Yesterday was one of those particular days that live on to become excellent stories. I was home alone and dulled by my very long Eid vacation, and I was especially bummed because I couldn’t organize a trip somewhere during that vacation.
Eventually not being able to imagine how wasted I would feel if I didn’t do something, I decided to go on a solo road trip. When I thought about it initially, I wanted to go to the Dead Sea and get tanned. The Dead Sea was an ideal choice because it is close and equipped with touristy places and I could have driven back home in no time if my parents decided to abort their awayness. Then I figured that bikini-ing alone would probably not be so much fun, and reading a book in the grilling sun as random people pitied me for being alone would be even less fun.
After some quick thinking, I decided to go to Madaba if I could find it. I thought if I did Madaba and had some extra time I will go down to the Dead Sea and drive up to Amman just for the heck of it. That was the plan unless I thought of something else along the way.
I’ve been to Mount Nebo some years back and it seemed closer then. I guess because I was going there on my own this time, and hesitating in trusting the touristic signs leading me there, that it seemed so distant. Nonetheless, once I got to it, the place was as majestic and divine as it ever was.
To my utter delight, I was welcomed with a free pass at the foot of the mountain. I walked up towards the famous Brazen Serpent and then entered the church. The vast majority of the visitors were foreign, there were French, Italians, Spanish, and Japanese. I saw only one or two Jordanian groups of little numbers.
Once inside, I renewed my fascination with the typically gorgeous stained glass artistry that is usually iconic in Christian places of worship. Not much of it was present in Mount Nebo but since I do not get to see much of it in my daily life anyway, what little was there was spectacular. I wish they would add to the four stained glass windows already present.
I spent close to two hours inside the church, sitting on the first bench closest to the ancient rotund altar and looking out through the image of the Father and into myself. Then a clergyman appeared from out of nowhere, wearing a long brown habit, eyeglasses, and a watch, and started getting peculiar items from a small corner closet that I had not even noticed until he touched it. He got a red Bible with two bookmarks dangling from it and placed it on a center table in the altar. Then he got little bottles and mixed some of their ingredients and placed them on the table as well. All of this was fascinating to me and I sat there watching him with the utmost attention.
I have always wanted to attend a prayer, or a sermon, or a mass in a church. I have had this desire for the longest time and I was never able to realize it. So when I saw preparations taking place for something quite unfamiliar to me, then I had no doubt I must stick around unless otherwise instructed. I thought I would stay and watch until someone kicked me out.
Minutes later, a group of Italian tourists joined the clergyman in the alter ring. They sat on the sides and the bench where I was sitting no longer had its viewing advantage. I decided to join the believers in the altar ring and I did. Luckily for me I could understand their language and I understood the instructions of a black clergyman telling them what to say at certain intervals. It was something to the effect of “Praise the Lord” — but in Italian.
The black man was putting on a pure white habit and he was joined by two other religious leaders. Now the total of the holymen present was four and I was excited beyond description; nobody told me to get out and nobody objected to my being in the altar ring. I think they thought I was Christian too.
The prayer started and the whole church went extremely quiet. Tourists coming in to look at us, the worshippers, were practically mute and the tallest clergyman gave a sermon about Moses and Mount Nebo. Then the Italian crowd recited “Lodate il Signore – Praise the Lord” and a couple men read from the red Bible. The best part to me, and the most familiar, was when everyone started singing Hallelujah at Biblical reading intervals. This event was raw and spiritual and I loved it. The weirdest part was when everyone crossed themselves and I didn’t.
Since I am not a Christian thinker, I did not know what will follow. I thought maybe after some time the believers will take the offering of the Holy Bread and I imagined it would not be appropriate for me to join in that activity. Of course, there was no way for me to be sure what they did next because I slipped quietly out of the altar and out of the church, filled with content and acceptance. I had not attended any prayer in just any church, but an Italian service in a Biblical site nonetheless.
On my way out, I looked at the Brazen Serpent and mused a little, and walked on. Right there in the middle of the small walk beside the church I saw a long snake wiggling off-road and I watched it slide and hide in the plants nearby. There was no reason to panic, I felt nothing watching the snake since I caught one like it in the past, and I felt no danger on the people moving about because the snake went away. Besides, Mount Nebo is a divine site in the wild and these creatures have been there before religion. I even saw a lizard in the church, high up next to the right stained glass window.
I got to my car and it wouldn’t start. Naturally, to add to the adventures of the day, I asked the tourist police to help me out and they did. I drove off down towards the Dead Sea. Now the road from Mount Nebo to the Dead Sea, in case you do not know this, is pretty dangerous. I didn’t know that. The road is technically a gallery of half-circles going down steep, cruel mountains in the scorching sun.
Eventually though, the road relaxed into a sane straight line hugged by dry salty lands and shantytowns and tired half-grown crops. To add more to the excitement, I was stopped twice by the police. Once at a regular check point where the officer noticed I looked nothing at all like the person in my ID, but chose to let me pass, and the other time when I was doing 120 when the speed limit was 50. Also then the officer chose to let me go, possibly because it was really hot and my car was filthy.
So there I was. Driving around the Dead Sea area, unsure what to do and feeling spiritual and tourist-like at the same time, when my parents decided to inform me they were 45 minutes away from home. That brought my wanderings to an absolute end and I gladly stepped on it to beat my parents home. They would have killed me if they knew I went wandering around Jordan alone, unprotected and all. What blasphemy!
Reader, I was so tense driving back home I have no idea how I made it in one piece. Fortunately, I did make it ahead of my parents and I even managed to wash the then-stinking dishes forgotten in the sink. No harm done and I lived to tell this story today.
.jpg)
