Friday, May 21, 2010

bedouin gypsy rock people

In Petra since it is completly a tourist spot there are so many people trying to make money. There are the bedouin men that sit in the rocks, totally stoned trying to sell donkey rides. Then there are all these dirty little gypsy kids who run around without shoes on and try to sell a pack of postcards for 1JD. I felt so bad for these kids because their lives probably won't get much better. They get sent out to roast all day in the sun because their families know that tourist feel bad for them and will give them money. They were cute kids and happy to play and run around on the rocks but I couldn't imagine doing that all the time. They are so trained to come up to large groups and say 'one jd, one jd postcard one jd'. A tour guide was telling us that the government kicked out all the gypsies and bedouins about 20 years ago and built this small modern village for them. But they don't want to be there, they want to be in the caves and rocks of Petra so it's this constant battle. I was totally fasinated with this one little boy, who had to be about 10 and how he was climbing all over the rocks. He was so high up, just climbing around it was completely dangerous and no one seemed to mind. If he put his foot in one wrong place he would have fallen 100 feet into rock.
Driving through the desert of Israel and Jordan I've gotten to see a lot of Bedouin camps. I find the Bedouin people to be so fasinating. This group of people that can totally survive out in the harsh conditions of desert. In Israel the camps i saw from the road seemed so rundown and impossible for anyone to live there. There are so many tourist that want to live stay with a Bedouin for a night or two so in Jordan the bedouins are making bank by hosting westerners and giving them camel rides. They do fasinate me i'm not going to go live with one but it would be quite the experience.

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