Petra: the displaced Bedouin return home | SLICE

This road snaking through the mountains links Umm Sayoun to Petra, but the tourists do not know it exists. It is only used by the Bedouins heading to and from the site. I have often set off on foot and arrived on the back of a donkey or a camel with Ahmed, Sliman Fatma, or Abdallah. This road is above all a place to meet, banter, and have a laugh. The Petra Authority is planning to widen the road and turn it into a carriageway for the hundreds of buses bringing tourists here. They will go through the Bedouin village and drop the tourists off in the next town. Some Bedouins are immune to tourism's ample charms like Saad and his family. They moved away from the tourist area with their herd and feel quite isolated up here in the mountains. In order to find them, I have to follow a track for several kilometers. Once I get close, the goat's bells lead me to them. I don't work with the tourists. I hate all of that. What can I tell you? Praise be to God, I have a house in the village. My son lives there. I have 30 or 40 goats and a lovely old wife who's about 70 years old. We moved away from the village for the good of the herd. Have you seen the village? How can anyone live there? Where can you go with this heat? You can't just sit around in a room all day. It doesn't make sense. Out here in the desert, you can sit under a tree, under a rock. You can sit wherever you like. And from my house over there, I can't see my goats. I don't feel comfortable at all when I can't see my land or my crops and my herd around me. If I can't see all that, I don't feel right. I'm not happy. I can't relax. I don't like it. I swear there's no room in those places. I'll tell you honestly, you couldn't even raise a chicken in there. As you've seen, you take one step and you're in the street, in the middle of the road. If a child goes out, it could be dangerous. There's a main road on that side. The house is built between two streets. Since 1951, I've spent my life outdoors, just like all Bedouin nomads. We travel, we move around. I go wherever I like, but my house is here forever. The Bedouins, we have the freedom life. That means nobody can control us, our life. Like a bird who can go to any place he wants. We move in the desert, we go to any place. We have the freedom. And this is a kind of Bedouin's life. If you go to the desert, you find people with camels. You go to the mountains, you find people with a goat. Like sometimes I have my goat when I have nothing to do here. I can take my goat to the mountain, to the spring. I find it fun. That means I love my culture. I love the Bedouins because we have this culture. And I will keep this culture, not for me, for my generation and for the others. And we hope that our culture changes because we are mixed with the tourists and the culture. But I think everybody, they understand us. At the end of the day, the tourists happily return to their hotels. This is time for the Bedouin to reclaim Petra. Hello, how are you? Is there any tea going? Yes, I've made some. Oh, pour us one then. Go and make sure the donkey's tethered. Here, go and get me some barley and salt. I'll give this to the sheep, mum. My mother was born in Petra. When the government asked the people living in Petra to leave, to move into the village, because Petra was becoming a tourist site, my mother refused to leave. She would find living in the village too difficult. She likes being here. Her life is here. I want nothing to do with Umm Sayyoun. I want to live here in Petra. It's better here. No one bothers you and I feel comfortable here. Tell her I want to stay here till the end, and that when I die, I want to be buried in Petra.