February 7, 2005 The Bedouin Tribes of Petra: Adapting to Modern Jordan Washington, DC- The Embassy of Jordan in Washington, DC launched its 2005 cultural series Monday evening with a lecture and display of American Photographer Vivian Ronay’s unique photographs of Petra and the Bedul Bedouin tribes that reside in the southern rose city. Vivian Ronay has been photographing the Bedul Bedouin tribes living around Petra in Jordan during a series of trips beginning in 1986. Her most recent trip was in the spring of 2003. This work is currently traveling in museums in North America and has been seen at the American Museum of Natural History and the Cincinnati Art Museum. It next will be exhibited at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Throughout her presentation, photographs and fascinating account of her encounters with the Bedul, Ronay illustrated the life and times of the Bedul people around the 2000 millennium. “The Bedul Bedouin today are in transition from a pastoral existence where most of them lived in the rooms they call ‘caves’ carved by the Nabataeans two thousand years ago,” Ronay stated. They farmed in very small plots of land and herded their livestock.. Today, she adds, these Bedouins are “adjusting to ‘modern’ life which now includes running water, electricity, mass media and cell phones as well as a greatly expanded diet and better health care in their village of Um Sayhun initially built by the Jordanian government for this tribe.” The Bedul, in fact, are making the transition to a market-economy-based existence though some Bedouin families still maintain tents near their village that they use for various purposes, primarily for the herding of their goats and sheep. Men, women and children ply the tourists with refreshments and trinkets to guiding services on camels, horses and donkeys around Petra. Traditional weaving and other activities, recently considered routine, are eroding swiftly. Ronay’s photographs are a documentation of the traditional life in Petra in the last flickers of the old ways before they completely vanish and the new beginnings of adaptation to the cosmopolitan world they now embrace. Her photography of the Bedouin is the only in depth photographic documentation of any Bedouin tribes to her knowledge in the Arabian Peninsula. It is through the gracious hospitality and generosity of the people of Petra that she has been able to create this body of work.