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Published: March 12th 2011
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I've been to Al Badia three times now on field trips to our worksites, to visit some stakeholders, and to visit some of the communities nearby. I've had many cups of tea and strong arabic coffee. Al Badia is technically not a desert. It's "almost desert" with low mountains and vast rocky plains, where Bediouin chase sparse areas of greenery to graze their sheep, and villages huddle around oases with precious water. When the rains come, plants spring out of nowhere and the landscape abruptly changes.
But Al Badia is becoming more desert-like every year because of the lack of rain. Desert is taking over the Middle east and Africa. The Syrian government is so concerned about the drought that they are now mapping the communities most impacted and adding them to a growing list of “critical areas” that meet the World Bank's criteria for poverty. It’s the standard story that we see everywhere in the world, even Canada. People are leaving the country to live in the city, to find opportunity. Farming, at least the old way, is no longer sustainable. Resources and infrastructure in the cities are stretched to the limit, and the country loses it’s most important
resource and way of life—the land. Is this due to climate change or a changing economy? Is climate change due to GHG’s? When you look at the perfect fossils of shells and corals gathered in Al Badia and realize this whole place was once an ancient sea, you realize there are much longer and more extreme cycles of climate and weather than we could are ever control.
To digress from the Badia tour, people my age in Damascus tell me sadly of how Damascus used to be a lush green valley. How they used to steal fruit from the orchards that are now apartment buildings. How a sprawl of ugly illegal tenement housing has taken over the most fertile farmland outside the city. Some people are getting rich from this. But the country is becoming poorer. And they don't blame the climate. They blame their own country's mismanagament of the land.
But let’s forget about the drought for a minute. Al Badia is everything I imagined it would be: stark, wild, vast, and stunningly beautiful, especially when the sun rises and sets. The Romans built Palmyra and their temple to Baal here, lining up the main street columns
perfectly with the sun rise and sunset. In the low light, the white stone of Palmyra becomes a honey gold. It’s indescribable.
I can understand why the Bedouin are such a proud people. They have hung onto their nomadic lifestyle, eking a living off the land, for centuries if not longer. They are about as free as a people can be. But they also have a reputation for being violent and for engaging in a variety criminal activities. Like any group, there are good and bad Bedouins. The bad ones just happen to be “extra bad”. They're kind of like the Hell's Angels of the desert. I saw more dirt bikes than camels.
Water here is a precious resource, and people have died in fights over who has access to it. Their schools often don’t have power, or heat, or sometimes even windows. So a Bedouin kid doesn’t have much of a chance to do anything other than what his or her parents do. And that lifestyle might not be available in the future.
We’ll be working with UNDP, the government and some other stakeholders to see how we can build some “capacity and sustainability” into these
Drinking matte at the Bagdad Cafe
Matte was imported from South America when a lot of Syrians emigrated there, and then came home with a new habit! remote little communities, because they are neighbours to our operations in the field. It’s going to be interesting. But next trip, I need to take the mountain bike!!
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nancy
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checking in with you
hey Brenda - these photos are fabulous, especially the Roman ruins - those folks certainly did get around. After the news here of the violence in Syria last week, i am, again getting worried about your safety. please send an update when you can. all is well here in Toronto - very peaceful, relatively speaking, although i did have a rather rowdy St. Patricks Day in Cleveland, still tame by comparison. i've been reading a lot of Daniel Pink's work this past week, re: speed of communication and new-ish motivation models - what he's calling Motivation 3.0 - Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose and Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation drivers. www.DanielPink.com It has me thinking more about what is driving the change NOW in the middle east - largely because of the mean age groups. CBC radio did a really good Town Hall on it last week also - Turir in Toronto, with Matt Galloway. i only heard bits of it, but thought you might be interested. come home safely soon! hugs N