Traveling in Jordan: Day 2: The Mosaic Factory and Saint George Church

This is at a handi-craft center. The ladies here hand make all of the mosaics seen on the walls and sold at the shop.

This old man spends his day weaving

Check out the mosaics behind these ladies. Everything is hand-made. All of the tiny pieces of stone are hand -cut. Amazing!

There were also ladies who created pottery from scratch.

This kind gentlemen helped me with my bedouin head-dress. He then proceeded to offer me 1000 camels and 20 sheep! (In exchange for my hand in marriage)

Even in the mountains of Jordan, you can find Saint George Orthodox Church

Here is the front of the actual church. It is over 100 years old.

Classic Saint George Icon

Original mosaic floor

Almost all icons in the church are mosaic. This is thousands of tiny cut stones, formed together to make a beautiful icon.

Onward and up the mountain! After departing Mount Nebo, we stopped at a lovely little shop where mosaics were hand-created. I must admit, after looking at the mosaics, and watching the ladies hand cut the stone and place them to created the mosaic, I will never look at this art-form the same again. This is truly art, especially considering the work that goes into it. In addition to mosaics, workers here create weavings, and pottery as well, so there were all kinds of cool things to look at. I will admit I must have spent at least an hour in this shop, just looking at and admiring all of the lovely art that was being sold. As always,  I was offered tea as I looked around, and there were men smoking sheesha inside (this occurs everywhere). This is entertaining; while I was walking around the shop, a gentle men was talking to me and insisted on wrapping up my head so that I could look like a traditional bedouin women. After finishing, he proceeded to tell me how beautiful I was, and offered me 1000 camels and 20 sheep! I then had to ask, "What on Earth would I do with 1000 camel, and 20 sheep?!" This man ensured to me that camels start at $1000 per camel, so I would be fairly wealthy upon selling the camels. I of course declined such a gracious offer. And funny enough, this occurred only shortly after one of the other men who worked at the shop told me how much he had always wanted to marry a teacher. But, he also told me he wanted a teacher because then she would have the summer off and she could pay for him to travel with her. I of course declined this man as well. (There is truly not enough women in Jordan, so these men are very excited when they see one, it seems). After spending a boatload of money at this shop, we finally departed and moved on up the mountains. We reached the top, and stopped at a church. Believe it or not, the church was Saint George Orthodox Church. For those of you who do not know, the church of my family back in Pittsburgh is Saint George Orthodox Church, so it was pretty cool to see another one on the other side of the planet. The sweet thing about this church was that it had an original mosaic floor (which must have also taken forever to create), as well as the majority of the icons being mosaic as well. Some of these icons were massive, so it was truly a sight to see, especially with the thoughts of the hard work that goes into mosaic creating. Needless to say, this was an incredible church, with many old icons and relics dating back to the 1800's and beyond. It was great to make this mountain stop as we headed towards Petra.