I was at work late today setting up a new computer, which directly led me to be late getting home to start on the spaghetti. I brought down all the pots, pans, and spices, as well as a few cans of tomato paste I’d purchased last autumn. Daniel was helpful in saving me by chopping onions, as I was trying to keep track of too many things at once and sliced open my index finger pretty badly. We saved the onions, don’t worry.

The interesting thing happened right after Omar and Rami arrived…I took the can opener to the small, six-ounce can of tomato paste and without any warning whatsoever the thing exploded with a sound like a dozen pop cans opening at once. Rami, a few meters away from me stirring the meat, looked at me in shock as his black jacket is covered with tomato paste, and I wiped chunks of it off of my chin. This has got to be a new record for an exploding-can-of-tomato-paste because it not only reached about 10 meters horizontal distance, but did quite well going straight up, too.

I can only be glad that Philip wasn't here to see this (if you're reading, don't worry, I stood on the table with a sponge afterward!)

That mishap aside, most of the paste stayed in the can, and the rest of the dinner proceeded deliciously and without issue. Although Andrew wasn’t able to attend, Micha came a little later and we all got to try on our Intracom-sponsored jerseys to make sure that they fit…not that we’d have time to do anything about it if they didn’t, and they were one-size-fits-all anyway!

The Intracom team chows down on some carbohydrates

In other news, Dozan had another choir concert last night, all the way on the other side of Amman in al-Hashmi Shmali. Apparently there’s a weekly concert with classical muwashahaat (folk music) instruments and singing. This time, Dozan was invited as one of the acts. We sang four songs in Arabic, with titles like “White Pigeon” (possibly dove, actually, I don’t know if I translated that right), and “Raise Your Hands” while accompanied by instruments like the six-stringed, guitar-like Oud and what looked like a harpsichord. We also had backup singers too, although they were more like the regular singers, and we were encroaching on their turf! They were docile, friendly looking middle aged and older Arab men, many placidly clutching prayer beads which they twisted absentmindedly as they sang their low, ululating tones. They had a soloist, too, who sang Arabic love songs in a beautiful baritone and really milked the audience.

For their part, the audience loved it and went wild for all of us. As wild as 70 elderly people can go, clapping gently along with us and nodding and smiling happily, sometimes snapping their fingers and waving their arms shakily in the air. It was all quite adorable, and I wish that Dozan could have sang for them longer.

The only problem was with the sound system, which appeared to have been set up by monkeys that only knew how to go up to “eleven” – they put our group in the corner of the room to wait, right next to these massive speakers that crackled ominously with way-too-much reverb and barely-contained power. After the concert started, it seriously felt like my ears were going to start bleeding at any moment, and most of us crowded away towards the other side of the room to try to escape, probably a futile effort.

Only 2 and a half hours until Andrew arrives. Time to put the camera on the charger and get to bed. Personally, I’ll be happy if we can beat 8 hours and 12 minutes, our team’s time from last year. Wish us luck!

The above video sums up his research, in which he also adds his advice for an easy resolution.

In fact, you can manage it. It’s not something that’s impossible to manage. A simple ionic change, a softener, would remove the radium from the water. Reverse osmosis distillation would do the same.”

I found Doctor Vengosh’s address at Duke University and emailed him to ask him about showering in radium-filled water in Aqaba. He replied to me within a few hours, reassuring me that although he certainly advised against consuming any of the water in the area, showering should not be a problem because the radium is not entering your body and being absorbed into your bones, which is how it affects people who drink it.

It’s not for certain now, but there’s a strong possibility that I’ll be doing some work or projects down in the Aqaba region, Jordan’s southernmost city, which will necessitate me visiting the area much more frequently. If the fix that Vengosh proposes is so simple, I can only pray that it’s been brought to the attention of the Jordanian authorities by now and that subsidized softeners (at least) have been provided for the citizens. More than anything else, I’d worry about the safety of the Bedouin, native Arabs who still live out in the desert with original wells who are probably not buying filtered bottled water from corner markets like the average Aqaban.

It’s something I’ll definitely ask around about in Aqaba when I’m there in five days for the Dead 2 Red. But no matter how hard I’m panting at the end of the race, I won’t be swigging down the first open bottle that’s proffered to me.

I forgot I hadn’t set my new LG mobile to go off on the weekends. Rami called me 10 minutes before our scheduled 8:20 meeting time and warned me that he was going to be late, to which I blearily told him not to worry about it, I’d also be a little behind. The road-bike tires on my borrowed bicycle did not enjoy the wet, cracked road and the climb to the summit of Jebel Amman, but at least I didn’t have to worry about puddling here…unlike later. Rami met me at 3rd near his house, and we called Hussein and told him we were on our way.

Rami and I prepare to start out from 3rd Circle

Zahran Street was a roaring torrent of improperly drained rainwater, fog, and what suspiciously looked like oil slicks. I felt like I was in a bad 80’s video game, dodging honking taxis that came at from me behind like angry bees, swerving around overflowing sewer grates, and trying to see farther than 10 meters in front of me so I wouldn’t smash into a partially hidden curb. “ISN’T BIKING FUN” I bellowed to Rami, who was grimly hunched over on his mountain bike behind me. “IN MY STATE IT CAN BE THIS WAY FOR WEEKS.”

I’ve only realized in the past week that there is a 4% grade from 3rd circle up to 6th circle, something I never noticed in a taxi or when walking. But when you’re on a bike, a four kilometer slow uphill slowly saps you until you want to fling yourself under the tires of the next smog-belching semi that wheezes past you. And today as I crested 6th circle, I found with a sinking feeling that a sudden downhill in the rain on a bike with no fenders is a recipe for leg drenching. Rami roared with exultation (he loves downhills and he was wearing Gore-tex) and tore past me, vanishing into the fog.

Hussein wearing a hat you don't see very often in Jordan, which he uses as raingear - or to dress up as a cowboy.

By the time we reached Cycling Jordan, I weighed an extra three kilos from the water I was carrying in my jeans. Hussein guffawed at my bedraggled appearance and pulled up a chair for me next to the electric heater under his desk. Apart from a couple of Cycling Jordan guides and Omar, the place was deserted. He explained to the three of us that they were canceling the beginner group’s ride because of the weather. We decided that discretion was the better part of valor and postponed our own ride, too. No sense in getting sick a week before the largest ride of the year.

We finished off our morning at The Bakehouse, an excellent American-style pancake and waffle place near the Anglican Church on first circle. While we were in the restaurant, hail started pouring out onto the metal roofs of the buildings nearby, stilling conversation and making us and all the other patrons stare out the windows with amazement. So what if we had only done 7.5 kilometers instead of 80; it isn’t every week when you find your city in the middle of a monsoon!

Rami enjoys a "Bakehouse Grand Slam." Unfortunately, that's only beef bacon on his plate, not ACTUAL bacon.

In case you’re wondering about that little bit of almost-unintelligible Arabic we stuck in at the end of Ascot Gavotte, I’ve been told that what we’re singing is a bit of an old Jordanian folk song about romance, the woman asking to be taken to Zarqa’ and teasingly calling the man “little boy” (ya Walaad), then the man being insulted and telling her that he won’t take her, then telling her to be quiet, (ay Ooskut). Obviously, the last bit is a play on the fact that the phrase to tell someone “be quiet!” in Arabic is almost the same as the title of the song.

Why not make your breathing mask fun? You're going to get stared and hollered at anyway; might as well go all the way.

Biking in the streets of Amman is nothing like biking back when I was in college in Madison. For one thing, you fear for your life a lot more, either from being pancaked into the grille of a Hummer or from being asphyxiated by vehicle fumes. It’s a common joke here in Jordan that most of the heavy transport trucks seen around the city were purchased on the cheap by local companies from Europe because they simply wouldn’t pass European emissions laws. Well, Europe’s garbage is our treasure here in Jordan, I guess, because these smog-belching vehicles from the last century are quite prevalent. Whether you’re on a bicycle or in a car with an open window, you can always tell when one of these beasts is coming up behind you, because somehow they’re so foul that their pollution actually precedes them, causing eyes to water and vision to blur.

Ironically, the opposite quality of vehicle is proportionally just as prevalent in Jordan. There are Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Hummer dealerships all within a few kilometers of each other near Mecca Street where Cycling Jordan has its shops, and it seems as if drivers here have a mindset that the nicer their car is, the more right they have to crush you like a bug if you do something as foolish as obey common traffic etiquette rules.

So yes, fearing for my life was how I started out the morning. I had successfully made it back from choir to my house last night, even without my helmet, a light, or any reflective clothes. But that was a 3 minute drive at 10:00 at night when the roads were comparatively empty. My heart sank at the thought of biking 22 KM to work, all the way in Ayn al Basha, and then coming back up the hill. I left home at 10:25 in the morning, but immediately ran into problems when I discovered I couldn’t shift into the lowest gear on my front set. Not a huge deal in the Jebel Amman area with its moderate hills, but there’s a 350 meter climb from Ayn al Basha back into Amman and I knew that would be impossible without that low gear. I decided to head to the shop first to have the specialists look at it.

It was an interesting trip, just like I knew it would be. Amman during the work week is much busier than the silent Friday holy day, and my colorful yellow and green jersey, helmet, and facemask got a lot of stares and calls from peanut gallery. “HELLO WHAT THIS? WHERE YOU GO?” was a frequent phrase bellowed at me from the sidewalk. Bikers here just learn to smile, wave, and ignore everything else… “Polite Indifference” is the best way to deal with gawking hecklers. Then there are the busloads of soldiers who whoop uncontrollably at you, the drivers that play chicken with you, and the aforementioned black smoke following behind 15% of the vehicles on the road. But of course there are the fun parts, like when little children stare at you from their driveways, awestruck, and rush out to the edge of the road, jumping up and down with huge smiles, waving and crying “HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!”

Hussein, the lanky young Egyptian man who manages the shop for Sa’ad, looked me up and down and chuckled as I entered. He’s a wizard with bike maintenance and had the gears readjusted and a new water bottle holder installed in 5 minutes. He asked me where I was heading, and raised his bushy eyebrow when I said I was going down into the Ayn al Basha region. And you’re going to go back up the hill then, too? he asked, to which I merely replied, “insha’allah!”

Of course, the ride down that magnificent hill wasn’t without problems. A hidden pothole got me as I was only a few hundred meters from the bottom of the hill, causing the handlebars to slide downwards a little bit. The bike itself was completely undamaged (although I almost had a heart attack after narrowly avoiding being struck by a manure truck) but I knew that before I would attempt to return up this hill, the handlebars would need to be re-aligned. My coworkers found my getup to be hilarious, especially the mask and shorts. Shorts are an article of clothing that just isn’t worn in Jordan unless you’re a child or on the beach. One of the other teachers asked to buy the bike from me for reasons I can’t fathom (Taher’s never biked a day in his life) and our janitor, Wusam, wanted to know if he could join the Dead 2 Red team.

Khalil drove me back up to the top of the hill in his truck, after Wajih and Aaron derided me for not biking the behemoth instead. “Next time!” I told them, “when the whole bike is working in perfect condition!” The sun was going down by now, and I suddenly realized that just because I was in a desert country in February didn’t mean that it wasn’t February. I was wearing a biking jersey and shorts, and I was cold. Jordan doesn’t usually have much wind chill (or wind for that matter, except for about 50 days in April and May) but that becomes moot when you’re biking down a highway at 30 km/h.

Honestly, regardless of the small mishaps of the day, I really enjoyed re-introducing myself to the practicality of a bike. I joke about how terrifying the drivers can be, but actually they were a lot better than I was dreading. I’ve never biked in New York City, but I imagine that this is how New York would be for bikers if they didn’t have nice things like emissions laws and biking lanes. And the time saving! It normally takes me 50 minutes to walk from 6th Circle back to my house, but on the bike going along the same route I’m able to do it in 15-20 minutes. I’m going to be sad to give the bike back to Sa’ad after the Dead 2 Red is over…but maybe this experience will be the thing that pushes me in the bike-owners category!

Bishop Williams greets everyone outside Aheliya's main gates

Besides the morning practice, the exciting event of the day was a visit from Rowan Williams, better known as the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury. As the primary church that I attend here in Jordan is Anglican, this is major event for my fellow congregants, both Arab and expat, and there was a large turnout of about 75 people at the Aheliya Girls’ School next to the church for a meet and greet with the Archbishop. This small amount of people were exclusively invited, there was no public announcement of this gathering, but Pastor Lex let us know a few days ahead of time. That morning, His Grace had held a service at the Baptism Site and placed a cornerstone for a new Gothic-style church funded by HRH Prince Ghazi, who’s apparently an appreciator of that particular type of architecture (who could blame him?). That service was attended by approximately 600, or so I’m told, and tomorrow morning he’s going to be holding a regular Sunday service for the Arabic congregation of the Anglican Church, in the same building that our English congregation meets in the night before.

The last time I had been in the Aheliya School was almost a year ago, when Whitman held the Fiddler on the Roof musical in the school’s auditorium. This is the first time I’d seen the place filled with so many students, high school-aged girls and boys in their best school uniforms to greet the Archbishop and his entourage of purple-robed Bishops from all over the region.

We were all milling about outside, enjoying the wonderful Jordanian February weather, when Bishop Williams appeared, wearing the traditional simple black robe with a purple sash. He looked similar to his Wikipedia pictures – yes, I did do the obvious simple research before meeting the man; I wanted to be able to know which gray-haired gentleman he was, after all – and he and the other Bishops glided towards us easily, chatting amicably and smiling for the half-dozen TV cameras and journalists that buzzed around them. His eyebrows gave him a somewhat owlish appearance, but his manner was immediately warm and empathetic as he greeted us, shaking hands and exchanging a few words with each person before Arab men in gray pinstripe suits gently moved him onto the next group of people.

Inside the building, servers flitted about noiselessly with platters of hot hors d’oeuvres and sweet tarts, as well as juice and the mandatory mouth-scalding Arabic “visitors” coffee. A friend of mine encouraged me to go up and introduce myself to the Archbishop. I replied nervously that I wasn’t Anglican and I wouldn’t know what to say if he suddenly quizzed me on the formation of the Church Doctrine or something!

Archbishop Williams stopped to have a little chat with me...

I shook the Bishop’s hand and introduced myself, saying that I was from America. He smiled and asked me what part, to which I replied Wisconsin. “Really!” he chuckled. “I stayed there a night in a seminary once while I was traveling through America.” Very neat that he’s been to our comparatively-unknown state. I asked him if he’d be able to stop by and visit our English-speaking service after the meet and greet. He shook his head somberly and said that he knew he was going to be in meetings and ceremonies for the rest of the night, but that of course he wished he could. I realized then that when you’re the Archbishop, or the Pope or something, your professional life is nothing but a series of meetings and ceremonies. He patted me on the back in a friendly manner, and then he had moved on to the next group of people waiting for him.

From left to right: the Mayor of Amman, the Bishop of Ireland, and Archbishop Williams

About forty minutes into the gathering, the Archbishop was joined at the front of the room by his traveling companion, the Bishop of Ireland. After being introduced by the principal of the Aheliya school and the Bishop of Jordan, His Grace gave a small speech about his love of Jordan (this being his third visit) and his pleasure that it was always a safe and welcoming country for all Christians, Muslims, and everyone else to enjoy. He made a momentary comment about how he and the rest of the church were very concerned with staunching the flow of Arab Christians leaving Jordan for the West, saying that these original Christians were incredibly important to the stability of the region. I loved listening to his voice, a deep, warm, and musical baritone which must be amazing to hear sermons in. Check out some of the clips with him on Youtube and you’ll see what I mean.

The last thing I saw before I left to go and attend my regular church service across the street was one of the Aheliya students singing a song in Arabic on the stage, of which I only understood the title, Wahtuhnnee, which roughly translates into “My Country.” As I approached the exit, I was passed by a group of black robed and cowled men; members of the Orthodox contingent of Jordan who kissed their Anglican counterparts twice on each cheek. Privately, I wondered why they were so late to the festivities; by the schedule of events the Archbishop was only going to be at the school for another fifteen minutes or so.

I know that the Archbishop is doing a tour of the Holy Land (it seems to be a primary reason for religious leaders of all denominations to visit) and that he’ll be entering Palestine today. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here, Your Grace!

My schedule has never been busier, that’s for sure. I just finished the Training for Trainers (ToT) class last week, with much fanfare. I discovered that the Italian government was sponsoring the majority of the cost of the training, much in the same way the United States BPRM is sponsoring most of the regular refugee training. My students finished their one-month course on the 9th, and to celebrate, the Italians threw a gala at the fancy Meridian Hotel in Amman, a suit-and-tie affair to commemorate the graduation of our trainers into new and more challenging curriculum for their students back in Iraq. I had the tie, but not the suit, unfortunately…I was planning on wearing my dishdash like last time but I was nixed on that one.

The entire gala was excellent…several of the other EGT trainers showed up besides myself, like Talal the art instructor, Taher the mobile phone repairman, Imad the car repairman, and Abu Eid the plumber. Wamidh and I both were present as the dynamic Iraqi/American computer repairing duo, and of course the guest of honor was my colleague Jeff, the ToT program facilitator, who decided that he was going to go above the call of duty (giving a speech) and beyond it (giving a speech in Arabic). To clarify, Jeff is not an Arab. The car ride from work to the hotel had a lot more Arabic in it than usual.

The speech went amazingly well, in which Jeff neither sneezed nor panicked (although the provided translator missed a few jokes; I told Jeff that he should have brought Wamidh up there with him but of course that would have been a faux pas since we were guests), and the dinner was delicious. My four students looked their best, and Ali Habeeb (literally Ali the Darling/Lover) even insisted that I take his extra suit jacket and wear it for the occasion. I had told them in class I didn’t have a suit jacket here in Jordan with me, and Ali told me that he had brought an extra one. “Which do you prefer, the gray or the black?” he asked me the day before, and I told him that I didn’t have anything that went with gray, and he happily handed me the black jacket. It’s the Arab way, I tell you – become friends with an Arab, and he or she will literally bend over backwards to make sure that you have anything you could possibly wish for – or that you didn’t even know you’d need!

From left to right: Ali Habeeb, Ali Farouqi, Ashwaq, and Imad

In other news, training for the Dead 2 Red 2010 has begun. It’s going to be tough without Galen with us this year, but I’ve been rejoined by my two friends from last year, Omar and Rami. The two of them work for the Intracom company here in Amman, and not only were they able to find two new members to complete our team, but also single-handedly secure our sponsorship from Intracom. As members of the newly-christened Intracom Cycling team, we’ll be getting all of our entry fees paid for, a transport pickup truck to carry our bikes, a hotel down in Aqaba, and perhaps even matching red-and-white biking jerseys. What style! I’ve never worked with Intracom before, but let me tell you I’m more than happy to be biking with their sponsorship – you guys have got my vote in whatever tech support stuff you do! (and a link from me too!)

Introducing the Intracom Cycling Team 2010

Finally, the title of this blog post – “Yohm al-Huhb.” Literally translated, it means “Day of the Love” which of course is the common Arabic translation for Valentine’s Day. As far as I can tell from the past two years, it’s not celebrated here in Jordan beyond a small percentage. It was kind of a dual-personality day for me. I spent the first half of the day taking ICDL (International Computer Driver’s License) tests at the Baptist School. ICDL is the sole course that I teach over at Whitman, and my students have always found it ironic that I’ve never actually taken the tests that I’m teaching for (my employers figured that my decade or so of experience made up for my lack of certification for some reason) but I was given the opportunity to take the exams through Whitman’s program, free of the regular charge. I elected to take the first three of seven exams all at once today, and performed admirably – 100% on the “Information Technology” section (who would have guessed it), 94% on Microsoft Word (confusing questions that were probably haphazardly translated from Arabic) and 100% on Microsoft Access, which downright shocked me because I’d been spending the past 5 months telling my students to be careful on Access’ trick questions. The latter was the only test I had any worry about at all, and some questions definitely made me sweat. But apparently my diligent reading and re-reading of the questions before clicking anything onscreen paid off with a perfect score. I look forward to sharing my tactics and strategies with my students tomorrow on Monday.

I had purchased packets of Saudi cookies (the Arab-world version of Oreos, really) to give to my students for Valentine’s Day and thanking them for coming in on a Sunday to take a test. I had a few left over, and I walked the 3 kilometers back from the Baptist School to my home. I gave out the remainders of the cookies to random street cleaners and beggars that I saw on the road on a whim. I told them that it was a custom in America that people should give sweets to people they care about, and in my own clumsy way I wanted the less-appreciated people of Jordan’s society to be thanked for their thankless work. Most of the street-cleaners here are Egyptian, and my Egyptian-Arab accent isn’t too good but I hope my message was clear…I was just a strange guy on the street handing out cookies because it was Love Day or something. Not something they see every day, I imagine.

Now that the ToT training class is over, my schedule is back to “normal” which means relaxed mornings in which I can choose the exact time that I need to come into work. Feels good to be back to the schedule I’ve kept since August of last year when I finished my last BPRM/IRD class! Training for the Dead 2 Red is going to be of the utmost importance, though, and I went out and bought breathing filter masks to wear for training here in Amman over the next couple weeks. I’ll borrow Philip’s bike (unused and untouched for the past year on my house’s balcony) and bike to Whitman tomorrow, I think. Will I be able to make it from 3rd circle to 6th circle without either being hit by a cement truck or asphyxiated from toxic diesel fumes? Only time will tell!

This is what we residents of Amman were treated to via word of mouth, newspapers, and radio announcements. With all of the talk, you might have thought that the second coming was about to take place. While it’s true any snow at all is cause for hubbub in Jordan, when I got the 6 AM wakeup call from one of the other Whitman teachers to notify me that school was canceled, I was expecting Wisconsin-levels of snow, perhaps piling up outside my window. On the second floor. I exaggerate my expectations slightly here, but when I looked out and saw nothing more than the same dreary drizzle that has been coming down steadily for a week, I had to chuckle a little. Primary schools in souther Wisconsin aren’t shut down unless the principal is knocked out with a hailstone the size of a basketball.

Just because Whitman was canceled didn’t mean that my training lectures in Ayn al Basha would be so lucky. I tried sending a text to Aaron, explaining to Aaron about how bad the weather was, and how I was worried I might step in a puddle and make my socks wet, and he texted back, “nice try.” As we drove north towards the training center, I caught a glimpse of snow on the side of the road and even stuck to the back of one car. It was the first time I’d ever seen snow in Jordan that hadn’t been in a grocer’s icebox.

Several teachers called in to fearfully tell Aaron and Jeff about how dangerous it would be for them to leave their houses now, but Aaron, having also grown up in the Midwest, wasn’t having any of it. Not that EGT could do anything about it anyway, even if we wanted to give the students a day off; we’re bound by IRD’s and ISG’s policies. As Wamidh and I taught our lesson on Windows Server 2008, the pounding roar of the rain on the aluminum roof above us was almost deafening and we frequently had to shout to make ourselves heard. I now understand why people in America use padded shingles on houses. However, we didn’t have to put up with it long. Only a couple hours into the lesson and just before lunch, Aaron stopped by our classroom, clutching a green umbrella to shield from the pounding rain and shouted that both IRD and ISG had made the call and that the students were to be sent home for the day.

As it was only noon, I settled into my classroom to puzzle out some FTP problems on our server. Before I knew it, it was 2:30 PM and our new guard at the site, Saalim, was knocking on my door. He asked me what time I was leaving, and how I was getting back to Amman. I chuckled and told him that I was at the mercy of Jeff and Aaron for that answer. He looked at me askance and told me that they’d left half an hour ago. I told Saalim that they probably just needed to get something and they’d be back later. He urged me to call and confirm. Aaron didn’t answer my call, but Jeff did. “Zach…Zach…we’re SO sorry about that. Aaron’s practically in tears right now.” I glanced over at Saalim and shrugged, and told him he had been right. My coworkers had forgotten me at the site and gone back home. Guess that’s what I get for working late! Jeff told me that Anselm, one of the recycling specialists, was heading back to Ayn al Basha now to pick me up. Guess I’ll never be able to say I’m “unforgettable” again! On the way back into Amman with Anselm, we saw the “blizzard” that had hit the city with our own eyes.

Careful there, kids - those snowballs are filled with dangerous SNOW!

In other news, I’ve got a new housemate now, for the first time in almost 10 months. It’s weird to not have this Big Glass Box to myself anymore, but I’m definitely enjoying it so far. I think I was starting to go a little stir crazy before with just my computer and my music. I took him to my favorite argeilleh cafe, Al-Borij, and introduced him to Haitham, who seems to be pretty much be up to his eyeballs with work at the pharmaceutical company Hikmeh these days, working anywhere between 60-70 hours a week.

In other OTHER news, Dozan wa Awtar is officially back in session for the 2010 year, and we had our seasonal retreat to the Dead Sea last weekend, just like the year before. Unfortunately, the differences in weather were huge; unlike 2009 where we all spent as much time as possible salting ourselves down in the sea or in the pool, this year it was barely warm enough to spend a sad 10 minutes in the pool, and I don’t think a single one of us tried the sea itself. It was a lot of fun and a great way to meet all of the new members and reconnect with the old, but I wish we could have used more of the 5-star Holiday Inn Dead Sea Resort’s features!

The Masjid (Mosque) minutes after completing the morning prayer. The timing is perfectly coordinating so that the sun's first light strikes the building as prayer ends

Last week, I stopped by my neighbor Marwan’s supermarket and asked him if I could finally take him up on his offer to join him in prayer at our neighborhood mosque, Masjid Hira’a. His broad bearded face broke into a huge smile and he cried out, “of course you can, Mr Zach!” I sat down at his counter for an hour as neighborhood customers trundled around us, bundled against the January chill. He explained to me that the best “first time” sulaah would be the al-Fajr prayer, which is always timed daily to come directly before the first rays of dawn break over the horizon, wherever you may be. I chuckled inwardly at that; I think that everyone in Jordan, be they Muslim or otherwise, has intimate knowledge of that particular prayer when it’s blasted at the wee hours of the morning. He explained that it was best because it was the shortest; usually no more than 6-7 minutes long. “There is rohkta-tayn; two rohkta,” Marwan told me solemnly. “The other prayers in the day – and you know there are five – are either three rohkta or four. This one better for you, for the first.”

He got out a piece of paper and had me write down the exact method of al-Wudthu, the ritual cleansing that devout Muslims carry out before each of the five sulaah. Then he pulled out a battered old Qur’an with a seamed green cover, caressing it respectfully and gently laying it on a cloth on his counter. He smiled fondly at it, and told me that he had this Qur’an since he was a boy and his father gave it to him. As he opened it to the beginning (starting from the right-side, as Arabic is a right-to-left language), he frowned absentmindedly at some scrawls and scribbles in the margins of the first page that looked like a child had been doodling with a pen. “Is not good, this,” he muttered. “Not respectful to write in the Qur’an this way – I do not know where these come from.” I thought about who might possibly have marked up the Qur’an and then forgotten about it over the years…but of course I just nodded politely.

From his Qur’an, Marwan showed me, and then intoned the Surah al-Fatiha, the most important “chapter” in the Qur’an which the Prophet Mohammad (SAW)* instructed must be read before each and every prayer that is made. The first few lines of the surah, which start with “Bismillah al-raahman, al raaheem,” are a common utterance regardless of the situation, merely meaning “In the name of God, the all merciful and ever-merciful.” The rest was more of a jumble, but sounded quite pleasantly melodic. Technically, music of any variety was forbidden by the Prophet, so the humming chant of the sulaah is really the closest that it gets.

After giving me final instructions on how to carry myself, where to look, how to stand, and what to wear (the latter was pretty much the only thing that he said was up to me; the rest is fairly complex), I took my leave of the supermarket as Marwan happily told me, “As-salaamu alayk, akhi!” – peace be upon you, brother! However, because of scheduling issues and some mix-ups, I wasn’t able to finally attend until just this morning.

I rose at 5:15AM, when Marwan called my mobile and quietly told me to prepare myself in wudthu and meet him at his house gate next to the supermarket at 5:45. In the distance through my window, I heard the “waking adhan” calling all Muslims to arise and prepare, crying out dramatically, “Prayer is better than sleep!” I hadn’t eaten much the night before, and I was careful to avoid any alcohol. I was trying to take “purification” seriously in all things. Technically, even flatulence ruins the purity of wudthu so I didn’t want to take any chances by eating a big meal of falafel and hummous and fuul - three foods which are all made from beans!

The water's hot and ready and I am awake far too early. Oh well..."prayer is better than sleep" after all...

I put on my blue dishdash robe (this makes the third use of it in a year, I believe) and went into the bathroom with my piece of paper with Marwan’s specific instructions clutched in my hand. I stumbled sleepily on the edge of my flowing robe and banged my caving-sore hip on the door frame – but successfully refrained from saying anything uncouth for the sake of the situation. I stared down at the paper at what I’d written down as the warm water filled the sink in front of me. I took a deep breath, and tried to perform the following as gracefully as possible.

1. Wash each of the wrists, first the right and then the left, with three circular motions
2. Cup water in your right hand, suck it into your mouth, swish it around three times, and spit it out
3. Suck water into your right nostril and then blow it out. Repeat three times. And then repeat with the left nostril (note: this one was really hard to do without coughing and choking)
4. Wipe downwards across the face with upwards-facing palms, from forehead to chin. Repeat three times
5. Using the left hand, wash the right arm from wrist to elbow, inside and out. Repeat three times, and then switch hand and arm
6. Taking some water into palms, run hands from hairline to the nape of the neck and back the opposite way, keeping hands tight to the hair
7. Clean out ears with the tips of each index fingers, from top to bottom
8. Taking some water into palms, run hands from the nape of the neck around to the front of the neck
9. Finally, use the left hand to clean the right foot from the toe to the ankle, carefully cleaning between the toes. Repeat three times, and then switch hand and foot

…I looked down at myself after I had finished this process and realized that my formerly-dry dishdash looked as though I had just purified it of its sins. I was thoroughly glad I wasn’t wearing a white robe instead, and that Marwan told me to just wear my usual leather jacket into the mosque to keep warm and cover the numerous splashes of water I was now covered with. I tried to review the words of the Surah Al Fatiha in my mind, and realized that I might need to a little help here, in case I was quizzed or something. I scribbled “Subhan rubi’ha al-aduheen x3″ and “Subhan rubi’ha al-3la x3″ in tiny letters across my left thumb, but I knew I didn’t have time to write anything else. I glanced at my clock and realized that one thing remained – Marwan had pointed specifically to the silver cross I wear on my neck and said, “You need to take that off when you pray in Masjid; take off all silver and gold.” He explained that it wasn’t because it was a cross, but just because almost all jewelry is forbidden for men. I slipped off the necklace and walked downstairs and and up the street a few meters to wait in front of Marwan’s dark doorway.

I don't think this is forbidden, but I didn't exactly advertise it to Marwan either!

I heard his deep voice intone above me from a window, “Zach” and then I heard the thud of sandal-ed feet on the stairs leading towards me and within another moment he was next to me, walking quietly and serenely in sweater, corduroy trousers, and a denim jacket. He smiled a quiet smile and asked me if I was ready for al-sulaah, and I shivered from the morning cold and nodded in assent. Without another word, we joined the flowing, shuffling stream of men next to us in the street and entered the warm glowing gate of the Hira’a Mosque, kicking off our shoes on a small footwear-barrier as we did so.

The room was about 15 meters square, with white tiled walls and several chandeliers hanging over the praying men. The most eye-catching thing was the carpeting, which looked to be a special variety embroidered to appear in the shape of a couple hundred rectangular prayer rugs, each connected to the other and all pointed towards the front of the Mosque, towards the holy Kaa’ba stone in Mecca just one country away. The religious leader, the imam, had already began the Al-Fatiha in a quavering and nasal drone, which I recognized with a small smile as the first time I had heard the man’s voice without amplification through the speakers attached to the mosque, every day, five times a day. I couldn’t see the man, but his thin-yet-powerful voice clearly echoed off the tiles in front and to my left – somewhere behind the tight mass of men that had gathered in the front of the chamber, heads already bowed in the sulaah.

There were about sixty men in the room for the early-morning al-Fajr prayer, an impressive number in my opinion for just past 6 in the morning. Marwan stepped quickly into the rear of the two lines of men, stared directly down at the star-shaped embroidery on his prayer “rectangle” – as I guess I can’t call it an individual rug – and quickly gestured with his hand for me to get next to him and position myself identically over the rectangle to his right. I was a little slow on the uptake, especially since he couldn’t speak out loud and tell me what I was doing wrong, but I realized that the man behind me was waiting to take the square to my right and I quickly leapt into place.

Marwan lifted his hands and made the universal Islamic guesture to represent “prayer” – putting the tips of his index fingers to his ears to emphasize that he was ready to listen to the word of God. He then quietly folded his arms over his stomach, right hand over left, and angled his head downward, gazing at the ground. I mimicked him exactly, and stared down at the perfectly-positioned tiny pen writing on my left thumb while mentally repeating the two phrases in my head.

The two rohkta are just different instructional Surah readings, but of course before each one, the Fatiha needs to be read again, and the well-known act of falling to one’s knees, pressing the forehead to the thick carpeting for 20-30 seconds, while repeating surah to and Subhan to oneself. I won’t deny that I was completely lost for almost the entire session and I couldn’t have told you what surah I was listening to the imam read, although Marwan told me later this evening they came from Luqman the Naml surahs. I didn’t know what to say or think, so I just tried to pray to myself, and I actually did find myself thinking in Arabic for a few minutes. I certainly wasn’t reciting surahs, but I asked God in Arabic to help me and my students have a good lesson that day and for the Lord’s guidance. At the end of the miniature service, which really did only last 8 minutes, including both of the two distinct rohkta, all of the men quietly got to their feet, adjusted their robes and hats, shook some hands and smiled, and left the room, grabbing their sandals as they left. That was it – the entire process was as simple as that and the prayer was over.

Marwan was waiting for me outside the masjid when I came out slightly after him (it took me a little bit more work to slide my unpracticed feet back into my shoes) and asked me what I thought. I truthfully I told him that I enjoyed it, which I did. It was a very peaceful experience to be there with all those devout, praying people, listening to the ethereal drone of the imam while praying (or attempting to in my case). Marwan hopefully asked me if I was interested in converting to Islam, to which I explained to him again that I was just interested in learning more about Islam because I was curious and found it enlightening to study. As we chatted in front of his gate to his house, he reminded me (for the fourth or fifth time) that he had been personally responsible for two conversions. “I have two friends from Britain, they came to visit here in the Jordan, and went with me to Mosque, and asked and studied about al-Islam. I was with them when they spoke the leh illih leh ullah wa Mohammad al rasoolullah. Now they are great wise men and are followers of the God in Islam.”

When I told Wajih and Khalil at work that I had been to al-Fajr, Khalil, being a Muslim, was of course excited and told me that if I had any questions about Islam, I should ask him – a similar sentiment voiced by all of the other vocational training teachers that happened to overhear my slow and precise Arabic description of what it was like. Wajih swiveled back in his chair and told me to be careful. “Why?” I replied, to which he told me an unfortunate anecdote about a friend’s father, who happened to pray at the largest Mosque in England while he was visiting London while randomly standing next to another unrelated man who happened to be on an FBI no-flight watchlist. This man was under surveillance and some pictures were taken – many of which happened to include his hapless neighbors. Wajih warned me that ever since, years later, this completely innocent man had been unable to get through an airport security check without being taken out and subjected to an extra 2-3 hours of questioning and interrogating. “But what does this have to do with me and this mosque here in Amman?” I asked. Because, replied Wajih, that mosque next to your house isn’t just a masjid, it’s also a theological school for Islam. And Philip told me that it is known to have a teacher of Radical Islam in its employ, who is known to be under surveillance. So be careful where you spend your time and remember who might be watching you.

Oh. Well, in that case…

I’d like to address  any FBI or CIA agents who might be reading this blog: I had no idea about any of this and I’m just a random scholar who happens to be interested in different religions. If you have any other questions for me, please just drop me a line (I assume you have all my email addresses already) and let’s get any possible flying-related unpleasantness out of the way before I have another flight – what do you say? You know how to reach me.

I went down to the Bel’ad with Haitham this evening to have some argeilleh and eat some falafel from Hashem’s restaurant. I had already told Haitham about the morning’s experiences, and he chuckled knowingly at what it was like for me and told me that it was brave of me to try new things. At Hashem’s, a little Egyptian man was frying the falafel out front and he glanced at me, automatically greeting me in English with the standard, “Welcome to the Jordan” that every foreigner here is guaranteed to get at least 3-4 times a day. I nodded to him and then answered him in Arabic, “Your words are very kind, master, but I want to ask how much two falafel sandwiches would be?” He gaped at me, then said to Haitham the equivalent of “Well, he speaks Arabic – now I’m embarrassed.” I laughed as Haitham told the little man that I didn’t just speak Arabic, but I had also been to the sulaah al-Fajr that very morning. I thought the man’s face would break in half from the huge smile that spread over it, and he grabbed my hand and pumped it enthusiastically. He then started speaking very rapidly to Haitham, and I only caught half of what he was saying. He then turned back to me and said in Arabic, “Welcome to Jordan, Welcome to Hashem’s, and God Willing, soon we welcome you to the Religion of God, al-Islam.” Haitham looked rather uncomfortable, so we bought our sandwiches and left the beaming man and the restaurant behind and returned to the bustling street.

I asked my friend what the falafel-maker had said, and Haitham confirmed my guess that the man had told him “not to miss your chance! You speak English and you have a gift – it is your duty to help your friend come to Islam. You have to save his soul! Save him! Save him! You must not miss your chance!” Haitham cleared his throat awkwardly, and explained that on the Islamic radio broadcasts, the imams always used that phrase when they commanded all English-speaking Muslims to use their talent to work for the salvation of the souls in the West.

From the way he shuffled his feet and didn’t look me in the eyes, I figured that he was worried that I would think that he was trying to convert me like his religion technically demanded of him to do. However, I was more interested in the realization that when you look at it objectively, Islamic teachers use the same exhortations as Christian pastors and priests. Instead of being offended the way that Haitham feared, I was truly touched to see the similarities between my religion reaching out to save souls, and Islam trying to do the same to mine. I’ve realized and come to embrace the fact that when someone tries to convert you or asks you to come to Mosque, or Church, or Temple with them, it’s not because they’re trying to upset you or make you uncomfortable – it’s because they genuinely care about you and your soul and they want you to feel pull on your heart that they do. What would the world look like if for once, all the xenophobic Christians and Muslims looked across the aisle – or ocean – and saw the truth about the “other side” – that they’re really just trying to save each others’ souls?

——————————–

*Sallallahu ‘Alaihe wa Sallam (S.A.W.)
“May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.” This is said whenever the name of prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) is mentioned or read. The equivalent English phrase is usually abbreviated as S.A.W. (peace be upon him). (Source)

My friend Joanna had already been to the cave with Pat and the scouts last year, and she told me and fellow spelunker Margie to dress warmly. I borrowed the car from Aaron and picked Margie and Joanna up from their house at about 8 in the morning, dressed in 4 layers of (old) clothes that I didn’t mind utterly destroying with mud and bat feces. We had our sandwiches, our Coca-Cola, brownies I’d baked the night before, and I had my Nescafé to keep me awake during the two hour trip. Margie tried to convince me that drinking Nescafé is the equivalent of drinking hot chocolate sludge, but I couldn’t bear to part with it. I’m no coffee thouwaq (gourmet).

It was almost exactly a two hour drive to reach the cave, and it was quite easy to find thanks to the excellent driving instructions that Pat had left for us. The only problem came at the end, where we weren’t entirely sure we should park. I turned the car around in a driveway, as two older Arab men and a similarly-aged woman gazed at us from the steps of a small brick building. I decided that it couldn’t hurt anything to ask for directions, and the three of them offered to escort us back in their car and then lead by foot to the cave itself. We certainly weren’t going to turn down an offer like that, so we waited for the three of them to pile into their old maroon sedan and drive at a stately pace back up the road about a 100 meters.

We piled all of our gear into backpacks as I introduced ourselves more properly to our new guides. Their names were Abu Haitham, and Abu and Umm Ali (Abu means father, and Umm means mother). They asked me with familial concern if we had brought enough food and enough lights, and after I tried to dispel their worry in my broken Arabic, the trio turned off the road and led us off the road into the dew-moistened and wonderfully green grass of a tree-lined meadow.

Messrs. Abu Ali and Abu Haitham amble along through their beautiful countryside

After a few minutes of walking – or sliding – through the grass and mud, we came suddenly upon the limestone maw of the cave. There were no signs, no guards, no rails – the only sign that this place had ever been discovered before were a few spray painted arrows and the ubiquitous small sacks of garbage. Margie dug into her pack and pulled out a third headlamp which she handed to me. Our guides looked reassured to see us all with lights, and me with my biking helmet (I’m paranoid about my height and pointy stone ceilings, okay?!) and together the six of us descended into Zubiya Cave.

I was pleasantly surprised that we weren’t immediately up to our ankles in water. On the way up we had voiced fears that because of the rains that had swept through the country during the past week, it might be dangerously damp in underground caverns, especially in the more temperate north of Jordan. There was plenty of mud, though, and I joked with the other men that I was going to be several centimeters taller thanks to the new stilts I was wearing on my soles. I noted that they were all just wearing sandals and figured that they certainly would know better than us about what to wear. All three of them told me that they had lived in the area all of their lives, but then admitted that they’d actually never been in this cave before, although they knew their children had been. I gave Abu Ali one of my flashlights and the three of them cautiously trudged behind us, muttering incomprehensible things as Umm Ali attempted to not step on her abiya robe and drag it through the mud.

Pat originally sent a black and white map to me, so I added some colors after we got back...

The first path we walked along was obviously well-traveled – wide and dusty, with many footprints. The light of the grated entrance vanished within seconds after we rounded the first corner, and instantly we became helpless without our headlamps and flashlights. Stalagmites, huge, brown and round, hedged our footsteps and deeper down into the darkness in front of us we could hear faint squeaking and if we stopped walking for a moment we could detect the softest rustle of wings.

Only a few meters into the cave, there's still enough light to make the flash get all confused

After walking what was probably 15 meters into the cave, we came to the edge of a small cliff that split into three separate paths. It was here that Umm Ali looked like she’d had enough. She took a tentative step down one of the cliff paths, stumbled a little, then straightened up regally and intoned, “khulaas” which means “That’s it.” The two men looked at each other, and then told me that they would go back now with her as well. I told Abu Ali to hold onto the flashlight and use it to get out. He thanked me and squinted into the unknown gloom while waving the feeble beam ineffectually at it. “This is a dangerous path, so I ask of you to take care,” he told me, his voice clearly telling me that he would like nothing more than the three of us to give up, turn back, and join him and his wife for tea and biscuits. I told him that Joanna was an extremely experienced spelunker who knew the cave very well (it was a good thing that she couldn’t understand what I was saying, or else the horrified look in her eyes may have given my white lie away) but the old man was mollified and smiled. He invited us to come back to the house when we were finished, and vanished into the shadows, waving the paltry beam of my 2 dinar flashlight in front of him.

All three of us were starting to feel the strain of coffee and Coca-Cola on our innards and indeed had been since before we entered, but we didn’t want to immediately follow behind our erstwhile hosts and heed nature’s call in the bushes outside the cave. We exchanged pained looks and debated on what we should do. “Let’s just follow along quietly behind them, not making a sound, and wait for them to away from the cave mouth,” I suggested as I started rapidly towards the entrance, which was followed by the sound of Joanna making “pthbbtth! pthbbbbbth!!” noises. “There are bugs flying into my mouth!” she retorted to my raised eyebrow.

We crept back (almost) silently to the main entrance. I motioned to the other two to stand back, and I went all the way up to the metal bars of the security door that has probably never been closed. I heard their voices up above us and I scurried back to my companions, and we stumbled back into the wider chamber we had just vacated.

Arabic Word of the Day: the colloquial word for bat is "wutwut" which is probably the most awesome thing ever.

Needless to say, “vacating” needed to take place and I’m not ashamed to admit that we made do like the bats obviously had been doing all around us. I heard one chittering above me and felt like I was being watched by a small, furry voyeur. There were plenty of tiny little alcoves and chambers all around us that it was like the cave was designed for that exclusive purpose. Feeling much better, we struck out towards the east of the cave, stopping to pile a small cairn of stones at the edge of the cliff as a marker. These rooms we were traversing now were extremely large, with ceilings at least 15 meters above our heads in some places. I could see the spidery ends of plant roots above us just barely in the glow of my headlamp, and I dug my remaining flashlight out of my backpack to use as an auxiliary light source. Between the previously-shown map that I was constantly annotating, my camera, the light, and a pen, I found that my hands were quite full most of the time! However, this part of the cave (shown on the map in light baby blue) was a cakewalk compared to what we were about to get into.

Our first steps out of the baby blue were in the northwestern section of the cave where things started to narrow on us for the first time. That entire section, as you may be able to tell by reading the fine print, is up on one end, and then a drop on the other into a lower chamber. I didn’t even try to lift myself up into the orange section on the left, as it was almost a foot above my head, I wasn’t wearing any gloves, and I didn’t really know what was up there. However, all three of us were able to shimmy down about 2.5 meters into the yellow-colored room marked “below” on the map. That room was quite small in all dimensions (I was barely able to keep from hitting my head) and filled with strange pits in a ring shape all around us. It looked unsettlingly like the site of numerous unfinished burials.

After we made our exit from the Up and Down cave chambers, the real fun started. That long orange path to the south was the toughest we’d done yet, about 15 meters of crawling on our hands and knees in a maze of stalagmites, the ceiling pressing down on us just centimeters above our heads. I was happy to be wearing my helmet! There was some confusion at first about where to go, because the map said “? Under here” and I was about ready to try to crawl under a pile of rocks like a trilobite before one of my companions stopped me and pointed out the small shaft above us. We never did make it back to that pile of rocks, and I still don’t know what “? Under here” really meant.

We reached our first major junction at the end of this long path, and came to something even more interesting in the red section. Yes, red does mean bad. As we crouched there in the pale glow of each others’ lamps in the wider yellow section of the map, I could barely see anything down the red path – there was nothing visible but a mass of stalactites jutting out at us like broken teeth. Without batting an eyelash, Margie volunteered to venture down this “path,” if you can use that term, and see if it got any wider or continued farther on. As Joanna and I shined lights down behind her, she reported some “tight squeezes” but didn’t sound alarmed. We ventured down after her. And this happened.

How do I manage to find myself hanging upside down between limestone columns all the time?

Yes, although it looks like I might as well be stuck between two mud blocks, these things really were stone and had the durability of it. I had to flop about, fishlike, kicking my legs feebly as Joanna and Margie watched with amusement. After my feet finally gained purchase on another pillar behind me, I was able to kind of squirm around until my newly-broken body dribbled out the other side. Both Joanna and I described it as “being birthed.” There was nothing in this little room to to the side though, but I used a key to mark “2010 الأجانب” which just says “2010 foreigners!” I was all excited at the thought of squeezing into an undiscovered location, but then peered into a tiny impassable crack into the farthest wall (on the map, it’s actually the farthest south east part of the cave) and saw more Arabic writing, Mohammad and Ahmad and realized that some tiny Arab child had already somehow squeezed his way in there. Better luck next time.

Before stopping for lunch, we tried the last chamber that doubled-back north again, and found a mysterious, miraculous pool that Joanna stared at for a moment before commenting that Pat told her that it was called the ‘Fountain of Youth.” I didn’t even see it at first; it took a minute of peering onto the ground before I realized that this puddle filled with bat poop was actually what she was referring to. “And then Pat drank out of it,” Joanna added. I thought of Pat and and his love of “roughing it” and outdoors experiences and realized I wasn’t actually that surprised. His immune system hardened after years in Egypt and Jordan, he had obviously survived his “miraculous” beverage…but none of us were going to follow in his footsteps.

I hadn't expected the Fountain of Youth to be quite so...chunky.

Food always seems to taste more delicious in a cave, perhaps because you really appreciate the fact that you’re enjoying a delicious flavor while you’re surrounded by rock, dust, and bat dung. We crouched under the low ceiling in the small central room that connected the previous two chambers, headlamps pointed inwards, and ate our sandwiches, chips, fruit, and the much-anticipated brownies. Thankfully for me, the girls had brought hand sanitizer to share; I didn’t want to even estimate what I had on my hands but they were kind of a greenish-white color.

After repacking our now-empty bags into our rucksacks, we connected back into the four-way intersection shown on the map, and were intrigued by what looked like a black gash on the wall, marked on the map only with the words “Narrow crack” and one of those maddening question marks. We all wanted to know what was on the other side of that question mark. And so began the most dangerous part of our journey.

Once again, Margie volunteered to go first, sliding off her backpack and carefully feeling her way forward into the darkness. The white limestone reflected much of our headlamps’ glow back at us, and the narrowness of the crack meant that distances were deceiving. Joanna and I hung back, trying to offer more light wherever possible and listening to Margie’s calls back to us from the crack. It seemed that there was one point in which the ground in front of her just ran out, and she could feel an empty room ahead of her. This seemed to jive with what we had on the map, so I came forward after her to grab her in case she started to fall through the crack. She slid down through what looked like a ridiculously tiny gap, only 20 centimeters wide or so, and reported that there seemed to be some sort of a ledge she could feel with her feet. She was silent for a moment as I watched her, and I could tell that she was trying to move herself downwards with as much force as possible. Already, she was up to just past her hips – it was disconcerting to watch the earth itself swallowing up my friend. Suddenly, there was a jerk, and she was through and I saw new shadows and light playing through the gap below me – she had landed on the ledge and was safe. Now it was my turn.

Suddenly I wasn’t so sure about this. I’ve never been “claustrophobic” persay, but this was a different sort of situation then what I could have gotten myself into in a cave in America. I cautiously shimmied forwards, feeling the cold stone press first against my back, and then against my stomach. I was now wedged into the crack in the wall, and the only way left to go was down. I slid down as far as I could, feeling my ankles twist slightly but not painfully as I forced them sideways…the curse of having size 13 feet. Light shined on me from below as Margie called up to me encouragingly, and Joanna had slid partly into the crack to do the same from the other side. I muttered something to them about hoping my pants didn’t rip, and then felt my right leg twist underneath me against solid stone as my left leg swung uselessly in the air, somewhere above Margie’s head.

I was at a little bit of an impasse here. My right leg stuck, my left leg unable to propel me back up, and my arms were in similar situations. I was suspended in a dark crack in the middle of a cave, partly over a pit of unknown dimensions, thousands of miles from my standard healthcare provider or at least a few hundred from the U.S. Embassy. Trying to remain calm, I tried the standard “tremble frantically” technique, which succeeded in worming my body another 5-6 centimeters down. This was actually worse, if that was even possible. My trapped right leg was now sending painful warning signs up my knee, and I was now chest-deep in this hole. The stone pressed against me hard on both cheek, chest and back, and I was forced to rotate my neck to the right, staring at Joanna’s feet as I tried very hard not to pant from the new tightness on my lungs. Images flashed through my head of Joanna having to take the car back to Amman and call the Embassy, me spending several days in this hole while people debated what to do, Margie unable to leave either because of my rear end blocking her only escape route, and the two of us slowly becoming covered in bat poop until a few soldiers arrived and had to break my legs and several ribs in order to extract me. I did not like having these rocks so close to my heart. I wondered what it felt like to have ribs broken.

I started to hyperventilate slightly and I squinted as dusty light swam around me. Joanna’s shoes appeared to be doing some sort of bizarre jig in front of me as my vision blurred and I decided that keeping my eyes closed was probably a good long-term solution. I could hear them trying to talk me through the situation, encouraging me to go back and not risk it – not realizing that I didn’t think it would be possible for me to go back. I realized that I didn’t mind being trapped in a cave and unable to move, as long as the duration of that entrapment was a second or less. Anything more than that was too much.

I had probably been in this position for no more than 30 seconds, to a minute at most. I had the barest movement of my right hand and right foot, and I timed what force I could muster against the rock, while kicking futilely against the wall with my left foot. As the seconds dragged agonizingly on, I ever so slowly started to rotate myself clockwise, moving my torso to the right back towards Joanna. The pressure on my hips and back changed, and I found that being sideways not only allowed the blood to rush to my head and in a pleasant way, but also it allowed my rump to fall into the hole all of the way, and my shoulders and back suddenly followed suit. As I came lower, Margie guided my left foot to a foothold on the ledge and with a final shaky wave of my mostly-numb right arm snaking behind me, I fell through the floor with a crunch. It was over. I was through and all of my bones were still in one piece.

As I slowly calmed myself down and played my headlamp across the room, I realized that it was much larger than what the map had led me to believe. After watching what I had just gone through, Joanna was in no rush to try the same thing, and excused herself to find the lady’s restroom. I tried to size up the dimensions of our incredible new find, which I was sure that no sane person would have ever reached before because of the near-impossibility of that path.

Suddenly there was the play of a third light on the far wall and Joanna’s voice sounded a lot less muffled. She also sounded a little confused. “Can you guys see my light?” she called out. I affirmed that we could, and I crawled along the ledge until I reached a corner, and peered to my left around it. A dim light shown from behind another rock ledge, and I heard the pingpingping of small rocks (probably compressed guano) falling from that ledge. Within a moment, a leg appeared, and then Joanna appeared at the mouth of a hole which was probably a good meter in width. I swore slightly under my breath. I would have killed for a meter-wide hole after what I had just jammed myself through. As I watched, Joanna leapt down and after a mere minute, was on the floor of the cavern which Margie and I had spent a combined hour trying to crawl into. I said a few more choice words, mostly to myself, and with Joanna’s help, I lowered myself off the ledge and joined her on the floor. Meanwhile, the amazing Margie had actually turned around and slid back up almost effortless through the gap she and I had just come down. “It’s all right, Zach,” she laughed, “at least we can say that we had the experience.” Right.

Within a few more minutes, we rapidly determined that the map had erred – we were actually inside the central, largest chamber in the cave, and there were actually a total of six separate entrances, two of which were not mentioned on the map. Instead of a mysterious, “?” marked chamber at the end of the narrow path like the map proposed, we had gone all the way through the central wall and dropped down, and there was also the small route Joanna had found. Neither of those were listed on the map. If she had walked another meter, she would have discovered that there was the third, largest path that merely walked down into the room with barely a scramble. Oh the irony.

By turning my camera down to its highest sensitivity, I was able to get this picture of Joanna and a stalagmite without using flash

We had essentially completed the cave at this point. From inside this large chamber we could reach almost anywhere else where we wanted to go, and within minutes of climbing out of the northern-most path, we came across our carefully-piled rock pile, guaranteeing to us that we had successfully made a full circle around the entire cave. We celebrated by drinking the last of our Coca-Cola and reveled in being able to stand up straight again and stretch our arms.

As an experiment, we tried switching off all of our lamps and seeing how our senses adjusted to the darkness. We tried to be totally silent and listen to the sounds of the cave (bat wings, namely) but Joanna burst out laughing. At first I didn’t understand why she was laughing, but as she explained her reaction to the dark and silence, it made sense. After all, we had been laughing and talking and joking around with each other since we came in. Humans aren’t used to completely pitch-black environments, and it’s very likely we were subconsciously trying to reassure each other of each other’s presence then. But in silence, in the darkness, I felt like I was half-floating, and my eyes began to play tricks on me. Even as we started talking again, I would hold my hand in front of me, moving my fingers and making a fist, almost sure that I could see the familiar lines take shape in the air. I waved my hand, and was sure I saw myself, or saw something. Completely impossible of course; it was completely black there. But my brain tried to draw a picture out of the blackness, and because it controlled how my hands and arms moved, it used the perfect “blankness” of the dark slate before me to draw dim lines of my body that I could have sworn were real instead of mental illusions.

Then we turned the headlamps, the large chamber was flooded with blue light again, and we were returned to our bodies as we knew them. It only took another two minutes from there to reach the entrance again, and we were bathed fully in the full light of the late afternoon. We had been in the cave for five and a half hours. The difference in light and the fresh air actually made me dizzy, and for the rest of the evening I had a slight headache caused by the bright light. It had been quite the trip, from our friendly local guides, to the “Fountain of Youth” to my near-panic in middle of a cave wall. I’ve tried to upgrade Pat’s documents, such as with his map and instructions, to help anyone else here in Jordan that might want to go caving and wants any help.

Now that it’s over, I can definitely say it was a very exciting experience. I’d love to find more caves in Jordan now that I’ve been through Zubiya, or as Google Earth calls it, Mughara al-Thaher (Cave of the Sunset). I’m not sure if my knees will recover from their banged-up state, or if my backpack will ever smell quite right again, but I’d do it all (almost all) again if I knew where to find the next cave to explore!