Hello, my name is Ahmad

It's hard to sum up my five amazing days in the Badia. And, honestly, I wouldn't want to. I think any clusmy attempt to do so would ultimately offend my memories--betrayed by language that can neither convey nor comprehend their affection and depth. However, I promised my Bedouin family and friends that I would try my best to share a chapter of their story with you.

I was sincerely taken aback by the number of people who wanted their pictures taken, their stories heard, their lives understood. I serendipitously crossed paths with some researchers during my stay with Abu Ali's family. They were examining the way macroeconomic changes in the Jordanian economy had affected gender relations in the Badia. They seemed as though they had good intentions, but I quite honestly was put off by the way they approached Abu and Uma Ali. If there were one word I would use to describe the air and manner with which they spoke, condescension would be it. However, I learned a great deal from their visit--about the Bedouin sheep economy, gender roles in the Badia, and Abu Ali's past experience with development researchers. I think what has stayed with me most is a realization I came to once these two women had left. I truly began to understand the extent to which the Bedouin are teetering on the edge of oblivion. Forgive my seemingly hyperbolic use of words, but its amazing how misunderstood they seem to be. They are being pushed out, pushed aside, and pushed around by their government, profit hungry developers, and to some extent the people trying to help them. These two researchers weren't looking to understand the Bedouin people's reality per se. They were more interested in the mechanisms and dare I say tools that have manipulated the Bedouin way of life, ushering them toward a carbon copied reality reminiscent of 'the ideal.' In these fleeting moments I caught a glimpse of these people in a light I had not before. The loudly boisterous and joyously outgoing people I had come to know and love were in fact mute. They're voice is lost in a fray of technical terms, reproduced stereotype, and market interests.

By no means is this singular blog post meant to give them the voice they so desperately seek and rightly deserve. However, I will keep my promise. Still, instead of my clumsy account of what I did and saw, what you see below are the images that I wanted to keep and share. Peppered in among them is sparse commentary meant to fill the gaps in this non-chronological, visual narrative:


Olive trees


Sorry, sheep. No grass here, anymore.


A snippet of my Bedouin family.




Salheia, a small Bedouin town, sliced in half by the highway to Baghdad.


Abu Ali, an egg, and some khobs (a special kind of bread that serves a variety of culinary purposes: utensil, dish base, side dish). I was really struck by how white Abu Ali's teeth were. Believe it or not, he's never touched a tube of crest or an oral b toothbrush. His pearly whites were maintained solely by the hygienic genius of a single stick. Yes that's right a stick; it's like a very thin branch really whose end has been torn in such a way as to expose the fibrous wooden flesh. These fibers act like bristles to catch any lingering food particles. I saw these instruments everywhere and in fact got one as a present. These sticks are used not because people have limited access to plastic toothbrushes, but because this brand of wooden hygiene is the very same that the Prophet Muhammad used. In other words, what seems like a 'pre-modern' methodology for dental maintenance, is in fact a profoundly religious and historically meaningful cultural practice that preserves both tradition and teeth.






Moments like these ripped away the veiled daze my family's hospitality had cast over my eyes, revealing a fragile and powerful poverty that lingered behind the curtain. All too often we are told to pay no attention to this reality. It helps too that these rural communities are usually blanketed with a variegated montage of stereotypes and misperceptions that romantically massages any critical impulse into apathy. Yet, there were no camels or sword fights to be found in Salheia, just a tired and nearly forgotten people.


The mosque in this picture is where I became 'Ahmad.' It was a fairly brief conversion process really. I was invited to 3PM prayer, accepted, washed various parts of my body three times, stepped through the door way with my right foot, bowed, prayed, and chatted--then the next thing I knew, I had an Arabic name and was chowing down on a delicious Bedouin dessert at the Imam's crib.