The Kaffiyeh

I traveled in Turkey, toured in Syria and Jordan, and now, briefly, live in Egypt.

And that perhaps is why I found the Turks so sweet. In Turkey, I traveled mainly in the provinces and outside of Istanbul, did not find myself in places frequented by western tourists, and on the buses and vans that Turks of little and modest and moderate means use.

It was both practicalities and my fear of Syria which first caused this change in how I moved from place to place, but now having passed through those lands, I will do it differently when I return. In all these places I have found kind people, but the more I toured, the more I dealt with people who survived--sometimes poorly, sometimes handsomely--from their business with tourist. That's a love-hate relationship, and one can feel the envy and contempt some feel for the affluent guests upon whose business they depend and whose naivety they sometimes exploit.

The further south I've come, the more I have become an object to the touts and shop owners.

It was this way in Istanbul, as well, and that is one of the reasons, perhaps, why I felt such a sense of relief when the bus I had boarded in the outskirts of Istanbul had traveled north some half hour toward the provincial capital of Edirne.

Three weeks later, in Syria, I traveled by private car to Palmyra. It's in the southwestern desert, on an oasis, and for a while the route follows the same highway that takes you to Iraq. For several centuries in the Common Era (ie: AD) it was the most prosperous and influential city in region south of Anatolia and north of Egypt. Then, Syria had been one of the principle cultural and economic centers of the Hellenistic world, odd given its location in the desert and without any notable rivers nearby. But for reasons relating to forces of the time, its fortunes grew so great that at one time, its queen, Zenobia, challenged Rome for dominance of the empire. Well, Rome crushed it, and that's one reason why Palmyra is a ruin now.

Specifically, its interest to me was that Palmyra was an Arab kingdom, like the Nabateans famous for the widely visited ruins at Petra in Jordan, and so in some mainly indirect ways anticipate the consolidation of the Arab tribes under the prophet Muhammad.

Now, when your hotel in Syria or Jordan arranges a "tour," what this means is that you'll be provided a car and a driver who knows where all the sites are but doesn't speak much English.
My driver, Ahmed, was the first good driver I'd encountered in Turkey or Syria, and he was a decent, conscientious man, who, by the way, looked a lot more German than Arabic. The plan was for him to drop me at the ruins and then rendezvous two, three, fours hours later as I walked the site. He told me to meet him in the cafeteria. This was communicated mainly by hand gestures, nods, and the world "cafeteria." Well, I took cafeteria to mean the sort of cafes or restaurants museums and important archaeological places have on-site. It meant to him the place we stopped to have coffee in the town that had grown around the edge of the ruins.

What this meant was three hot hours later of walking through the ruins on a day that was unexpectedly hot, bag heavy on my back, drinking the last of my bottled water, out in the friggin' desert with nothing but lizards and, oh yeah, the bus load of Italian tourists, some of the women in high heels--well, they were out for fun but I was dying of heat stroke. I exaggerate. The point is three hours was long enough and I wanted to get back to the car and rest for a while and have something to eat and get out of the sun. But, guess what, I couldn't find the cafeteria. I walked to one edge of the ruins with a likely looking building, but it was a restaurant in construction. I headed to the other end. I asked someone where the cafeteria was, but he spoke no English and I spoke no Arabic. I passed a threesome of Italians, very stylishly dressed, and appropriately for the desert heat, but they were just interested in the dolce vida and weren't interested in panting, hatless American strewn in sweat and dressed without a hint of panache.

I headed, this was the second time, for the compound just the the left of the Temple of Ba'al when a Bedouin asked me if I wanted to ride a camel.

"No," I shook my head. "Not today."

His comeback was immediate: "When? Next lifetime?"

I laughed. "Yes. Next lifetime."

He persisted for a while, but I left him behind to go in search of the missing cafeteria. But then he was at my side again talking about the camel. I did not want to ride a camel, I said, but could he tell me where the cafeteria was?

"Cafeteria?" I think the word was not quite right for him, but, he was entreprenuerial, so it was close enough. "Yes. There is only one cafeteria. It's right here." And he led me on.

Yeah, led me on in every sense of the phrase. I knew right away this was not the spot. The driver was not to be seen, nor his car. Nor any other car. It didn't feel like the spot. I don't think, in those gestures and nods and the carefully chosen "cafeteria" he meant this place. Not such a bad place, set as it was in the edge of the oasis. Immediately, I felt the coolness, and though I knew this was not the place on rendezvous, I needed to take the pack off my back and sit for a while. Three others were in the "cafeteria," which was just a modest structure with a couple of rooms. One of these others got me a Coke, and I set, the only patron in a place with seating for 75, and they looked at me, sizing me up. The one who brought me here pulled out a clutch of necklaces. Oh crap. That crap again. Wouldn't my wife like this one, he asked. He'd give me a special price if I bought two. Only one caught my eye, and I was ready to let it pass until some of those Italians passed by. Apparently there was a more interior part of this cafeteria and they had been there eating. The Italian woman wanted the necklace that had caught my eye. She held it to her check, examined it in her hands. Her husband pulled out a wad of cash. She stroked the brown and white pieces of necklace. It was made of camel bone and something else, and now that she wanted it and her husband had pulled out the wad of cash, I wanted it. He offered them the same sort of deal, I gathered, and she lingered, but her husband walked away, and the necklace stayed at the table with the junk jewelry the Bedouin told me could not be found any where else (I'd seen dozens in Aleppo).

But where was the driver. Oh, they'd find him for me. The one sneered at the idea of a driver who could speak no English and yet was touring them around Syria. He told me how cheaply he could take me into desert by camel back for one or two nights and eat authentic Bedouin food under the stars, and, anyway, wouldn't I like two or three of these necklaces, and wasn't I hungry.

But until I knew where my driver was, I didn't want to eat or buy anything. The Bedouin told one of the others to go on the motorcycle and track down my driver.

I felt better after the Coke and in the shade of the oasis and with the bag off my back. I looked at the camel-bone necklace and asked how much. He wanted to sell me several, but I was only interested in the one. He was asking high, and I was offering low, when one of his friends came to the table with a kaffiyeh and headband. I nodded "no," but could not suppress the smile. They insisted, just for fun, they said, try it on. They folded it just right and settled it on my head, placing the black band over it, the one saying that in the past the bands had been made of camel hair. They pulled one corner to the other side of the band, tucking it in just right, and other corner to the opposite side of the band, all the while, irresistibly, the theme from 'Lawrence of Arabia" filling my head. And my smile just grew and grew. I couldn't help it. The romance of the head scarf, the fantasy and romance were just to great. David of Arabia.

And then the one had an idea. I should get on a camel and he'd take a picture with my camera. I said no with the coyness of a prostitute, the camel was fetched, I mounted it, they trotted me around a few feet back and forth like a toddler at the fair given a pony ride. And I felt as thrilled as a toddler in a cowboy suit.

I reluctantly dismounted after a couple of minutes, alternating in my desires between the three-year-old and fifty-three year old David. That three-year-old wanted to wear the kaffiyeh forever, but the 53-year-old wouldn't have it. But, feeling better, I asked what it would be for the necklace and the kaffiyeh, yes, over paying somewhat. That settled, the Bedouin added, "And my friends wants 10 pounds."

"What for?"

"The camel ride. Ten pounds." That's about $20.

I was stunned. And I was angry. To my thinking, there had been no deal. The ride, I'd thought, had been a friendly gesture, like the tea they offered, saying it was a Bedouin custom of hospitality. But I ended up paying for the tea, as well.

But I had just been a mark, a bank, and they just needed to wiggle me right to make a few coins slip out of the slot on the back of the piggy bank.

I tossed the 10-note on the table. And the Bedouin and I talked a little more about a two-day trek into the desert. It's something I would have done. And I nodded when he complained that people the hotels in the cities that arrange the tours take business away from Bedouin like himself, whom, he said, have much more to offer. And yet, though $20 is only $20, and though the Bedouin have given life to some rich romance of the exotic, I knew I had been scalped, if only a little, but no one likes to be a mark, and that I would never let pass another coin between him and me.

Yet, having been scalped, at least I had a kaffiyeh to cover it.