On Friday, a big group of us went to Jerash to see the ruins as well as the music festival which is held every year. I had heard a lot of great things and was very surprised to see that our group appeared to be the only Westerners at the festival that night.
In my past experiences at not only Jerash, but also at Palmyra in Syria and Volubis in Morocco, Roman ruins in the Middle East tend to be fairly dead during the summer tourist season. The highlight of the festival for me was seeing Jerash come to life much like it must have appeared in Roman times. There were a lot of food vendors and shops set up throughout the forum as well as people milling around the central square. The faux Roman soldiers might have also added to this ambiance (see below).
As for the music, my favorite "act" was a man singing traditional songs in the square which led to a lot of dabke. Dabke is the traditional dance found in the Levant which varies a little by country. In Jordan, for instance, dancers use their legs a lot more than they do in Syria which has a lot more arm movements. Dabke usually starts as a train with dancers improvising off of one another and following the rhythm set by the first participants. Women sometimes dabke (often in private at weddings) so long as they are holding onto the hands of relatives and not unknown men. None of us girls did dabke in public which was only men, but two male friends really got into it and we think there might be a video of them somewhere on youtube.
Having mainly traveled with my sister and other girls in the Middle East, it was a new experience for me to travel with American guys and see the kind of interactions they are able to have with Jordanian men--especially taxi drivers, shop keepers, even random shebab (male youth) on the street--that I, as a foreign woman, really cannot have.
In my past experiences at not only Jerash, but also at Palmyra in Syria and Volubis in Morocco, Roman ruins in the Middle East tend to be fairly dead during the summer tourist season. The highlight of the festival for me was seeing Jerash come to life much like it must have appeared in Roman times. There were a lot of food vendors and shops set up throughout the forum as well as people milling around the central square. The faux Roman soldiers might have also added to this ambiance (see below).
As for the music, my favorite "act" was a man singing traditional songs in the square which led to a lot of dabke. Dabke is the traditional dance found in the Levant which varies a little by country. In Jordan, for instance, dancers use their legs a lot more than they do in Syria which has a lot more arm movements. Dabke usually starts as a train with dancers improvising off of one another and following the rhythm set by the first participants. Women sometimes dabke (often in private at weddings) so long as they are holding onto the hands of relatives and not unknown men. None of us girls did dabke in public which was only men, but two male friends really got into it and we think there might be a video of them somewhere on youtube.
Having mainly traveled with my sister and other girls in the Middle East, it was a new experience for me to travel with American guys and see the kind of interactions they are able to have with Jordanian men--especially taxi drivers, shop keepers, even random shebab (male youth) on the street--that I, as a foreign woman, really cannot have.
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| Katie and Ari at Hadrian's Gate |
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| Arabic graffiti carved into the stone |
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| Hiding from the sun |
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| Trying to figure out what the random stone were for--milling? torture? |
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| The ever present sponsors of the festival |
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| Identification for one of the many shops set up along the forum |
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| This creative shop owner just used his pants |
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| People! Walking through the forum |
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| One of the main buildings in the ruins |
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| Katie and I near the North Gate |
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| North gate from afar--it's a really well preserved site |
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| Stars above the entry to the North Amphitheater |
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| Watching festival set up in the North Amphitheater |
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| Katie and Ari Testing out the acoustics in the North Amphitheater (singing "American Pie") |
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| Add caption |
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| Church ruins with the South Amphitheater in the back |
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| Main square--Jerash is located in the hillier region of Jordan |
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| Totally safe--climbing on the main temple ruins |
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| Main square full of people and a stage |
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| Authentic? |
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| I was slightly intimidated by their really short skirts |
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| Katie wasn't! |
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| Something tells me the four on the left are not official soldiers |
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| Everything was a spectacle |
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| the Jordanian Ray Charles |
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| Ari and Morgan starting Debke |
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| Then an iPad gets whipped out and a Gulfi tourist (?) starts filming |
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| Morgan doing dabke (with his backpack on!) |
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| They were quite a hit--there were a lot of hugs and pictures afterwards |
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| Choir act in the North Amphitheater |
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| Lots of clapping and some attempted dabke limited by the steep stairs |
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