The first time I heard of Kerak (الكرك) was through
an email correspondence with a potential couchsurfing host. He told me that the city and its famous crusader castle could easily be another day trip from Amman.
Even though at one point I had trudged through Karen Armstrong's exhaustive account of the medieval crusades in her book Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact in Today's World, I still wasn't all that interested in checking out
the sanctuaries and other crusader ruins.
I think my indifference stemmed from having read the gory details of
their slaughter campaign through the Holy Land or was turned off by their general ignorance and arrogance. To be fair, the Crusaders weren't the first to go on a rampage in the Levant. Prior to them, Canaanites, Israelites, Moabites, and other tribes went on their killing spree sometimes at the behest of a god or for strategic purposes.
So before arriving in Jordan, I had heard
of Kerak, but I had no intention to go until a fellow volunteer living in
Kerak, who I ran into while traveling Jordan's shamal (north), suggested
that I crash his place. I thought, “Why not?”
No Loose Change Around
To get to Kerak, I took a bus from the
South (janubia) Amman Station and arrived in Kerak about 2 hours later. I think the fare was about 2.5JD. I remember upsetting the money collector when
I gave him a 20JD bill. Small bills and
coins, like in Morocco, are a prized commodity.
I still don't understand why change is so
hard to come by in these countries. Is it because the central
bank is not minting enough coins or printing only a few small bills? Are the general banks and central bank
forgetting to turn in and replace the bills that have lived out their
life-cycle? For instance, Morocco's lowest denomination bill of 20
Dirham was the grimiest bill of them all. Sometimes you could barely make out the images on the bill because everything was so smudged.
However, before I blame the government or
the bankers, maybe the root of the problem is a lack of planning and
coordination on the part of the local bus companies who forget to keep change
in hand. I remembered not too long ago in Israel giving a bus driver a 50 shekel bill for a trip that cost 12 shekel and getting my change in bills and coinage in a snap without the frustrated look or rebuke. It just made me wonder why is something like having a proper flow of currency such a big issue as soon as you cross the River Jordan or in Morocco's case as soon as you cross the Mediterranean. Fortunately, about halfway through my trip
after collecting money from everyone that boarded at the station and the stray
passengers they picked up on the way, the money-man gave me and everyone else their change back.
The DL on Kerak
The PCV in Kerak told me to get off at the
outskirts of the city near a truck stop.
I got out, and he was there a few minutes later. Lining a major street leading to his house
were a few shawarma stands. We went to one that he frequented and were greeted
like family. We had the Jordanian
fast-food combo meal of a shawarma sandwich, a small dish of sour vegetables,
and Jordan's sweetened black tea.
On our way back to the PCV's home, the PCV
shared some tidbits about the make-up of his community. He told that there were two to three
prominent tribes that controled most of the local government and that the family
ties were really strong. In addition to
tribal affiliations, Kerak had a significant number of Christians who actively
practiced their faith. In his community,
most of the Christians lived on the north side of the city near their churches,
parochial schools, and cemeteries. He said
that in general both groups respected one another and shared some of the power
in managing community affairs.
He told me that both Christians and Muslims
made wise-cracks about each other. For
instance, when the volunteer visited a Christian family once and felt sick the
following day, his Muslim neighbors blamed his sickness on what they said was the Christians' notoriously bad hygiene.
Christians, on the other hand, would joke that Muslims
must believe that Allah is deaf so much so that he needs to hear them
say 'Allah u Akbar' (God is Great) so many times during their prayers.
@ the Castle
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| Kerak Castle |
The following day the volunteer and I went
out to see the Crusader's Castle. The
City of Kerak itself is perched up on the same hill as the castle. We took a small transit van that zig-zagged
its way up the narrow and congested city streets and dropped us off a few
blocks from the entrance.
I paid a small
entrance fee. The volunteer went over to one of the gate attendants and told him that he lived in Kerak, showed
his Jordanian ID, and dropped his host father's tribal last name, which
immediately brought a smile to the attendant's face. They spoke to each other
for a bit, exchanged a few God phrases, and soon thereafter, the attendant told
him to proceed without paying.
The views from the castle were quite
stunning. Most of the fields in this dry
and hilly terrain were plowed waiting for the winter rains to come. Off in the
distance, one could make out the blue of the Dead Sea and the silvery haze that
hovered over it.
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| View from Kerak Castle-Dead Sea in the distance |
The castle was a labyrinth of tunnels with
all sorts of nooks and crannies. We
snaked through the tunnels, checked out some of the major halls, rooms, and
wells, climbed to the top, and imagined the siege of Salah al-Din's army.
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| Angry birds at Kerak Castle |
I can see why Saladdin had such a hard time
conquering the post. It was nearly
impossible to scale it without getting shot at, burned by any type of scalding
liquid, or run over by whatever debris was thrown from the top. The narrow windows on the fortress walls
protected the archers very well. One had
to be quite a marksman to be able to squeeze an arrow through such a narrow
opening. Even though I'm no fan of the Crusaders, I had to marvel at the ingenuity of the fortress architecture.
After an hour or so walking through the
castle, we made our way down to the city center where we made a small pit stop
to refuel on some delicious
kenafa--that mozzarella and crunchy filo
dough drenched in honey confection that just never seemed to get old for
me.
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| Kerak City - Making haram billboards halal |
On the way there, I saw a number of
young girls dressed in fairly revealing Western wear. I pointed them out to the volunteer, and he
knew that the families of those young girls were Christians and that in general
Christian girls and guys dressed a little more Western than their Muslim
counterparts.
Change of Plans
A few blocks later, the volunteer and I
parted ways. I went to the bus stop in
hopes of catching an afternoon bus to Ma'an, which is about 40k from Petra,
where I was hoping to crash for the night.
Once at the station, I asked about going to Ma'an or Petra. I was told that the only thing available even
at 3PM on a weekday was one last express bus to Aqaba, the southernmost city in
Jordan. I didn't want to go to Aqaba to
then ride up north again to Petra; so I called the PCV, asked if I could crash,
and he obliged. I went north to the
truck stop where I was dropped off the first time and met up with the PCV and
with a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT) who was sent to Kerak to observe a
day-in-the-life of a PCV.
Later on that evening, we got an invite for tea from a Christian family that the PCV had befriended. Coming from Morocco where 95% or so of the
country is Muslim, our walk through the streets of the Christian neighborhood seeing crosses, parochial schools, and Christian cemeteries in what is still a predominantly Muslim country was surprising. At the door, we were met by the
father of the house who greeted the PCV with the same God phrases I had heard
earlier when the PCV greeted his Muslim friends and neighbors.
We were escorted to the living room where
his wife and a couple of young boys greeted us.
Even though the volunteer had told me that most Christian families don't
follow the same protocol that many Muslims do in protecting their women from male strangers or segregating male and female interaction with respect to foreigners, I still hesitated when greeting his wife,
who was dressed in a simple blouse and casual dress pants with no
headscarf. For some reason, I felt a
sense of relief walking in. I felt that
I could probably be more myself in this home.
The Holy Bible in 3rabia
We had a nice little chat over some coffee
and some cookies. The father spoke
English and translated for his wife whenever she had something to say. It was a very open environment. A few boys, who happened to be their
grand-kids, were playing in the living room.
One of their younger sons came out of his room to greet us, but then
went right back inside to continue working on his latest techno-house-rave
mix, which served as the background music to our cross-cultural exchange. The mother half-smilingly told us
that he worked as a DJ for private parties.
The father shared some stories about some of
the scuffles some Christians had with their Muslim neighbors, but he said that
for the most part everyone respected each other. He asked if I and the PCT were Christians to
which we nodded yes. I
told him that I wanted to take a look at his Bible if he would allow me. He brought it over and read a few of the
first verses of the first chapter of Genesis.
Knowing already how these verses read in English, it was easy to make
out Arabic words in use.
He went on to tell us that the Arabic language Bible is a closer
translation than the English version because Aramaic is within the same family
of Semitic languages. He added that the Arabic translation is also
much older than the English version having been translated all the way back in
the 5th century. I asked if I
could hold it. I browsed through some of
the pages and just sat in awe of it.
For the longest time, I had associated
Arabic with Islam and the Qur'an. Here I
held the very book I had read ever since I was a kid, but in Arabic. Here was another book, considered sacred by
many Arab Christians, that was written in the language many Muslims claim to be
the language of God.
From then on, Arabic took on a more
multifaceted look. Not only could this
language be the language of Islam, but also Christianity; of not only Muslims,
but also Christians. It was a language
for all Arabs no matter what one believed.
They both prayed to Allah, but in different ways. They both recited scriptures in the same
language, but in distinct ways. Sure, I had heard that there were Arab Christians in the Middle East, but once again just like visiting Jerusalem, meeting various people of different faiths, and seeing the Holy Scriptures in Arabic makes much of what I heard and read much more real.
More Kerak to Come
Before we left though, the father invited
us to come back for a special lunch treat.
He asked his wife if she could cook up some maqlouba, which
supposedly means upside down, and she smiled and said, “Yes.” The PCV was super excited to hear this. The dish was on my list of must-eat, must-try
Jordanian meals, but all I had heard was that it was kind of like mansef
with more vegetables and different spices. If it was anything
like mansef, it was bound to be delicious.
Because transits to Ma'an only ran in the
morning, dining with that family would mean I would have to chill out in Kerak
for another full day. The PCV had no
problem letting me crash so just like that I extended my stay for another
couple of days. On our way back, we
walked back through the Christian neighborhood and then back onto the
surrounding streets leading to the PCV's home.
I thought to myself, “Wow, in just one day I went back in time imagining
the days of the Crusaders, had some mouth-watering kenafa again, learned
a little about the community dynamics between some Christians and Muslims in
this small corner of Jordan, and got to see and hear verses from an Arabic
language Bible."
I would have to agree with a quote I read a
while back from Saint Augustine that said, "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page." I probably got
a few pages worth that day. Even though
I was tired, I laid awake in bed as my mind raced to process, categorize, and
archive all of the experiences. I finally drifted thinking tomorrow would undoubtedly bring even more surprises.
