It really did look like Mars. As I glanced all around me, the orange sand stretched as far as I could see, with large rock formations protruding out of the ground in seemingly random locations. Speeding through the desert on the back of a 4x4 pickup in Wadi Rum was certainly an experience I wouldn’t soon forget.
This past weekend, I spent three days in the southern region of Jordan, on a retreat organized by my study abroad program. This part of Jordan, known as Wadi Rum—or literally, the “Valley of the Moon”—resembles Mars so much that the movie The Martian, along with a few others, was filmed here. It is a landscape unlike any other I had seen before. Jordan, as a whole, is the third poorest country in the world in terms of water resources, but the southern part of the country is particularly dry. And yet, this part of the country has been inhabited for thousands of years.
The people who currently live in this part of the country are known as Bedouins. In English, Bedouin roughly translates to “desert dweller.” The Bedouin people exist across all of the Middle East and North Africa. Many families living in the modern cities of these countries can trace their roots back to Bedouin ancestors. Yet some Bedouin tribes still live in the deserts of the region today, and Wadi Rum is no exception. In Jordan, Bedouins make up around 35 percent of the total population, meaning the Bedouin culture and traditions make up a large part of Jordanian society. While in Wadi Rum, I was able to witness these traditions firsthand.
Part of our trip to the Jordanian desert included a camel ride. Aside from being a great once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take a selfie with a camel, I was able to submerge myself more deeply into Bedouin culture. For me, a camel ride is a slightly uncomfortable but uniquely interesting experience, but for the Bedouin peoples of southern Jordan, these camels are an essential mode of transportation. These camels can survive without drinking water for two weeks and can carry massive packs for great distances, making them ideal for a semi-nomadic people like the Bedouin.
After my camel ride and watching the sunset over the cragged rock formations of the desert, we returned to our camp, which was run by a Bedouin family. That night for dinner, I experienced another aspect of Bedouin life; this one smelled much better than my camel ride. Famous all around Jordan, zarb is a type of Bedouin cuisine that involves cooking meats, most commonly chicken and lamb, and vegetables underground. Bedouins stuff the meat with all kinds of vegetables, and then lower it underground on large trays to cook slowly in the underground oven, sometimes for several hours. It is then retrieved and served on a bed of rice and pita bread. The Bedouin consider this dish a delicacy, and it was very easy to understand why. The entire slow-roasting process results in a delicious mix of barbecued meats and vegetables.
While the entire country of Jordan is slightly smaller than Maine, the vast cultural and geographical differences between the capital city of Amman and the country’s southern region are striking. Before my trip to Wadi Rum, my experiences in Jordan had been limited to the large capital city. But once in Wadi Rum, I was exposed to an older, more traditional lifestyle that has been prevalent in the region for centuries. Wadi Rum and Amman may be in the same country, but the differences between their cultures and geography can be likened to those between Earth and Mars.
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