Thursday, January 9, 2020

Petra's Author



By Margaret S. Hamilton




When we visited Petra, a UNESCO world heritage site in southwest Jordan, our guide introduced me to a jewelry vendor, Marguerite van Geldermalsen. She was born in New Zealand to Dutch parents, married Mohammad Abdallah in 1979, and lived with him in a cave on the Petra site until 1985, when the Petra Bedouin were resettled in nearby government housing. She learned Arabic, converted to Islam, and gave birth to three children.




After the death of her husband in 2002, Marguerite and her children lived in Sydney, Australia, during which she wrote and published a memoir, Married to a Bedouin, about her life in the Bedouin community. She is now back in Petra, employing local women to make exquisite silver jewelry. Her memoir has been translated into more than ten languages, and is available in her jewelry stall.




“It was as Mohammad guided us singing through rocky, oleander-crowded canyons that I fell in love with him. Why I hadn’t noticed his quick, eye-crinkling smile the day we met I don’t know, but I noticed it now. I loved his simply confident, fun-filled manner. He lit our cigarettes, and gave us a hand up, and had other gentlemanly habits which I would have scorned as a liberated woman in New Zealand, but which appealed to me now. He fixed his red and white mendeel, throwing the knotted ends up over his head into an exotic Bedouin turban, and flashed me a smile.” (p.29)




Marguerite is crisp and professional, happy to sign a book before she returns to selling jewelry. In her memoir, her narrative voice is tender, her humor wry, as she describes her nursing job and huge extended family. She writes short chapters detailing the intricacies of cooking shraak, or flat bread, preparing vegetable soup, and washing clothes in a stream. Wedding celebrations are multiple day events with horse races, rifle shooting, and goats boiled in yoghurt.


The "Treasury"


“The path wound along the dry riverbed in the shade of gigantic oleanders. There were usually others on their way to the spring. A young man playing a tin flute might be going to check his father’s olive tree garden; a goatherd might be leading her goats down for a drink. There were always children on their way to get water, racing their donkeys for the fun of it. Their shouts were music, their bouncing jerry-cans drums, and the whole scene echoing off the mountainsides was intoxicating.” (p.83).



 Petra is a vast area of rose-colored sandstone, with many tombs and temples carved into the cliffs (200 BC), the most famous of which is Al Khazheh, or the “Treasury”, featured in the Indiana Jones movie The Last Crusade. Petra was the capital of the Nabatean Kingdom of nomads who made it a thriving trading hub of 20,000 people. The Nabateans specialized in harvesting rainwater (and piping it throughout the city), agriculture, and stone carving. It accommodated large caravans of camels traveling the route from Arabia to Damascus.

The "Monastery"


Before she moved from Australia back to Petra, Marguerite wrote:



“The Bedouin have settled in to Umm Sayhoon, but by day they inhabit the ruins of Petra. They bring them back to life—using donkeys to take tourists to the High Place and the Monastery, camels to get them to Wadi Sabra and Jabal Haroon, and almost any means at all to get them into the shade for a glass of mint tea. And, if there’s one happening, they invited them with typical enthusiastic hospitality back to up to their village for a Bedouin Wedding. But I wasn’t in Petra for the mountains or the history—nor even for the culture. Without Mohammad to hold me I am no longer married to a Bedouin and, despite all the things we have accumulated, I have become a nomad once again.” (p. 276)




Readers and writers, have you visited Petra or lived in a similar isolated community without plumbing or electricity?



Married to a Bedouin, Marguerite van Geldermalsen, London: Virago Press, 2006



Marguerite's jewelry designs, Petra Pieces, are not displayed on-line. Learn more on her Petra Pieces Facebook site.





Photos: Margaret Hamilton Turkevich and Leonid A. Turkevich

12 comments:

  1. Sounds like the trip of a lifetime. I have never been to that corner of the world, on the bucket list!

    My great-grandfather's farm in upstate New York was without electricity or running water - there was a hand pump in the kitchen. I was five or six when he sold the farm, but the amenities were unique enough that I still remember them, and traveling by horse drawn sleigh at Christmas - that was a treat for the kids - he had a Model T for daily use. His first and only car.

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  2. Horse drawn sleigh? The best kind of memory.

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  3. Thanks so much for this lovely cyber trip! That was great!! I'm so glad you got to do this, and that I did, too, vicariously. The pictures are outstanding.

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  4. After we had lunch on-site, my husband announced that he wanted to climb the 900 steps to the "Monastery" and other high places. I gave him the tour guide's cell phone number, my cellphone for photos, and two water bottles. Those pix are his.

    I stayed at ground level, took arty pix of the rocks and camels, and visited the museum at the entrance.

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  5. On the trip, I conquered my fear of heights enough to climb up the Great Pyramid to the entrance which led to the interior tomb, and take a balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings in a basket for 14 people. But sharing 900 steps with donkeys? I know my limitations.

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  6. What an adventure! Thanks for sharing it with us. Especially the pictures.

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  7. I'm VERY impressed. I have an acute fear of heights and don't know if I would venture a balloon ride. I can envision me being a sweating blob of trembling jelly for the whole trip.

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  8. Kaye, the balloon ride was very serene. We were packed into different compartments, 4 to a compartment, balanced for weight. The air currents were NOT with us, so we didn't ascend very high, nor did we go very fast. It was quiet, except when the operator pulled the propane lever (we wore hats to protect our heads from the heat). We ascended just as dawn broke. Our descent to a rubble strewn piece of desert was equally gentle. A crew waited for us and held the basket while we climbed over the side. We were back at our Nile cruise boat in time for a late breakfast.

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  9. Hmm, you might just convince me! Thanks.

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  10. What amazing photographs, and what a trip!

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  11. My husband and I visited Petra in 2016. It was absolutely outstanding and a place I had always dreamed of visiting. Unfortunately we only had a few hours there, so I definitely want to go back there. My first glimpse of it at the entrance actually brought tears to my eyes.

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