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Excerpts from postcards sent in November 1986, Dean's World Tour I:
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Bethleham, Israel,
birthplace of Jesus
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Cairo, Egypt,
pyramids and sphinx
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Jerusalem, Israel,
30 Oct 1986:
Shalom! Outside my hostel window the past two nights was this road, Via
Dolorosa, which Dolores (my mother) will recognize as the "Path of
Sorrow", that which Christ walked bearing his cross. I followed the
same path from the Garden of Gethsemane,
past where Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born, and past the so-called 14 stations of the cross supposedly to where Christ was crucified
and buried. As is true with most places of great importance to
Christians, a church has been built on the site. However, some believe
Christ was actually buried at a different site, which I also visited, called
"the Garden Tomb". Every stone in this city of Jerusalem
seems to have some religious significance, either to Christians, Jews or
Moslems.
I have also been to Nazerath, Bethleham
and the sea of Galilee. That's pretty good for
an agnostic like me.
I've admired the high proportion of attractive Israeli women. I would
have liked to have taken advantage of one were it not for the automatic weapon
hanging over her shoulder.
I am now at the lowest elevation on earth, the Dead Sea
-- 400 meters (1600 feet) below sea level. One does not swim in this
water; one can only bob on top of it (being that it is so dense with
salt). (Perhaps this is how Christ walked on water).
La chiam,
The Twelve Apostles
Jerusalem, Israel,
01 Nov 1986:
(Referring to the first photo above)-->
This is the spot traditionally celebrated as the location of the birth of Jesus
Christ. It is a small grotto beneath the alter
of a church constructed by the Emperor Constantine in 325 AD. I have been
to many religious sites in the past week. As a result, today, Saturday,
the Jewish Sabbath, when literally everything is closed and all public
transport stops, is also a much needed day of rest for me.
Cairo, Egypt,
07 Nov 1986:
Salam alle kum (the peace of Allah be with you)! My blessings to
count become increasingly innumerable. I still await my first truly
significant illness. The probabilities of such a thing occurring increase
dramatically in places like this. I am more scrupulously maintaining my
hygiene than I ever have and I am quite selective and cautious about what and
where I eat.
The drivers in Cairo are
absolutely stark-raving nuts, and Hatem's cousin,
with whom I rode, is at the top of the list. One must have an equal level
of lunacy to be a pedestrian. I reckon that 7 out of the top 10 biggest
adventures of my entire trip have occurred while crossing the streets of Cairo.
Somehow, 12 million people here survive it all.
Beselemeh (goodbye)!
Cairo, Egypt, 12 Nov 1986: Twelve million people in Cairo and
growing rapidly ... a water buffalo winding its way through rush hour traffic
... men smoking water pipes on the street corner of a local cafe ... impossibly
crowded city busses with people clinging to the sides ... a man with no arms
and one leg hopping through traffic as it moves along ... another man lying on
the sidewalk with his face covered with flies ... some people in suit coats
driving Mercedez Benz ... other people in Arab dress driving Mercedes Benz ...
people lined up to buy hash from the 'hash window' ... men standing on street
corners looking for tourists to exchange dollars for Egyptian pounds at the 30%
higher black market rate ... street policemen with automatic weapons resigned
to allowing the chaos of the city to direct itself ... people who have made
their homes sleeping on gravestones ... others who have made their homes in
villas with solid gold decor ... a beggar woman with outstretched arm, open
hand and nursing her baby ... pedestrians who, in order to cross a street, must
by definition be suicidally inclined ... vehicle drivers who, in order to get
past pedestrians, must by definition be homocidally motivated ... the smells of
spicy and exotic Arab cuisine, incense and essences, car exhaust, piles of
street garbage, animal defecation, and broken sewer mains ... the discordant
sounds of many Moslem prayer chanters simultaneously blaring from the
loudspeakers of the city's mosques along with the asynchronous, but seemingly
constant, honking from countless automobiles ... this places does not lend
itself to easy description, nor can I absorb and understand completely what I
am experiencing.
Beselemeh (goodbye)!
Ali Baba and Habeebee
Aswan, Egypt,
24 Nov 1986:
(From a postcard that shows a large herd of camels in the desert): While sights
such as these can be seen here near Aswan,
I can still catch All Star Wrestling on television. There is such a
strange combination of the present and the ancient past here.
Sudan, my
next signpost into the Twilight Zone, promises to be an even higher dosage of
culture shock. I reckon it's somewhere among the list of the ten least touristed nations in the world, especially now with the
civil war going on in the southern regions. Khartoum
is one of the hottest cities on Earth with average high temperatures
over 100 degrees F. (sometimes well over) every month of the year.
Although it has received much less media attention than Ethiopia
due to press restrictions in areas where the war is occurring, starvation is
probably more widespread.
The closer I get to Sudan, the more I realize the importance of emphasizing
to you the fact of increased unpredictability in the dates of my travel, and my
decreased ability to contact you while in Sudan. Boats and trains are, I
have read, incredibly unpredictable and if things are mistimed or break down,
as they frequently do, I could end up spending a week in some small village and
take three weeks to do an otherwise nine day trip to Khartoum.
Then, it may take another week or two to get a reserved flight to Kenya, as
well as having to go through the bureaucratic hassles of extending a Sudanese
visa, which otherwise expires December 11th.
Keep in mind that many simple things that you take for granted don't exist
or rarely function in Sudan.
In much more modern Egypt,
for example, collect phone calls are nowhere possible. In Sudan,
international phone calls are probably only possible in Khartoum.
Letters are absurdly slow. Don't worry if you don't hear from me again
until Christmas. I'm probably okay. The Sudanese are mostly
extraordinarily nice people.
Love,
Deano
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