Why leaving the country with strangers can be a good thing

So the whole reason I started this thing in the first places was to write about a trip that I have yet to write about. This was a two-day turned week + long trip through Palestine and Israel. It was the type of journey I love to read about—random, full of bizarre characters that say things like “what if the whole world was covered in corduroy?”, beautiful views of interesting places, and a dark and complex layer of human hopes and intentions crushed up against the reality that is border politics and this strange thing we call sovereignty. Like many of the best decisions of my life, it came about as a bit of a whim.

Two Thursdays ago I set out in the morning with a backpack packed for two days, intending to be back in Amman by Saturday night and up and at work on Sunday. Luckily, I am a chronic over-packer, so for just two days I packed four pairs of underpants, four shirts, two skirts, a pair of pants, and three pairs of shoes. I know…that’s more shoes than days I was going to be gone, and DEFINITELY more shoes than I have feet to accommodate.

I definitely agonized over the extra clothes; however, I was traveling through the Middle East in June, I justified to myself. I would easily sweat through at least one outfit a day and want something fresh to put on at night. A bit overkill for two days, but it turned out to be just right. The one thing I didn’t think to pack was my phone charger. Because that just would have been too much.

I had made plans to meet my travel buddy at the bus station at 8:00 a.m. sharp. My taxi driver turned out to be quite friendly, and although he seemed to feel obligated to try to convince me to take a “special taxi” to the border, when I firmly insisted on taking the bus, he gave in quickly, and was happy to point out which bus I should get on. After being swarmed by taxi drivers who weren’t so easily convinced that I really wanted to take the bus, Ethan pulled up in a taxi, fought off his swarm of taxi drivers, and joined me on the bus.

For those of you wondering who Ethan is, you and I were at about the same level of understanding at this point. I had met Ethan two days before when he showed up at the FoEME office with the very straightforward agenda of finding out who the hell we were and what the hell we were doing. Abdel, my supervisor, was happy to welcome Ethan to the office, pack him into the car with the rest of us, and drive us out to FoEME’s pilot project eco-park for us all to get a better idea of what the hell we were doing. On our way back, Ethan mentioned that he was heading to Palestine, and I—two weeks in and frantic to get out of Amman and take a break from my slightly overbearing roommate–turned around and said, (probably in a desperate tone of voice) Can I come with you?

It makes me proud to be the type of person who will wander into to a foreign country with a complete stranger. How’s that for a strange little glimpse into my psyche?

A few words about Ethan: Hindsights of first impressions amuse me, especially regarding people I end up spending a substantial amount of time with. This principal applied to Ethan. When he first showed up at the office, we had a pleasant but vague chat about interests, work and education experience and goals that is the student/young professional equivalent of sizing each other up. I initially found him, as I later learned most people find him: intense. He was wound up with tight knots of energy, and he spoke in rapid spurts of impressively strung together, grammatically correct sentences laced with the kind of words you find in SAT prep materials. He generally managed to speak without sounding pretentious though, and although he occasionally bordered on pedantic I didn’t dislike him. I don’t think I spoke to him one on one for the rest of the day until I asked to accompany him to Palestine, so my impression of him remained superficial. I do believe quite strongly in intuition though, and I must have been getting a positive enough reading of whatever vibe he was throwing down to suggest that we hang out transboundary.

That said, I did not really know what kind of travel companion I had signed up with, and it was with some apprehension that I bordered the bus—not for any good reason such as concern for my security in one of the most contested lands in the world, but because I was fleeing the tyranny of the constant companionship of the overly kind roommate I unwittingly chose to live with, and for all I knew it was a classic case of out of the frying pan into the fire.

My worries were soon dispelled. Although I don’t remember the specific topics of conversation, we were soon chatting away easily enough, and by the time we reached the border crossing we were deep into an analytical discussion about the ramifications of theoretical research and rhetorical frameworks on society and the roots of the socio-economic and environmental disasters that human kind must face. We both toggled easily between intellectual sparring, casual small talk and shared observations of where we were and what we were experiencing—a pattern that helped make the challenge of travelling a short but heavily protected piece of land all the more palatable.

Which brings me back to the actual trip: several of you have asked me if the border crossing was difficult—I don’t quite know how to answer that question. The answer depends on many factors such as who you are, where you come from, and what you consider difficult. As an American, I was more or less waved through most points; this is of course not the case for everyone. One thing that is a bit difficult is the sheer number of checkpoints one must go through to cross the border. I simply don’t remember how many times I got off a bus, showed someone my passport, explained where I was going, where I was from, got back on a bus, rode twenty meters, got off a bus, and did the whole thing over again. If the first one didn’t catch me, the eighth one would. At least that seemed to be the idea.

Leaving Jordan was simple enough; we got off of the bus, and as we were standing there open-mouthed gaping like the tourists we were, a man in military uniform came up to us, demanded our passports, and then proceeded to usher us straight through the station; past the security check, the baggage scan, and all the lines. He walked us through, showed us the bus we should get on to get across the two miles of no-man’s land, gave us our passports back and wished us a good day.

Well, that was easy, we commented to each other. Too easy it turned out. As we were sitting on the bus that the man had so kindly pointed out, another man came through checking documents. He was not interested in the bus tickets we procured along with our passports though, and demanded to see proof of payment. Payment of what? we inquired nervously—why the exit tax of course. Our friend at the entrance seemed to have forgotten all that in his attempt to help us through easily (why we’ll never know), and we were ushered off the bus and into an office, where we waited in line at three separate counters to have documents stamped, paid for, stamped again, looked over suspiciously, and handed back to us. Then it was back on the bus, and away we went to the fun that is entering Palestine, or as the border patrol likes to call it: Israel.

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