a Geographer's Place

Ruins. One word that always seems to make me giddy. I’ve always liked ruins – especially the ones you can climb on/around/over/under/in and explore. That’s how it’s been ever since I was a little kid and my parents took my brother and me to Mesa Verde’s Anasazi ruins. Jordan has lots of ruins. Like a lot a lot. People have been inhabiting this region of the world for a long time, so the ruins span millennia. Yes, there are the well-known ruins like Petra and Jerash , and lesser-known places like Kerak and Umm Quaiys. But the Kingdom also hosts numerous others, some of which barely have a name, and others that are literally in the middle of nowhere. These forgotten fortresses have been a big component of my research here. Qasr az-Zahib . As I was taking pictures, a little Bedouin kid who was out herding sheep and goats came over with tea. We chatted a bit. He showed me a nearby cemetery, a still-functioning well, and another set of presumed Crusader ruins that I can't fin...

After pretty much traversing Jordan’s width and breadth – from Aqaba in the south to five miles from the Syrian border in the north and the Dead Sea in the west to As-Safawi in the east – there’s one place we keep returning to again and again: Shobak (sometimes spelled Shabak or Shawbak). Yes, the Dead Sea Highway is quite unique, the Eastern Desert magical, and Wadi Rum vast. But Shobak is...well...different. Kind of a high plains desert that captures all my favorite components of each major physiographic province in Jordan.  Shobak is about a two-hour drive from Amman, along the Desert Highway and en route to Petra. The town itself is best known for its castle . Built along the caravan/pilgrimage route between the Gulf of Aqaba and Syria by King Baldwin I in 1115 AD, it stood for several decades and repelled Saladin’s forces for two years later in that century. It’s also out of the way – you can’t see it from any main by-pass road as you can with other castles like Karak, Az...

Dixie in her natural habitat: outdoors. Here in Southern Utah, 1993 When I was a little kid, Dixie (my mom) was into Native American (Indian) things. Actually, she was always interested in them. And because she was, and we spent a lot of time together, I became interested in Indian things too. We spent time discussing ancient native cultures, her (some would say wild) theories about them, and the more spiritual/mystical aspects often tied to the rich cultural heritage. She also liked “glyphs”, as she called them, and I soon became aware that these glyphs – rock art – were found in almost every culture around the world. Fast forward to my PhD work where, by luck really, I ended up studying rock art (though not in the traditional archeological sense) – and in the Desert Southwest US, no less. I learned there are four main types of rock art: petroglyphs (those carved or pecked into the rock), pictographs (paintings on rocks), intaglios (scraping away of a surface to reveal ligh...

Probably my favorite mall feature: The animatronic T-Rex in Galleria Mall at  Christmastime. Notice Santa with pterodactyls. A bustling metropolitan area with more than 4 million people, Amman has lots of things to keep a Travelist busy. There are ancient ruins, museums, Arab souks, architecture, restaurants of all kinds (and price-ranges)...and the list continues. There are also no fewer than a dozen universities scattered throughout the city limits. And Amman keeps expanding. The city changes so fast that Google Maps can’t keep up with it. For example, where last month there was no road, unexpectedly there is one now, or where there were just a few pilings for a bridge last month, suddenly there is a new bridge. Their construction crews certainly work fast here! For some reason, malls have always fascinated me. It may be that I grew up without them, only visiting them around Christmastime with my parents until I was in college and lived in “The City”. Or it may...

***NOTE: This blog has no pictures. It is text only. But interesting, I think.*** Back in the early 1990s on my first visit to the Middle East, we spent 10 days or so in Egypt. It was our first stop on an 8-week study abroad. I had learned the importance of being at least “travelwise” in the language of the place you’re visiting a couple years previous , and so I asked our Egyptian guides to teach me a few Arabic words. Yes ( aiwa ), no ( la ), thank you ( shukran ), a response when someone asked me how I was ( kwai-yayz ), an endearing term ( habibi ), and a term I still can’t find the direct translation to ( zarif ). Though there wasn’t much call to use the language, the day before we left Egypt, I managed to order my lunch in Arabic ( hobes wa eroz ). I felt empowered, but forgot most of it soon after leaving. Side note on writing Arabic words with Latin letters: Arabic script is flowery and beautiful. It also has several sounds that we don’t have in English. And, unlik...

In grad school, I was introduced to something called the “vernacular landscape”. The great J.B. Jackson kind of coined the term in regards to landscape back in the mid-late 20th Century, and his book  1984  suggested the term meant a variety of things related to landscape. For example, a vernacular landscape might be irrational and/or disordered, or have a lack of a political structure/organization/space, or be a place that retains common customs, or focus on the common folk, or be ephemeral and mobile. For example, something like this: Yes, that’s Hello Kitty in a hijab ! I haven’t seen this in other Arab countries I’ve visited, only in Jordan. And I’ve searched. Hard. Because I adore Hello Kitty. Well, non-pink Hello Kitty. In later times, scholars sometimes took “vernacular landscape” to mean the “ordinary” or “every day” landscape that was set apart from the norm – the hustle and bustle of big cities of the time – such as suburbs, trailer parks, or res...