adventure's end

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11-12-7 bus thru desert tree plantings along the way a sign of hope. fields and orchards as we approached amman pleasant.
12-12-7 down to dead sea for swim, walking in water on slabs of salt that don't dissolve. bobbed up like corks. good fun. rinsed as best we could with bottle of water. walking past resort guard let me in for cold shower rinse. hitched ride to road to aman and bus was leaving immediately. got back seemingly miraculously.
13-12-7 easy walk from hotel to roman ruins, fountain nymphaeum, amphitheatre and up to fort, pillars of hercules and beginning of muslim art with sayyed conquest.
14-12-7 shared taxi with alex russian canadian to king hussein/allenby bridge. we went thru ok but he had been in iran and syria so we waited an hour and gave up. met palestinian professor. taxi to ramallah $120 US !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! economic oppression extraordinary. he took us with him. we see settlements everywhere and first sight of wall of jewish shame. into ramallah he had us to lunch, met family. then took us to hotel. i knew the facts of occupation. now have achieved goal of bearing personal witness to the crime. walked thru old ramallah people going about their lives, it even seemed normal. most striking and heartbreaking is the zest for life in these people. i guess if they didn't laugh they would die of sorrow. cold mountain air. in the evening kate sat in lobby with a man and boy from gaza. they were let out for boy's eye operation. a trader from gaza, the hotel owner and front desk guy. owner gave a litany of oppression. man from gaza hadn't eaten chicken in three months!!!! he said when orange trees were cut down by israelis he'd rather they had bulldozed his house! palestinians having huge families inevitably outbreeding israelis. 1.6 million in gaza, 2.4 west bank, 1 inside israel, 2.5 in jordan, 2.5 elsewhere. israel 5 million. 1.3 billion muslims, 1.3 billion christians, 1 billion hindus, 1.3 billion confucians. but these are just numbers without fces, facts without soul. fighting for deck chairs on titanic earth unable to addess greenhouse in bali.

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