The Belly Dancer and The Dead Sea
It’s the last day of March. A cool breeze is coming from the south, winter’s final calling card here in the Jordan Valley. I’m sitting at the Arabic Terrace at the Marriott Hotel at the Dead Sea. Ten meters to my right is a professional belly dancer doing her thing. From her my gaze drifts over the vast darkness in front of me that is the Dead Sea. I have visited this place several times before. Like then, I now smoke the shisha pipe and drink a margarita, futilely longing for the sunset to repeat itself. I have spent my time here living in luxury while well beyond those lights glimmering on the west side of the Dead Sea there is a misery most people couldn’t begin to imagine. Such is life in the West Bank.
Stopping in the West Bank is not recommended for most Americans abroad, whereas for all American Embassy employees it is positively prohibited. It is obvious the Department of State has their own reasons (which you will never hear about) for their policies, and wishes to see all of its citizens and employees secure and arriving safely at their destination, wherever that may be (not too hard to figure that one out). My logic is a different one. For instance, the Department of State would never know if I’d indeed traveled to holy sites such as Jericho and Bethlehem, so their orders at least appear irrelevant and, to my knowledge, have been downright ignored by people. I have never stopped there anywhere myself despite my cravings to do otherwise.
The belly dancer now lies suggestively on the carpet, her arm reaching for the ceiling like one of these dried up trees in the area begging with their branches to the skies for rain. Just as quickly, she leaps up, shakes her hips like some crazed hula dancer, and the guests take notice.
I wonder if she is Palestinian. Most people living here in Jordan are of Palestinian descent. I recall once seeing a shantytown in Casablanca, damn big one too. Yep, the same Casablanca that shares its name with the President’s home, that same Casablanca with Rick’s Café and the beginning of a wonderful friendship and so on. And even that looked more like the Marriott I’m staying at now compared to the shanty villages I’d seen in the West Bank. I bet even the biggest rednecks in the States would have some choice words for the bottom of the barrel of the West Bank.
The dancer twirls her long hair in circles, her face a tight grimace that seems to underline the tragic sub-current of the music. Maybe she is adhering to her own script, maybe she is experimenting for the bigger crowds due in the summer.
Some of the shanties have used any material available to them, from plywood to cardboard, knowing fully well that their shanties are as safe as a daisy in a tornado. Why bother? I’m sure all parents building their structurally unsound homes like bird nests have wondered about that. I’m equally sure that nobody has an answer to that, although they would never admit this for fear that their kids might be eavesdropping on their conversations.
The music is dying down. The guests begin to retire to their rooms. The belly dancer has completed her final encore, and she shuts off the sound system. All in a day’s work.
I have no doubt that this might be the last time I will see the area for a while, let alone the West Bank, although I have little doubt the experience will never be forgotten. I hear a boom in the distance. The server explains to my sister-in-law that those are fireworks, even though we have heard those sounds in broad daylight as well. People working and living here, from the servers to the belly-dancer, have supposedly grown a thick hide, impervious to what goes on across the water.
Stopping in the West Bank is not recommended for most Americans abroad, whereas for all American Embassy employees it is positively prohibited. It is obvious the Department of State has their own reasons (which you will never hear about) for their policies, and wishes to see all of its citizens and employees secure and arriving safely at their destination, wherever that may be (not too hard to figure that one out). My logic is a different one. For instance, the Department of State would never know if I’d indeed traveled to holy sites such as Jericho and Bethlehem, so their orders at least appear irrelevant and, to my knowledge, have been downright ignored by people. I have never stopped there anywhere myself despite my cravings to do otherwise.
The belly dancer now lies suggestively on the carpet, her arm reaching for the ceiling like one of these dried up trees in the area begging with their branches to the skies for rain. Just as quickly, she leaps up, shakes her hips like some crazed hula dancer, and the guests take notice.
I wonder if she is Palestinian. Most people living here in Jordan are of Palestinian descent. I recall once seeing a shantytown in Casablanca, damn big one too. Yep, the same Casablanca that shares its name with the President’s home, that same Casablanca with Rick’s Café and the beginning of a wonderful friendship and so on. And even that looked more like the Marriott I’m staying at now compared to the shanty villages I’d seen in the West Bank. I bet even the biggest rednecks in the States would have some choice words for the bottom of the barrel of the West Bank.
The dancer twirls her long hair in circles, her face a tight grimace that seems to underline the tragic sub-current of the music. Maybe she is adhering to her own script, maybe she is experimenting for the bigger crowds due in the summer.
Some of the shanties have used any material available to them, from plywood to cardboard, knowing fully well that their shanties are as safe as a daisy in a tornado. Why bother? I’m sure all parents building their structurally unsound homes like bird nests have wondered about that. I’m equally sure that nobody has an answer to that, although they would never admit this for fear that their kids might be eavesdropping on their conversations.
The music is dying down. The guests begin to retire to their rooms. The belly dancer has completed her final encore, and she shuts off the sound system. All in a day’s work.
I have no doubt that this might be the last time I will see the area for a while, let alone the West Bank, although I have little doubt the experience will never be forgotten. I hear a boom in the distance. The server explains to my sister-in-law that those are fireworks, even though we have heard those sounds in broad daylight as well. People working and living here, from the servers to the belly-dancer, have supposedly grown a thick hide, impervious to what goes on across the water.
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