Back in the Badia

Been travelin' round Jordan for the last five days, mainly in the northwest and in the Badia desert.

Jerash, ancient Roman city of the Decapolis.

Golan Heights & Lake Tiberius / Sea of Galilee

Throw up your six shooters for American imperialism!

The Badia is Jordan's version of West Texas. I'm staying on an ecological restoration and social development project headquarters on a dilapidated air force base used by the Americans to stage bomber runs in the first Gulf War. Think Area 51 minus everything that makes Area 51 so cool (the X-Files, the video game, and the conspiracy theories) and that's been me for the last four days.

I did have the chance to hang with a semi-nomadic Bedouin family one afternoon and talk about the effects of rising fuel prices. For the Bedu, it breaks down into economic and cultural repercussions.

Shepherds and grazers have recently been experiencing negative returns on their flocks; it's costing them more money to raise sheep and goats than they are receiving at the market for them. The culprit? Rising fuel prices increase feed prices, as the accompanying increase in production costs are passed on to the consumer. You would think that they could absorb these costs by increasing the price per head of their animals, but with gas prices driving inflation across the economy on essential goods (for the same reasons feed prices are going up), the quantity demanded for goats and sheep, a luxury good for most people, is on the decline. The Bedouin find themselves caught between local market forces and global economic entanglement as their income decreases and their expenditures increase.

Next, they need water for the herds. Old school Bedouin could graze near natural water sources in the desert or rely on simple rain harvesting techniques. This has been made exceedingly difficult now due to increased water demand from the cities, which leads to over-pumping renewable groundwater sources (and in the case of the Azraq oasis, drying out the natural springs that once fed the wetlands completely); below-average rainfall (blamed on global climate change even out in BFE, where we saw some Al Gore light bulbs); desertification, caused in large part by over-grazing, which leads to increased surface evaporation and soil degradation; and changing hydrological systems due to diversion projects in Jordan, Syria, and Israel. Now, most of the Bedu have to live "on the grid" for water, which often means settling. If they don't settle they can drive into town to buy water (assuming they have a truck) from the government or private sector, but that's also too costly due to rising fuel prices and water scarcity, so it makes less and less sense, and in some cases it's completely unfeasible, to live away from the village and maintain the nomadic ideal.

To deal with these increased hardships, the government "encourages," rather than "pressures" (their words, not mine) the Bedu to settle in simple villages that provide basic social services. In some cases, shepherds and their families who have sold off all their animals live essentially on welfare with no income, as their only source of livelihood and only skill-set has became unsustainable. But method of subsistence isn't the only piece of culture is being eroded. Per customary Bedu hospitality, a sheep is slaughtered and served as a large family-style meal for guests. As you can imagine for the shepherds, that kind hospitality is more and more costly. Even for those who live in larger villages and moderate cities and maintain a sense of Bedouin heritage, buying a sheep for a special occasion or family affair is at the mercy of the increasingly expensive grocery list.

Who did the Bedu we talked to blame? Yep, America and it's control/persuasion (not sure which they meant) of the oil markets.

Regardless of whether oil prices are at their present levels due to speculation, sabre-rattling between Iran and Israel, or peak oil theory, the costs are felt in far more places than just at the American pump.