My friend Bowman came to Washington for New Years. It was then that he gifted me a keffiyeh in advance of my Middle Eastern adventures. Keffiyehs are a very practical arid climate headdress worm to protect the head from direct sun exposure. I was excited, less so because it was a gift from a distant land but rather because it was one of the few Arabic words I knew.
In anticipation of my trip, I spent some time each evening with my roommates attempting to master the art of keffiyeh tying. Originally, I used Bowman’s written instructions, but soon realized I couldn’t wrap my head around his foreign instructions (or rather wrap it around my head). So I turned to youtube and futilely attempted to use instructional keffiyeh tying videos. When I had exhausted all of my options, I decided that it would be best to learn to tie a keffiyeh while in the Middle East, for authenticity’s sake.
Well, my keffiyeh emerged as soon as I touched down in Jordan. Everyone else, including Val, had this tying mastered. I haven’t felt this uncoordinated since trying to keep up with the clay pottery lesson in elementary school art class. My head looked more like it was balancing a bunched up picnic blanket that sporting a secured keffiyeh.
One evening, our tour master Bowman, took us on a camping adventure with the Bedouins. We went to Wadi Rum, traveling deep into the heart of this beautiful desert. I was Lawrence of Arabia, or at least pretended to be. It was here where I met my Arabic counterpart. I instantly befriended the Bedouin with braces.
Due to the language barrier, I used a translator to inform my new friend that I wanted to take a picture of the two of us with our braces. I’m not sure what was translated; when I saw the pictures when I returned to America, I realized he hadn't smiled. I couldn't see his braces. I had been boondoggled! I guess I can’t complain too much, he did end up fixing my swaddled heap, turning my keffino into a keffiyeh.
No comments:
Post a Comment