May 3, 2006: Peace and Umm-Qais

We headed to the far north today, to a small city called Umm-Qais (pronounced um-kh-ice), which houses one of the ancient decapolis cities of the Roman Empire: Gardara. Perched high on top of the rolling hills, there’s a constant breeze and great views of Israel, the Golan Heights, Yarmouk gorge, and Lake Tiberius. So far, this has been my favorite city. Perhaps because it was virtually empty and allowed me to imagine I had just randomly stumbled upon this place, unknown to the rest of the world. If only my iPod was working.


In the open air museum I was approached by the site’s resident archaeologist and manager. “You take so many pictures, what are you doing?” he asked politely. I thought for sure he was going to ask if I was Japanese, which has happened several times already. Camera, asian-looking, what else could I be??? Korean?

I explained what I was doing and he instantly told me that I had full access to the site and invited me into his office to share more information about the work they’re doing. Despite the amount of ruins that are present, they are still excavating the city.
He invited me to come on one of their digs that they primarily do during the summer and also to come back in two months when an Italian film crew will start production on a new movie. “What is the movie about?” I asked, intrigued. Umm-Qais would be a phenomenal movie set. He didn’t know, historical period piece, he thought. I took his information; perhaps Victoria can come back and cover it.

Yousef and I seem to be settling into a groove. With my broken Arabic and his broken English somehow we still manage to get to our destinations. My Arabic vocabulary has increased by 100%--I now know ten words. The most important being wa-if losama (stop please). I use this constantly.