Married To A Bedouin
On sale
5th November 2009
Price: £10.99
‘A fascinating account of life as Bedouin in the late twentieth century’ Mary S. Lovell
‘This sparkling memoir is a refreshing antidote and a rare window into the legendary hospitality and mysterious customs of the Bedouin Arabs’ Publishing News
‘”Where you staying?” the Bedouin asked. “Why you not stay with me tonight – in my cave?”‘
Thus begins Marguerite van Geldermalsen’s story of how a New Zealand-born nurse came to be married to Mohammad Abdallah Othman, a Bedouin souvenir-seller from the ancient city of Petra in Jordan. It was 1978 and she and a friend were travelling through the Middle East when Marguerite met the charismatic Mohammad who convinced her that he was the man for her. She lived with him in a two thousand-year-old cave carved into the red rock of a hillside, became the resident nurse for the tribe that inhabited that historical site and learned to live like the Bedouin: cooking over fires, hauling water on donkeys and drinking sweet black tea. She learned Arabic, converted to Islam and gave birth to three children. Over the years she became as much of a curiosity as the cave-dwellers, with tourists including David Malouf and Frank McCourt encouraging her to tell this, her extraordinary story.
‘This sparkling memoir is a refreshing antidote and a rare window into the legendary hospitality and mysterious customs of the Bedouin Arabs’ Publishing News
‘”Where you staying?” the Bedouin asked. “Why you not stay with me tonight – in my cave?”‘
Thus begins Marguerite van Geldermalsen’s story of how a New Zealand-born nurse came to be married to Mohammad Abdallah Othman, a Bedouin souvenir-seller from the ancient city of Petra in Jordan. It was 1978 and she and a friend were travelling through the Middle East when Marguerite met the charismatic Mohammad who convinced her that he was the man for her. She lived with him in a two thousand-year-old cave carved into the red rock of a hillside, became the resident nurse for the tribe that inhabited that historical site and learned to live like the Bedouin: cooking over fires, hauling water on donkeys and drinking sweet black tea. She learned Arabic, converted to Islam and gave birth to three children. Over the years she became as much of a curiosity as the cave-dwellers, with tourists including David Malouf and Frank McCourt encouraging her to tell this, her extraordinary story.
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Reviews
Readers will enjoy van Geldermalsen's detailed and deeply human depictions of celebrations, motherhood, and more in Petra
For anyone who enjoys travel books, especially about the Middle East, this is the real thing - a fascinating account of life as a Bedouin in the late twentieth century written by a Western woman
In a world troubled by Arab extremism, this sparkling memoir is a refreshing antidote and a rare window into the legendary hospitality and mysterious customs of the Bedouin Arabs