Map of Jordan, shots from doctors story

In the remote deserts of Southern Jordan, life with the nomadic bedouin, and two remarkable women.

Map of Russia, visuals from gay story

In Russia, under the so-called new political order, it's no longer a crime to be gay. But old persecutions habit are still dying hard.

01.03.11

Campbell:  Almost a quarter still believed gays should get the death penalty.

George Negus

Negus:  Often in this job you find yourself in much heralded places, that when you get there, don't really live up to their reputation. But this is definitely not the case with the wadis, the stunning dry river valleys of the deserts of Southern Jordan. The wadis are home to the bedouins, the nomadic goat-herders of the region, who are still clinging to their eons old traditions. But as you might imagine, modern pressures like educating their kids and getting decent health care, are putting their nomadic existence, even their lives, at risk.

01.25.25.10

But when I was in that part of the globe earlier this year, I discovered that the bedouins have a couple of unexpected allies in their struggle for survival.

Fife music

Camels/Woman goat-herd

Negus:  In the sands of old Arabia, the bedu, the bedouins, have stored their grain and brought in their stock.

02.14.24

In  a few months time these truest of nomads will break camp and travel hundreds of kilometres feeding their herds. But for now, they'll stay put. The desert winter has set in.

Map showing Jordan

02.47.00

Aileen and Eleanor greeting bedouin women

For Nurse Aileen Coleman from Bundaberg in Queensland and Doctor Eleanor Soltau in Illinois, USA, a long way from home, it's also a perfect time to tend their flock, as they've done here in Southern Jordan for the last 40 years.

02.55.12

The bedouins refer to these two irrepressibles - 67 and 80 respectively - as ‘aroubiya' - everything for the Arabs.

03.15.15

And it's not just local calls they make. During the year, they'll travel throughout Jordan treating their nomad patients.

Aileen and Eleanor examine patient

Behind the banter, it's serious doctor and nurse business. Like most bedu, Abu Saud is a chronic smoker.

03.38.08

Aileen:  He's got cancer, this man, which is sad.

Eleanor:  He's got a big mass here, which...had it for years, but then I found on x-ray, found this mass, and I sent him in and they wanted to operate and he refused.

Eleanor:  How much do you smoke?

Abu:  Forty cigarettes.

Aileen:  My uncle! You're killing yourself.

Eleanor examining Fatima

My sister, have the operation, before it gets bigger - after that it will be a real problem.

04.12.20

Negus:  It looks like Abu Saud's daughter, Fatima, will be luckier. They've caught her thyroid condition in time.

Aileen:  If you don't have the operation your throat will get bigger and that's not good. I will come and take you to the doctor myself.

Negus:  You'd have to say that 40 years of Arabic has done little to dampen a laconic sense of humour.

04.38.14

Aileen:  I'll ask the doctor to slice you from here to here.

Aileen's house/Aileen and Eleanor in kitchen

Aileen:  This is home. I mean I was 25 when I left Australia.

04.53.00

I remember when I first came out, my father couldn't handle it at all. He said "What do you want to go out there for? All those wild Arabs."

Eleanor:  She's the expert in the language. I got mad at her because she came a year later and within a year was way ahead of me.

Aileen:  We're still friends, after 40 years. You know, you have two single women still being friends after 40 years, that's...

Negus:  It's no mean feat. How do you explain it?

Aileen:  I'm so gentle.

Eleanor greets patient

Negus: If their laughter's infectious, it was infection of a nastier kind that brought these two together.

05.36.20

The bedouins are riddled with TB, the debilitating ailment their clinic is mainly set up to treat.

Aileen in clinic

Aileen:  Malnutrition helps to weaken their resistance, so that when they get a bad cold, most of the people here have TB in their blood, and if their resistance is lowered by flu and other disease, they can get TB. But one of the problems is the whole family sleeps together under one quilt. And you've got one patient with TB, you've got the whole family infected.

05.59.24

Negus:  So lifestyle's a factor?

Aileen:  Yes.

Eleanor:  Mabrouk - he doesn't smoke.

Eleanor and Aileen in kitchen

Eleanor:  I was born in Korea and lived there all my childhood, went to school there. And then I got a terrible tragedy in my life. I got tuberculosis. I had two-thirds of a lung removed and got well and then I heard that there was a TB hospital in Bethlehem and that's how I got out there.

06.34.04

Negus:  I was just wondering, Aileen, what would you think of Eleanor as a patient, a TB patient.

Aileen:  Don't even talk about it. She drags herself around when she's almost dead. You know, "I'm okay, I'm okay." So don't ever even - I hate to even think about it.

Negus:  You wouldn't want to nurse her?

Eleanor:  By the way, she's had TB too. So don't talk too loud.

View over valley

Negus:  One constant in the bedouin world is its ethereal beauty.

07.20.24

I have to honest and say this place just about takes my breath away. How do you feel about it after 40 years?

Negus with Aileen and Eleanor

Aileen:  It's always different, every time of the day you come, it's different.

07.39.19

Eleanor:  It's different each hour of the day.

Negus:  You're not blasé about it?

Eleanor:  No, no.

Negus:  It's some of the best views in the world.

Eleanor:  We think so.

Bedouin preparing mensef

Negus:  If it has some of the best views in the world, Southern Jordan is also home to some of its best hospitality - a bedouin tradition that's survived.

07.55.22

We've been invited to a mensef - a traditional feast. A sheep's been slaughtered for the honoured guests and for hangers on, a gentle roasting.

Man:  This guy has never eaten mensef before?

Aileen:  He's never eaten mensef. This is the first time he's eaten with Bedouins. He's very excited.

Man:  Where's he from?

Aileen:  Australia. Have you heard of Australia? The end of the earth?

Aileen: ...He's surprised that you've never eaten a mensef.

08.42.02

Negus:  Tell him I've never been in a bedouin home before.

Negus with Aileen and Eleanor eating

Negus:  I think my punt would be that that's goat.

09.00.22

Aileen:  Yeah, that's goat.

Negus:  Because it's a little tougher.

Aileen:  No, it's a sheep - look at his nose.

Negus:  I'm trying not to look at his nose.

The women don't get to be part of this at all?

Aileen:  No, they don't appear in a mixed group. But after we've all finished - in a normal day - they tidy this up again and then the women would eat in their women's part.

Negus:  So why is it different for you two?

Aileen & Eleanor:  Well we're guests.

Negus:  Their hospitality is amazing, isn't it?

Aileen:  Yeah.

Negus:  And that's all over?

Aileen:  All over, wherever you go with the bedouins, you can stay for three days in a bedouin tent without them ever asking why you're here. And they'll treat you with the very best they have.

09.45.14

Negus:  And you've done that?

Aileen: No. No.

Clinic

Negus:  Next morning, it's medical business as usual, with bedouin generosity not so much returned as dispensed.

10.07.10

Aileen:  Listen my sister, you have to take a tablet four times a day.

Negus:  Goodwill and patience are the order of the day. This bedouin mother and son are both illiterate. The prescription will have to be committed to memory.

Man:  This one four times a day.

Aileen: Exactly. It's written here - two, two, two.

Aileen and Eleanor

Negus:  You've told me about your missionary commitment. But why here?

10.50.13

Aileen:  Why not?

Eleanor:  This is where we found the need when we first came. And the need has always been there. We've never been able to leave it.

And the people have accepted us so wonderfully that they make us feel part of them.

Negus:  Do you think that they will survive as an indigenous people?

Eleanor:  I'm afraid not. I'm sorry to say I think two more generations you'll have to really search to find some real bedouins. I'm sorry about that.

Negus:  So when it does change in that generation or two that you're talking about, I imagine that you guys will be pretty sad about that too.

Eleanor Aileen:  We wont be around.

Music

Negus in studio

Negus:  A couple of unforgettable characters, as is their desert home and their bedouin friends.

11.55.13