download the pdf.

The Bedouin Heritage project was recently featured in an article by Country Life Magazine of London, UK.

The popular magazine’s cover story on Jordan highlighted the photographic work of BHP intern, Paola Biondi. A half page article by Susannah Glynn emphasizes the importance of the Bedu Culture and highlights steps BHP is taking to help safeguard this intangible heritage. Co-founder and project manager for the BHP, Mark Abouzeid explains:

‘There is so much knowledge bound up in Bedu oral traditions. The Bedu of Petra and Wadi Rum, Jordan, for example, have preserved specific knowledge related to the flora and fauna of the area, traditional medicine, camel husbandry, craftsmanship, and tracking and climbing skills. As well as wanting to preserve this heritage, there is also so much the modern world could learn from ancient knowledge distilled through the generations.’

For a copy of the article in its entirety, click here…

Abouzeid made two presentations, one to the 9th and 10th grades and another to the 6th and 7th grades.

“I was quite impressed with these children…they were truly interested and asked very insightful questions.  It was especially heart warming to have one 6th grade girl ask me how she could follow a career that would let her be involved in such work.”  Mark Abouzeid

For the past two years, members of BHP have made themselves available to schools as a means of creating greater tolerance of other cultures and an understanding that while cultures may be different, humanity is the same for all of us.  “We all want a career, a family, happiness, love and success.  We all tell stories from our past and, thankfully, we all are able to laugh.”

For information on having BHP visit your school, please contact abouzeid@bedouinheritage.org

“Giordania, sulle tracce dei beduini” (“Jordan, on the tracks of the bedouin”).

A series of pictures shot during a visit to the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan in July of 2009 as part of the Bedouin Heritage Project to document bedouin traditions, past and present.

Sala Espositiva del Comune, Palazzo Pretorio, Sansepolcro (AR), Toscana. February 19-28, 2010.

The Wadi Rum Marathon is an endurance horse race through the desert’s surrounding the Wadi Rum Protected Zone. The event was reborn thanks to the contribution of Sheik Al-Maktoum of the Emirates and has been essential in recreating the horse culture of local bedouin. This year’s race was a qualifying event for international competition and covered 80km in total over three heats.

While Al-Maktoum was not in attendance this year, dignataries from Jordan and around the world were present to cheer on the riders and horses, alike.  Governed by an international community of animal rights specialists, controls are made at regular interviews ensuring the horses are coping well with the often difficult conditions.  Any horse not found to be in perfect health is disqualified imediately and checks were conducted between every heat.

Commencing at 6am and finishing by noon, the race is a perfect excuse for admiring the changing light and temperature of the late fall desert.

A bedouin herding his camels.

Sabbah is breeding camels, in addition to his activity as a tourist guide.

He first tried to keep camels in the village, close to his house, but that didn’t allow him to set up a real herd. So he had to keep them in a fence, on the outskirts of the village, down Jebel Rum. There, the herd could grow and the camels could go out in the desert every day, coming back to their fence every night.

I was heading with him to the camel fence on a November afternoon. They were out in the desert and Sabbah had to bring them back for the night. Driving the jeep, he started to tell me why he was breeding camels.

“You know, he said, I now have three mothers with babies and another pregnant female that will give birth during the winter. If I sell the young males and buy another female or a pregnant mother, the herd might grow up fast. Now, I have 10 camels and I would like to have 40 in a few years.”

But why would you have so many camels?

“When you have a herd, he explained, you always buy and sell camels. The purpose is economic. You sell the males that are not adequate for working with tourists, keep the females to make new babies and, most of all, keep the camels that could become good racing camels.”

And what do you do with the racing camels?

The start of a camel race.

“I tried to train them and race them myself, but it requires a lot of time. You can sell them or, if you have a really good one, train him, try him in a race and see if some people are interested to buy after the race. For a young male that will work with tourists you can expect 1.000 to 1.500 dinars. For a pregnant female or a mother with a baby, you can get 3.000 to 4.000 dinars. A racing camel can be priceless.”

But does that mean that you use the camel herd as a way to put money aside when the touristic season is bad?

“Yes, exactly. A few years ago, the sheikhs from Emirates started to fund camel racing in Wadi Rum on a regular basis. As a consequence, many Bedouin started to breed camels, again. Some of them even hired people from Sudan to take care of the camels in desert and train them. I think it’s a bit too much. But the good thing is that there are now more and more camels in Wadi Rum.”

We passed the empty fence and the main spring, forming a corner in the South end of Jebel Rum, called Abu Aineh by the Bedouin and well known by tourists under the name of Lawrence’s spring. The spring was full of activity: tourist guides stopping their jeeps full of visitors, camels drinking, Bedouin selling souvenirs… a normal November afternoon in Abu Aineh.

We were heading South on the right side of Jebel Khazali. I was thinking of socio-economic changes in Wadi Rum and of that old French proverb saying « never put all your eggs in the same basket », that seemed to make particular sense here.

Suddenly Sabbah pointed his finger at the horizon, beaming:

“There they are, my camels!”

At first, I saw nothing. Looking carefully in the right direction, I saw some pale and black dots.

“Do you see them? They always go very far in the winter, it’s a real problem to bring them back to the fence before the night.”

He sounded half enthusiastic and half angry!

A Camel gaze.

And I remembered we made the same trip in July. Then, Camels didn’t go much further than Abu Aineh and we could bring them back to the fence easily by car. Sabbah was holding the wheel in one hand and a camel stick in the other. He was literally talking to the camels, yelling « hat, hat » and « rbwa rbwa » to make them move, which they obviously understood!

The whole game was to catch the camel that was considered  « the boss » by the rest of the herd. Once that camel moved to the fence, the others followed him. Sometimes, we had to use the horn to make sure they didn’t stop in the way. A lot of fun indeed!

This time was different. The camels were far and, as we reached them, we started to wonder if we could bring them back before the night.

Is there a difference in a camel’s behaviour between winter and summer time? Why do they go so far?

“In the summer, camels know there is nothing to eat or to drink in the desert, he explained. They know they have food in the fence, and there is water in Abu Aineh. So they basically go there in the morning, stay around during the day and come back close to the fence by themselves in the afternoon, remembering they will get dinner there! And as the day is long, even if they go a bit far, they always have time to come back. “

“In the winter, camels kind of « feel » the rain and the grass in deep desert, and they go very far. When the night comes, they are often too far to come back to the fence. I tied their front legs to each other but it seems that they just don’t care.”

We arrived to the camels. Each one of them had their front legs tied to each other, allowing them to walk only at a very slow pace, except the babies that were following the mothers. Sabbah started by gathering a first group that he sent walking in the direction of the village, yelling in camel language. We sat down in the sand observing the second group that was still peacefully chewing dry bushes.

“This one”, he pointed at an elegant almost white camel, “is aseel, which means pure. I have to keep it for reproduction. He’s the son of that one, who is also the mother of the black baby over there.”

The Bedouin know the genealogical tree of every camel in the village.

Ownership markings on an adult camel.

“We mark the camels with fire to identify the owner’s clan and the owner himself. When we see a lost camel in the desert, we can just call the owner and tell him where his camel is.”

“That one”, he continued, pointing at a huge female camel, “is leading the herd. They all follow her. She doesn’t like being tied up and keeps walking at a normal pace, hurting herself with the ropes.”

The camel’s feet were covered in blood. Sabbah raised, seized a knife in the car and ran after her. He tried to catch her legs to untie her, but she resisted and tried to bite him several times. Cursing her, he kept on trying to make her free and allow her to come back faster to her fence. I stayed next to the car and a baby camel, wondering what was happening here, approached and passed his face and neck through the front window, smelling the wheel and the seats. After a while, Sabbah came back shaking his head.

“No way, that stupid camel tries to bite me every time I touch her legs. I need someone to catch her head while I cut the rope.”

And I don’t think I can do that, I said laughing.

The second part of the herd was following the leading camel, so we got back in the car, following them.

“You know”, Sabbah continued, “I must really love the camels, because it’s a hassle to take good care of them. Every morning, I have to take the car, charge a bag of sha’eer (the Arabic word for barley) and go to the fence outside the village. There I give the camels breakfast and keep the bags of sha’eer in a plastic box higher on the rock in the mountain, so the camels can’t reach it. Then I open the fence and push the camels out, so they can go to the spring by themselves and spend the day grazing in desert. At the end of the afternoon, it’s the same story: I take my car to look for the camels in desert and bring them back to the fence, to give them dinner.”

“The good thing is that it’s a family moment too: every morning, my 3 years old daughter insists on coming with me. It’s a nice moment, just the two of us every day.”

The sun was going down and the camels hadn’t reached Abu Aineh yet. Sabbah decided to go back to the village and bring his nephews to take care of them, while he had to go to his Bedouin camp to meet his tourists. He ordered the boys to untie the camels for the next morning.

The next day, the untied camels went very far in the desert and Sabbah had to spend half of the night looking for them and bringing them back from Fora, that is about 40 km from the village.  He must truly love his camels.

Being Bedouin e-poster

BEING BEDOUIN IN CENTRAL LONDON

“How do you capture the entire character of a culture that has non written record, has lived for centuries in relative isolation and exists in complete harmony with one of the world’s most extreme environments?”

“Being Bedouin” will be presented at the National Geographic flagship store in Regents Street on November 24th at 6:30pm.

In this presentation, Mark Abouzeid, project manager and founding member, will introduce the audience to the Bedu of Wadi Rum;  highlight the broader scope and long term goals of the Bedouin Heritage Project’s work;  offer anecdotes, pictures and videos of the challenges faced;  as well as will tell us how a professional project turned into a voyage of discovery for Mark – a Lebanese man raised in the US who knew little about his own culture.

For more information, visit the NG London Store Site: http://www.nglondonstore.co.uk/future.html

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day;  Teach a man to fish and he will feed his whole village!”

UNESCO in their latest annual report dedicated all 454 pages to the importance of Cultural Diversity and Safeguarding Intangible World Heritages.  Why is UNESCO seeing these initiatives as the only viable strategies for protecting our communal, global future?

“The financial crisis and its consequences for the economy, labour markets, social policies and international cooperation risk to show that culture often remains the first adjustment variable to be sacrificed when the drying up of financial resources imposes a drastic choice between a number of competing priorities. Yet this is a very short-term view. For at this crossroad, where some are urging us to think in terms of a new world in which human disasters of this kind would no longer be possible, greater acknowledgment of cultural diversity is proving a particularly promising avenue of approach.

For culture is not simply another sector of activity, a mass consumption product or an asset to be preserved. Culture is the very substratum of all human activities, which derive their meaning and value from it. This is why the recognition of cultural diversity can help to ensure that ownership of development and peace initiatives is vested in the populations concerned.
With regard to development initiatives, it has long been known that their success depends significantly on the extent to which they incorporate the cultural factor. But the message of sustainable development is that the planet is essentially finite, and that the resources humanity hoped to discover in its environment must now be found within itself, in its very diversity.

Diversity must henceforth be considered a starting point rather than an obstacle to be overcome. Cultural diversity invites us to think in terms of a plural humanity, embodying a creative potential that precludes any prescribed model of development.
With regard to peace, we are convinced that its sustainability depends upon universally proclaimed human rights, which are the main token of our common humanity. The acknowledgment of cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue help to defuse the tensions that can arise in multicultural societies when a majority and minorities confront each other over recognition of their rights. What favours cultural diversity, which is in no way opposed to the universality of human rights, is a governance of reconciliation, which is the surest guarantee of peace.”

Francoise Rivière, UNESCO World Report, October 2009

UNESCO and BHP both share the same concerns.  If man continues to seek short term solutions based upon western roadmaps than we will only succeed in worsening the North South economic slavery and humanitarian dependence.  Moreover, we risk greater disasters of economic, human and environmental resources to the point that there are insufficient funds to ‘Feed the Poor’.

Polémiques sur le port du voile, craintes liées au terrorisme et à l’extrémisme religieux font quasi quotidiennement partie du discours médiatique, alimentant un fossé entre les communautés. Ce phénomène nourrit sans doute une approche très approximative de la connaissance de « l’autre », de part et d’autre.

Les différences visibles, telles que les clivages religieux, sont souvent présentées comme les seuls éléments importants, et renforcent chez certains un attachement fort à ces différences, comme critère de rattachement à une identité pourtant complexe.

Le chômage, les difficultés socio-économiques, les discriminations à l’embauche et à l’accès au logement, pour ne citer que quelques exemples, apparaissent, dans ce contexte, tant comme une cause que comme une conséquence d’un repli identitaire.

Lorsque l’on dépasse ces clivages, ce qui frappe pourtant c’est le manque de connaissance de cet « autre », le manque de nuances et de profondeur, ce qui n’a pour conséquence que d’accroître les idées reçues, les préjugés ancestraux et par conséquent la crainte. Or nous avons un cruel et urgent besoin de connaissance, et cela ne peut se faire qu’à travers la culture.

Amin Maalouf a dit : « si l’on encourageait toute personne à se passionner, dès l’enfance, et tout au long de la vie, pour une culture autre que la sienne, pour une langue librement adoptée en fonction de ses affinités personnelles (…), il en résulterait un tissage culturel serré qui couvrirait la planète entière, réconfortant les identités craintives, atténuant les détestations, renforçant peu à peu la croyance à l’unité de l’aventure humaine, et rendant possible, de ce fait, un sursaut salutaire » (A. Maalouf, Le dérèglement du monde, Grasset, 2009).

Si chacun pouvait avancer ne fût-ce que de quelques petit pas dans cette voie…

The Bedouin Heritage project a pour objectif, en Europe, d’améliorer la connaissance que l’on peut avoir du monde arabo-musulman, à mille lieues des images de violence et contredisant la thèse du conflit de civilisations.

Sur la base des traditions bédouines, capturées notamment à Wadi Rum (Jordanie), une exposition itinérante tournera dans différentes villes d’Europe. Se basant sur les différentes disciplines artistiques et multimédia, telles que la photographie, la vidéo, l’audio, le récit, cette exposition visera à montrer la vie quotidienne et les traditions ancestrales d’une communauté bédouine traditionnelle, de religion musulmane sunnite.

Elle valorisera ces traditions et visera à permettre au visiteur une approche nuancée et complexe. Elle mettra en valeur tant les ressemblances essentielles entre les cultures, telles que l’amour, la vie de famille, l’humour, le souci du futur, en soulignant les individus, que les spécificités, en respectant ces dernières.

Les aspects quotidiens et actuels de cette valorisation des traditions bédouines doivent être soulignés, comme un écho présent aux présentations régulières de l’âge d’or des sciences arabes, des découvertes d’Avicenne ou d’Averroès, du génie militaire de Salah Ad-Din ou d’Abouzeid Al Hilali. Car l’on peut se demander quelle civilisation se sentirait valorisée quand tous les éléments de sa valorisation remontent à plusieurs siècles.

Il s’agira, en la matière, se souligner ce qui est aujourd’hui : des traditions toujours vivaces, des connaissances en médecine traditionnelle, des pratiques sportives impressionnantes, la protection de l’environnement, une chaleur humaine et une ouverture d’esprit, l’hospitalité, le sens de la famille, l’approche de la différence et des personnes en situation de handicap, …

The music is authentic in it’s style and ambience with comments, jokes and laughing intertwined with poetry set to traditional melodies. The music has been set to photos from the desert, with sunset leading into a night by the fire…singing, dancing and laughing.

Frank Coles interviewing Salim Ali Lafi on horseback with the Canon XH.

Canon generously sponsored BHP’s first field work in July providing all the capture equipment including the high definition XH professional video camcorder, camera bodies and lenses.  The team put this kit through it’s paces working in day time temperatures exceeding 40 degree celsius dropping to close to zero by midnight.  Canon’s gear not only survived sand storms, bouncing desert jeeps and mountain climbing but proved so simple that the Bedouin themselves captured a bulk of the more than 15 hours of video produced.

Click on the photo to see a gallery of Canon at work.