How Long the Lonely Road

I know I want to sing So I know I can. —Kyp Malone Why did I write two songs about Egypt? O Reader, I had plenty of time. My Eid Goat Christmas brings a great deal to television, in themes and movies and commercial bumpers. The Mohammedan festival of Id al-Adha is no different. The bumper, a 3D cartoon, begins with a nervous looking sheep. A butcher’s cleaver falls from off screen just next to the beast’s head, who then collapses on his side in an expanding pool of blood. This similarly themed song is set to the tune of that classic nursery school rhyme, My Highland Goat. The notes at the end of each line are for the kids singing along—it is, after all, a childrens’ song. Oh my Eid goat (e-oat-e-oat-e-oat) Was feeling fine (e-ine-e-ine-e-ine) Until he saw (e-aw-e-aw-e-aw) What's on my mind (e-ind-e-ind-e-ind) It’s time for Eid (e-eid-e-eid-e-eid) The crowd grew nigh (e-eye-e-eye-e-eye) Out in the street (e-eet-e-eet-e-eet) That goat must die (e-eye-e-eye-e-eye) They took my goat (e...

So goodbye, so long, the road calls me dear, And your tears cannot bind me anymore, And farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes— Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone. —Tom Waits, “Old Shoes” I met Amelia at the House of Peace after returning from Hebron, and we caught a 6:30 bus to Haifa, a peninsular town on the coast north of Tel Aviv. While we waited at the train station for our CouchSurfing host, Amelia found a packet of Tim Tams, the Australian Oreo, two wafers around light cream and coated in chocolate. Once someone asked her what cuisine Australia produced, and the only things she could name were kangaroo steaks and Tim Tams. (Vegemite is a Kraft product that found a market in Oz when Americans turned it down.) She reprimanded me for thinking to eat them with cold milk. The Australians follow the British in calling their cookies biscuits and in eating the treats with tea or coffee. Tim Tams go especially well with the latter: bite off a pair of opposite corners and y...

When he first started, the roar of the world he had left still rang in his ears, as the roar of a tunnel rings a little after the train has passed through. But when he had put the Mutteeanee Pass behind him that was all done, and Purun Baghat was alone with himself, walking, wondering, and thinking, his eyes on the ground, and his thoughts with the clouds. —Rudyard Kipling As I read it several times , and it formed the core of the site's romance and my interest in it, and, on reaching it, the foundation of my awed perception, here follows for assigned reading T.E. Lawrence's depiction of the Walls of Rumm, which turned that Arabian formation into a Western tourist destination. "We were riding for Rumm, the northern water of the Beni Atiyeh: A place which stirred my thought, as even the unsentimental Howei-tat had told me it was lovely. The morrow would be new with our entry to it: but very early, while the stars were yet shining, I was roused by Aid, the humble Harithi She...

I don't want to go in the fire, I just want to stay in my home; I don't want to hear all the liars, I just want to be with my own. —The Dodos Merry Thanksgiving, O avid reader , and forgive this one his lack of haste in telling an unhasty tale. Here we cover the country on the River Jordan, up to the Walls of Rum, though since the conclusion of this chapter I have passed on across the Red Sea to the beaches and reefs of Noweiba and Dahab. On the 23rd my friends and I came to Cairo, and I am one of the few Americans who on Thanksgiving visited the Post Office and the Pyramids. The street carts serve yams, and though the restaurants lack turkey, they roast chickens and pigeons. Tomorrow is Eid, and the streets will flow with the blood of Mohammedan sacrifices. However strange your family may be, this is well stranger. I had arranged to meet the Aussie girls, Kate and Amelia, plus Jean and Keith in Amman on the 23rd of October for Kate's birthday, and that morning woke up in D...