BYU NewsNet - Field Trips and Fanny Packs

Editor's Note: This is the fifth installment in a semester-long series. For the first time in six years, the BYU Jerusalem Center has opened its doors to 44 BYU students. Stephanie Schaerr is writing about their experiences in Jerusalem.

If my stylish little sister could see me now, she'd probably kill me. I'm committing perhaps the most unforgivable fashion transgression: I'm wearing a fanny pack. Buckled around my waist, the navy blue protrusion calls attention to my most unattractive body parts and adds probably 10 pounds (and 30 years) to my silhouette. Beloved by American tourists worldwide, the fanny pack is the fashion police's worst nightmare.

But here I am, aware of all this, yet strapped into my tourist persona. Better still, I've got an earphone cord running from my ears to a radio receiver inside my Jerusalem Center-issue fanny pack so that I can hear our Jordanian tour guide's every explanation, no matter how far I roam from the group.

I'm on one of our many field trips throughout the Holy Land, this time exploring Petra, Jordan. We've been hiking for about an hour now through red sand to see temple-like tombs carved into the rock, including a treasury made famous by Indiana Jones. Later, we will climb more than 900 steps to an abandoned monastery at the top of the complex and I will be happy I brought my little fanny pack instead of my bulky backpack.

Most Thursdays are field-trip days, when we travel around Israel to different biblical sites. Other times, we take overnight trips to more distant places of biblical significance and cultural importance. Among other things, we've sloshed through knee-deep water in Hezekiah's tunnel up through the City of David, and we've used slingshots to fling rocks from the top of a hill that overlooks the Elah Valley, where David fought Goliath many years ago.

Though I knew my semester in Jerusalem would open my eyes to new things, I never guessed how much of the world I would get to see. One of the top items on my life's to-do list has been to ride a camel. When I found out we'd be going to Egypt, I was determined to make it happen. Luckily, the professors who planned the trip anticipated my desires and organized a group camel ride. Not only did I find out how it feels to rock violently back and forth while a camel stands up, but I did many other things that would have made the list if I had thought they were possible. While we were in Egypt, we ate dinner in a Bedouin tent in the desert, saw the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx and King Tut's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, and took boat rides on the Nile. On the way home from Egypt, we saw rain in the Negev Desert.

As much as I love Jerusalem, sometimes it's nice to escape from the city that's become our home. We've had to learn to grow accustomed to security issues that can limit our movement in Jerusalem. The latest case occurred on Saturday, when reports of Israeli police beating a Palestinian youth to death kept most of us inside the center.

Though it often seems like we spend half of our lives on buses driving from site to site, there's something delightfully juvenile about sitting next to my new best friends for hours, sharing secrets and giggling while others sing road-trip songs as the bus makes its way through deserts and meadows. Sometimes I return to my room and expect to hear a voice in my head explaining the history of the site, complete with scripture references. Other times, I have the distinct desire to strap on my fanny pack before going to class.

Don't tell my sister.

Stephanie Schaerr is a former metro editor for The Daily Universe. See dailyuniverse.byu.edu for her past columns about her experiences in Jerusalem.