Saturday, November 5, 2011
Sharm el-Sheikh Airport
It was a long journey south fording the silent, wind swept deserts of Sinai through the seemingly endless checkpoints and tiny Bedouin camps filled with children preparing for the Muslim holy days of Eid. Somehow the checkpoints seemed less ominous in the daylight, the soldiers less stern. Together we smoke and take tea as they study my papers and chat lazily among themselves. I wonder what the security will be like in Amman?
I fly Royal Jordanian Air to Queen Alia airport in the capital city of only Arab country completely without oil. My flight departs from Sharm el-Sheikh at the tip of the Sinai, pressed hard against the turquoise waters of the Red Sea. It's a big airport, built for better days when tourists came more frequently and more easily. Now, in the aftermath of revolution and the violence that came with it, the Egyptian airport is nearly empty, a hollow cavern of near silence.
As far as I can tell, I am the only American. The few others are mostly Russians, drunk, unruly, pushy. Uncharacterisically, I take the small insults and indignities in stride, allowing them to have their way. After all, what's the rush? There are so few persons here, so many empty seats (the image). I get a coffee from the Bedouin vendor who speaks no English, take a seat and reflect on my passage through the desert, on the monks who live in the ancient monastery where I prayed only last night, on what it must be like to be a vendor of coffee in an empty airport, to be an inn keeper whose hotel is deserted, to be a citizen of a land where revolution has wrecked the economy but given the people a fresh, invigorating sense of destiny and self-determination. For a moment, no more, I am an Egyptian, overwhelmed by the dual emotional waves of fear and joy.
When I board the plane--so very empty--I marvel at how clean and bright it is, how pleasant the flight attendants are, how many small courstesies and kindnesses they show an American, with dust on his shoes and in his hair, travelling alone in a land where family and tribe are everything. I wish American planes and the frayed men and women who staff them could be as tidy, friendly and warm. I look forward to Amman, a busy, bustling city filled with educated people, automobiles, tall buildings and flickering lights. It will be such a change from the silence of the desert, from the turmoil that haunts the uncertain time on the heels of revolution.
When I arrive, I'll go into the Old City for a meal with a friend who once was a professor of history, a Jordanian, a family man now retired who in the late autumn days of his life has rediscovered his spirituality, praying to Allah five times a day, regardless of where he might be or with whom he might be. It's a discipline to be respected, like so many other attributes of the Jordanians. Then before dawn, we'll make our way into the southern deserts, going first to Petra, then further south and west to the expansive, stunning desert of Wadi Rum (where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed), and at last, when the sun is setting, crossing, quietly and without papers, into the forbidden land, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
More tomorrow.
