Palmyra, Syria (From Donnette Smith)

From: "Donnette S. Smith" <powergrandma@juno.com>
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 09:29:29 -0700

I just received this from our granddaughter, Elizabeth, Becky's oldest,
who is finishing a semester abroad with BYU in Egypt. Thought you might
enjoy this as much as we did. You can tell her father is a geologist. I
think MESA means Middle East Study Association - or something close to
that. Dil is Dilworth Parkinson, her teacher, who grew up near my parents
home on Lark Circle.

Donnette
*****
December 19, 2004

I want to write people as often as I can, because I don't know exactly
when I'll be able to write from day to day.
The people of Palmyra did not repent, and now their beautiful limestone
city is in ruins. They are fantastic ruins, though. It must have been an
absolutely gorgeous city at its height, I tell you what. There is a
citadel from the early Ottoman period on a hill near the ruins. Some of
us hiked up there this afternoon. I am a really slow hiker, as it turns
out. I thought I was going to die! But it was really beautiful at sunset.
I got my picture taken with the battlements, and we did some reenactments
of the battle of the fields of Pelennor. "Hold the Wall! Send these foul
creatures into the Abyss!" And when I say we I mean we in the royal
sense.
The modern city of Palmyra is a quaint little town. They have chain mail
and helmets here! I might get a little "Something Something" if it's not
too astronomically expensive. And if it is, I'll at least get some
pictures of me wearing some of these aforementioned helmets with my "war
Face." Palmyra is a fun city that way because it's actually well known
for its warrior Queen Zenobia. She conquered quite a bit of the ancient
world, including but not limited to Upper Egypt. They have some Aswani
Red Granite columns here. It's cool because you can tell it's from Aswan
from the really big crystals in the rock. She would have gone on
conquering people but the Romans came in and said, "Nope, you're done."
And then they sacked the city, which caused the eastern defenses to fall
which ultimately led to the fall of Rome itself. Ah, history. Yep, I'm a
MESA geek all right.

On Friday we went to church in Irbid, where they have a small branch of
about 35 members. They had some of us give talks. I was one of the people
chosen. Actually, I have always wanted to bear my testimony in Arabic so
I volunteered, which made me really nervous for days and days. But I had
Dil go over it with me so there weren't too many grammatical mistakes. It
was wonderful to get up and speak in the most beautiful Classical Arabic
ever and then translate it into English for the sake of the westerners
present. The Branch president and Brian said it was absolutely perfect.
And the next speaker said afterwards, "I don't know why I have to speak
after Beth because she speaks Arabic so much better than I do!" That was
a great confidence booster, to know that I did in fact learn something
while I was in Egypt. I talked about how the Lord watches over everyone,
even little branches in Jordan. I might share the talk after I get home,
but at the moment it's up in my hotel room. I originally wrote it in
Arabic and I was able to use all these cool grammatical constructions. I
think we were really able to touch the Jordanian members with the spirit,
and I'd like to think it had something to do with the fact that I knew
how to use cognate accusative correctly.

I don't want to forget anything this time...but really not much new has
happened since yesterday. Oh, I remember - I got a Syrian fossil! That
was exciting. Also, I was able to stand in the center of the Roman
ampitheatre in Palmyra and speak Latin really loudly. "Draco Dormiens
Numquam Titilandus." Never tickle a sleeping dragon.
Day eight draws to a close.
Cheers everyone,
Beth