is a Masa participant studying at Ben-Gurion University in the Overseas Student Program, one of Masa Israel‘s 160 programs.
