as long as i am writing as infrequently that i am, i might as well write about the bedouins again. one can never hear enough about the bedouins these days anyway.

so, the story begins . . .

last december, my local rabbi visited with his students an invited me to join them at a bedouin tourist site. just to give a fair assessment of the place, its probably not owned by bedouins and bedouins don't drink a much tea and black coffee as portrayed in the bedouin tents and believe or not they actually live in houses! these sites give some insight into bedouin customs and tradtions and appropriately leave out the modern problems the bedouins suffer from as of late. it would be pretty unfair to scare the tourists away anyway. now that i've started a rant about about tourism, maybe i should stop and actually talk about what i sat down to write about.

at kfar nokdim (a hop, skip, and a jump from arad), i met a bedouin musician ( a real bedouin musician) who plays the "oud." Just to refresh your memories, its a 1/2 tear drop with a guitar neck and angled headstock, very much like the lute. the musicians's name is muhammed abu ajaj and an individual next to none. it turns out, he's the only bedouin recording and studying the music of his people and currently studies musicology at hebrew university. after our conversation, he invited me to study with him. i gladly accepted his invitation and we parted ways with his number and CD, entitled "Kseifa."

i tried contacted muhammed, but we never seem to be able to connect. thanks to one of our group's coordinators and a friend of mine, i finally made contact with Muhammed. It turns out Daphne the coordinator worked with Muhammed at her previous job at Kfar Nokdim and Anna the friend ran into Muhammed while visiting kfar nokdim. anyway, they both gave me his number and told me to call because that he was looking for an english teacher top help his children out and would gladly teach me in exchange.

if i had only pursued him more intensely . . .

i'm sitting at the computer at 12:50 am, about a half hour Muhammed and I parted ways. I hopped a bus to his hometown of Kseifa at about 3:30 this afternoon. we met up at the town's entrance and promptly sat down to talk about music and the oud. after about 2 hours, we finished up and i began my lessons with his children. another two hour passes and mohammed asks if i want to attend a concert in the center of town. His student planned to perform in honor of his upcoming participation in the "arabvision" music competition (www.farfesh.com). So, of course, I said "yes." how often does the white, privledged jewish boy from jersey receive an opportunity to hang with folks from the other side of the world.

Upon sitting down at table in front of the musicians, a fellow approaches me and offers me a drink. though it sounds like a pick-up, this overt friendless is a part of their culture and something to be appreciated and not weirded out by. Aatef and I talked for a while about the bedouins and the jews. he told many bedouins volunteer as police offeres in the bedouins areas and that most of the occupied territory border are protected by bedouin scouts. Aatef partipates in programs by the Negev Institute for Stategies and Peace Development, www.nisped.org.il. if you're interested in learning more, please check the site out.

For the remainder of the time, more and more people introduced themselves to me. I met an artist, Amin, who studies in the area. Great artist and good friends. In the midts of theses meetings the band played. The band didn't just play they played and they never let up. The melody came from the bedouin tradition, but the words were about modern experiences, sung extemporaneously by several young bedouin men. Women were not a part of the scene. Usually, the women will dance seperately and sometimes obscurred by a tent. Several of the men did line and circle dance, similar to sqaure dancing and jewish folk dance. sometimes, a dance would break off from the group and lead the dancers in a kind of call and response dance, where dance became the repeated idea as oppossed to the word.

This continued on to about 12 at night and after, imbibing the culture of Kseife, I returned back to sleepy Arad.

When you get a chance, search Muhammed Abu Ajaj. he's done quite a number of performances around the world. he is someone to certainly keep an eye on.