209. Tee-shirts

Moving as fast as I do, (which is a LOT slower than most travelers) I can just about figure out who the local good guys and the bad guys are but then I move along a few miles and have to get started on a new set of guys.


My Che Guevara tee shirt that I told you about for example.


If you are a traveler, maybe it’s a good idea not to have anybody’s picture on your shirt ‘cause, sure enough, the next time you take off your jacket, somebody’s gonna be insulted! My smiling Mickey Mouse tee shirt usually causes me no trouble, but I am not even so darn sure about wearing that anymore.

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208. Propaganda

.

On the drive back to the teacher’s apartment in Tripoli, Adam scares me with some anti-Israeli propaganda stories.


I remember that these horror stories are the same “cutting off the women’s breasts so they can’t feed their babies” stories the “Allies” used to tell about the German Gestapo “Huns” during the Second World War. Still, propaganda stories like these always seem freshly malicious and can be repeated and believed about any enemy you wish to slander—and, unfortunately, the original accounts probably have more truth in them then I would like to believe! But horror stories like these are guaranteed to catch your attention.


The propaganda slide show at the Hadasa Hospital in Jerusalem was not so crude as these stories but was just as convincing about the bestiality of the Arab enemy as these tales are of the Zionist enemy.


Sometimes all it takes to change heroes into enemies is to cross a border. All you have to do is reverse the roles of the good guys and the bad guys from the neighboring country!


But sometimes in this part of the world all it takes to effect the change of friend to enemy is to cross a street! In fact maniacs thirsting for your blood can surround you without your even leaving your home! 

Paranoia time and who is safe and no wonder these people seem crazy!

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207. Luxury

How very pleasant it is for me to awaken between perfumed sheets in a spacious, spotless, well appointed bedroom. So much nicer than in a cheap, soiled pension! But then, if I didn’t have that experience, I wouldn’t know the difference! So is this the dawning of discrimination?


I expected to sleep last night under a tree by the roadside and instead I slept like a prince and, since it was cold and rainy last night, I would say: “Fortune is smiling”.


Eve summons me to a tasty and nourishing breakfast! Adam has already taken his breakfast— served to him in bed by his lovely wife. This is the way the males of his class and in this part of the world expect to be treated. Not too bad for the men! The women are supposed to stay out of sight and direct or perform the domestic chores.


Eve reminds me of a pretty French doll that cooks—their reality, my interpretation.

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206. Taste of Riches

Back in Beirut: I thought I had seen the last of this city, but this time things are a little different. 

Adam’s house is modern in every way. It is built on a mountainside with a splendid view of the twinkling lights of the city.


Adam and Eve treat me like visiting royalty. Eve prepares a scrumptious meal of meat and eggplant seasoned with cloves, sweetened rice, salad and tea—after the meal I enjoy (REALLY enjoy!) a hot tub-bath with heaps of fluffy towels for drying; then silk (honestly!) pajamas robe and slippers. Oh, my! It has been a while since I was pampered like this—in fact, I have NEVER been pampered like this! Then I remember that the most elegant of elegant princes, Haraun al Rashid, was an Arab!!


When I am ready to join my hosts, Adam reads me some of his writing. It is rather flowery poetry in the traditional Arab style and its subject is mainly the “suffering of life”, but I honestly don’t see much evidence of suffering in this life-style! But if you think you’re suffering, you’re suffering.

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205. Guru

"Would you like to meet my guru?" he asks.

Guru? Well, I've never met a real, live guru before and I am following every adventurous lead that appears on this trip so I say: "Sure"

We drive on to Tripoli, park in front of a new apartment building, take an elevator to the third floor and I meet my first ever Guru.


This guru is a Moslem wearing a tan robe and a gray wool fez. He has very dramatic, piercing, black eyes accented by kohl-darkened lashes and a neatly trimmed black beard and moustache; he has a thick, muscular body and an imposing bearing. I would guess he is about 40 years old—fairly venerable for these rather short-lived middle-easterners.


The guru is presiding over a small group of men that sit motionless around a round glass-topped table. They hang on his every word and occasionally ask questions which he thoughtfully answers. They are all very serious.


Being totally ignorant of the language they are speaking, Arabic, I don’t understand a word the guru says, but I am very impressed by his dignity and the respect given him by his listeners. After an hour or so the guru pauses in his lecture and asks me, through Adam who acts as interpreter, if I wish to know more about the “Moslem Way”. I know almost nothing about their beliefs and this seems to be a good time to learn, so I say, “I would very much like to learn more about your Way.” He forthwith accepts me as a student and the eight or ten men in the room warmly welcome me as a fellow student in French, broken English and Arabic.


After a short discussion in Arabic between Adam and the guru, Adam tells me that I will stay in a guest room in the guru’s apartment and he says that the proper way to address the guru is “Sheikh” which is Arabic for “respected teacher”.


I ask about the fee for my instruction and I am informed that there will be no fee “…and if you wish to stay a hundred years it would be all right.” But for this first night I will return to Beirut with Adam to be his houseguest.

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204. The Puzzle

I am about two kilometers out of town when a car stops for me and, for a change, I accept the ride. I am not hitchhiking—just strolling along.

Inside the car are Adam, a Lebanese flight engineer and Eve, his French wife (my names for them). They treat me to a cheeseburger (no kidding!) in the beach town of Byblos while we discuss Life (in English).

Back in the car, Adam says he has a hobby. He likes to make little twisted wire puzzles. You know the kind-- where two pieces of heavy wire are entwined in such a way that they can be untangled if you know how to do it. Would I like to try to take his latest model apart?

Why not? But I know from experience as a kid, I'm usually not very good at this kind of puzzle

He hands the tangled wires to me over his shoulder as he drives.

I glance at the puzzle and immediately see how to work it—and slide the pieces apart.

"Tell me when you finish." he says.

I tap his shoulder and hand him back the two separate pieces of the puzzle and he almost runs off the highway!

"How did you do that?" he asks, "It's the most difficult puzzle I have ever designed. It would take an expert at least twenty minutes to solve it!"

I tell him that I'm usually very dumb about working that kind of puzzle, but in this case I could see how to do it immediately.

Like I said, it's THAT kind of a day.

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203, A Good Day

Backpacking north out of Beirut, I stop at a fruit stand on the outskirts of the city. The vendor picks out his best apple and gives it to me! He won’t accept payment!! 

I walk on feeling good.

A ragged woman in Palestinian costume, carrying a baby, asks me for alms. I refuse and then realize I have missed my chance to repay the apple kindness! Luckily, another woman carrying a baby soon appears and asks for money. I give her what I can and continue to walk feeling better and better. 

I pass a vegetable market and see some carrots. They look delicious. I think how good one would taste but want to save every penny I have. A few minutes later, there is a big fresh carrot for me lying beside the highway! 

It’s THAT kind of a day!

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202 The Medecine-bag

The Medicine-bag

The traveler fills his medicine-bag with
Objects magical and carries it close:

The photograph of the good time/mind/place;
The seed, which is a girl and a beach;
The pebble that preserves him from
Pickpockets, terrorists, border guards;
Murderers and bummers.
The patch from the beloved blue jeans,
Which finally disintegrated
In a nameless mountain town…


These things, laid out in solitude
In strange hotel rooms,
Glow with life, health and peace.
After contemplating them,
The traveler goes forth with spirit renewed.

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201 Beirut, Lebanon

Beirut, Lebanon

 I sleep at the Beirut YMCA. There is a letter for me at the American Express Office from my good parents. They have managed to keep track of me in spite of the weird mail service and my bizarre itinerary. It has been five months since I heard from anyone.


To avoid feeling alone and lonely, I concentrate on repairing my traveling gear. I wash and repair my clothes and fix a broken zipper on my backpack. I cook some nourishing food in the little common kitchen of the YMCA, finish reading “The White Nile”, watch some karate classes and think of what to do next. I decide to walk up the Mediterranean coast to Turkey, save the bus fare and maybe go on to Europe.


I have been thinking about some words I wrote once as a slogan for a naive “people’s movement” in Hawaii: “The Land Belongs to the People”!


How simple, trendy and stupid!


Now I see that people almost everywhere on this planet lay claim to every square inch of land they can reasonably expect to defend. They guard their land, their “nests” and whatever objects and animals they can collect with their lives. This behavior seems universal and instinctive: “human nature”.


The individual’s position in society seems relative to the amount of space he or she controls. The “control” may be velvet or iron, legal or outlaw—it exists and no vacuum of control is tolerated. 

Weak control is usurped by strong, which, weakening with time, is overcome by stronger. 

Ruins are built upon ruins while humans enjoy temporary satisfaction in the preposterous notion that they control their bit of the earth and their own destiny.


No, now I think the land does NOT belong to the people, or to the rulers of the people. The land “belongs” to itself. The earth exists momentarily. 

The life forms of the living earth co-exist, in or out of balance, as life continues to transform into life forever. 

(And forever is a very long time,) 

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200. Alone Again

Darkness falls softly. 

The mountains are lavender and the moon looks like a white hole in the sky. You can look through into another world. 

We slowly descend the trail.


In the hostel dining room there is ice cream with a German couple and a friendly dog. While we eat,
more shots from the Dead Sea direction. No one pays attention.


Breakfast: one boiled egg and yogurt. We hike to the three pools of “David’s Spring”. The lowest pool is useful for shampooing the hair, the middle pool makes a nice bathtub and the top pool is busily building itself a mineral-streaked cavern. There are no other humans to enjoy the cool waterfall drops raining on the fern at the mouth of the cave.


The afternoon bus goes back to Jerusalem. In the Jerusalem hostel we have sweet tea and gasoline-flavored bandy. I draw a portrait sketch of Sunny with her fuzzy red hair down. Tomorrow she is going Tel Aviv to find a kibbutz for the winter and I am going to recross the Jordan and on—earthprobing.


As I leave in the morning, Sunny says: “It’s hard to know what to do.”


I think about these words as I wait alone at the Jordan border with the crowds of poor Palestinians, as I ride alone to Amman and as the moon, always alone,  rises over the highway across the desert of Syria.

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199. Ain-Gedi Frog

Ain-Gedi Frog

In the morning we hitchhike a ride in a passing pick-up truck to Ain-Gedi, another kibbutz-hostel nearby.


After we install ourselves at the Ain-Gedi Hostel, we hike four miles up a dry gulch between mashed-off stone plateaus, across the remains of ancient irrigation canals into a deep, water-polished gorge when we suddenly hear shouts of laughter. Hidden by overhanging cliffs, a white cascade of pure water bursts from the tan rock and plunges into an emerald green pool. A frolicking gang of Israeli teenagers is just leaving as we arrive.


The pool is perhaps twenty by twenty feet long and wide and twelve feet deep under the fall. We have been left alone, so off go the clothes and into the refreshing, cool water we leap.


A little frog looks at me from a stone at the water’s edge and several fresh-water crabs lurk in the moss. Where did these creatures and the moss come from? Up this canyon from the Dead Sea ages ago before it died?

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198. World War Three

World War III

Later, back at the hostel, we hear gunshots from the direction of the Dead Sea. “That could be the start of World War Three” I quip. “That’s not very funny.” one of the kibbutzim replies and I very clearly see, for the first time, how very unfunny my remark was.


You know, I believe these bred-to-violence humans in this little patch of wasteland would fight each other with sticks and stones if only the weapons-producing nations of the world would stop the endless supply. 

Of course, money buys the weapons, so money is at the root of the problem again, as usual.


Still, doesn’t it seem a shame to draw the whole world into what is basically an ancient feud about some forgotten insult between rival desert tribesmen? 

(The black and white cat wants another fish from the ice-cream freezer.)

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197.Kibbutz Life

Kibbutz Life

Back at the hostel, two more busloads of Israeli young people in a very happy and festive mood have arrived. Sunny and I share a room with five of the kibbutzim and we ask them to tell us about their lifestyle.


Two young American kibbutzim say their kibbutzes are very large with 1500 adult workers and about 400 children being cared for in the kibbutz nurseries. Young women are encouraged to have lots of babies, (the girls call the kibbutz “a baby factory”). The natural mothers only care for their babies for a few weeks; as I understand, then go back to work while their offspring are raised in the nurseries where they are indoctrinated into life as an Israeli.


This is the only country I have visited that encourages women to have more babies and early child care is free as a matter of national security.


Each kibbutz has “members”, “guests” (not members but valued workers who are given better living quarters and refrigerators) and “part-time workers” like these Americans, who live in dormitories.


There is no “unemployment problem” in Israel. There is more than enough work for everyone.


But life in a kibbutz seems highly organized and restrictive. It doesn’t appeal at all to me—even for a short time, but Sunny wants to spend the winter in one for the experience.


Sunny and I take a midnight leisurely walk toward the Dead Sea shore but are intercepted by a searchlight-equipped tank filled with Israeli soldiers. The shore of the Dead Sea is off-limits to strollers at night.


A few lights are visible across the lake from Jordan.

196. Masada

Masada

Another bus takes us along the shoreline-- stopping to pick up several blond backpackers.


Everybody aboard the bus speaks English.


The bus goes up a dry brown hill to the Masada Youth Hostel where we leave our backpacks.


We want to visit the archaeological site of Masada, an old mesa-top fortress high above the hostel, so we hike to the top of the cliff on “Snake Path” to save the ticket price of the aerial tramway.


It’s an extremely hot hike. We envy the cool tourists as they pass overhead with a science-fiction whir in their elegant cable cars.


We are met at the summit by the usual machine-gun toting security guards, except these are uniformed girls. I have noticed that many of the army personnel here are women and I don’t know whether to salute or flirt. One thing for sure, these soldiers and weapons everywhere mean things are not good in this miserable desert.

The ancient fortress of Masada is now a very eroded heap of adobe ruins. The Romans knew a good military site when they found one though and they newly rebuilt most of the present ruins for their outpost. The mosaic floor of the Roman bathhouse has been nicely restored and there are traces of one of the oldest synagogues in the world and of a Christian church supposedly “built by monks in five A.D.”

An excellent and romantic view from the cliff-top is the interesting geological formation: “The Tongue of the Dead Sea”. 

Black birds sail far below us as the sun sets.

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