I attacked a Bedouin

I got into my very first physical fight ever last night. It wasn’t really a fight I attacked a man, a Bedouin man in Petra.

But let’s start a little earlier.

I arrived in Amman, the capital of Jordan, every interior stinks of stale smoke, my hostel duvet feels like it’s stuffed with lumps of sawdust held together with rat shit, whiney music blares constantly, it’s loud, it’s hot, it’s smelly and I love it. There is no where in the world I’d rather be than right here.

I have signed up for a month of Arabic lessons, but classes don’t start until the 18th of April, so I have a couple of weeks to explore. I’m going to see if I can arrange a home stay while I study, it will probably help to learn Arabic faster.

2 nights ago, with 2 lovely Australians from my hostel I got a bus 4 hours south to Petra. Petra is one of those ‘must see’ places, so why not. My plan was arrive, see Petra, one night in a hostel, a package overnight tour to Bedouin camp in Wadi Rum, and then back up to Amman. The Australians decided to go there and back in one day. Crazy.

Petra is magnificent. I got chatting to a local guy called Lost. He was cool, he showed me around, introduced me to his cousins, we smoked apple shisha (apple tobacco though a water pipe) I rode his mule (not a euphemism), He invited me to spend a night in his cave, I’m sure as hell not turing that offer down. I went back to my hostel that night and promised to meet him in his village the next day.

He has a cave in Petra, and he also has a house in a village next to Petra. The village is full of his family. An aunt can be either an aunt, or another wife of his father, and the children of the father’s other wives are sometimes called cousins, sometimes brothers and sisters, so everyone was an aunt, uncle, cousin, brother or sister.

I met him the next day, and he took me back into Petra. I learned that when descending a steep rocky cliff on the back of a mule my swear words of choice are “holy shit buckets”.

We spent the day hanging out with his friends and cousins, he took me to a natural spring where we had a picnic with yet another cousin and his ridiculously pretty French girlfriend. In the evening we watched the sunset over Little Petra while one of his cousins cooked an amazing meal of chicken and vegetables on the fire coals.

Here is where I went wrong:
1. I kissed him
2. I brought him a gift of whiskey.

In my defense:
1. he’s hot.
2. from all accounts he and his friends were regular drinkers, he had lived in the Czech Republic for 3 years (with a girlfriend), travelled to places like Germany, Italy & Thailand. So it’s not like I was corrupting a totally innocent Muslim man with my terrible western ways.

Turns out the cousins/friends we were hanging out with last night didn’t drink, so Lost got stuck into the bottle himself. And as he got drunk he became a bit of a dick “why do you go back to Amman? It is because you don’t like me.” I told him to stop drinking, but I didn’t take the bottle away from him (I should have, but it was a gift, he’s an adult, I’m not his babysitter).

He didn’t eat the amazing meal his cousin prepared, and he kept drinking and went from being a dick to being an arsehole. I said, “I’m not staying in your cave tonight because I don’t like you when you are drunk, I will pick up my bag from your house and go to a hotel tonight.”

I was upset and disappointed.

His cousins/friends dropped us back at Lost’s house where I had left my bag. Now it was just the two of us, he was steamin’. I went in, used the toilet, and grabbed my bag to leave. It was about 8.30pm, We where in the lounge which opened out to an open balcony area on the 2nd floor of his house.

He blocked the door with his body, I asked him to move, he wouldn’t, I asked him to move again, he wouldn’t, he started to grab me. With my left hand I slammed his head into the doorframe by his neck, I kept my left hand grasped firmly around his neck. I was still on the inside of the room, he (understandably) tried to lunge at me. With my right hand I grabbed his balls and squeezed hard, he made squeaking noises though his restricted airway. In this position, with him pinned to the doorframe I got out the door, released him and started to head for the stairs.

He grabbed my hand. He is bigger and stronger than me, but he was really drunk and unstable. When I was about 14 years old (over 20 years ago) I had done a self defense course, up until last night I had never used anything from it. I used my free hand to grab my trapped hand by pulling it through the weakest point in his grip, the gap between the thumb and fingers.

Then I ran down the stairs and into the street. Predictably within 20 metres there were a bunch of guys hanging out. I stopped amongst them, teary, angry, out of breath and full of adrenaline. One said “Problem?” I nodded. Lost appeared on the street. “Did he hurt you?” “No, I hurt him, he’s angry, he is also drunk.” “Ok, we take you away, anywhere you want to go.”

I stayed the night in the village with one of Lost’s cousins, he drove me to the bus stop the next morning. I’m glad I did not go back into the town, there is already a bit of animosity between the towns people and the Bedouin, I did not want give the wrong idea about Bedouin people because on the the whole they are warm, welcoming, kind, and open. Just don’t add alcohol.

So much for keeping the blog concise.

Before you sympathise with me remember: I followed a stranger and his friends into the desert and I gave him whiskey, when it became apparent he was not a good drinker I did not tip out the whiskey, and although I was surrounded by very lovely, helpful sober people I did not ask one of them to escort me inside while I grabbed my bag.

And before you chastise me remember: I am always surrounded by people here, I’m never more than a scream away from assistance. Sure it was dumb, I promise I’ll reign it in and be more careful.

I would promise that I”m not going to hand out any more whiskey to local Arabs, but I still have 2 small bottles of duty free whisky in my bag for gifts or trade.