Looking for day trips to explore modern Middle East architecture, I stumbled across Jordan’s The Aqaba House (TAH). This ambitious little house was the first modern home fully based on green building principles specific to its Aqaba location.  Oriented to capitalize on sun exposure, with purposeful shading, its terraces offered fantastic views overlooking Aqaba and Eilat across the Red Sea.  Recycled graywater irrigated the local flora filling its gardens.  Solar thermal heated its water and air conditioning ran on solar electricity. A decent alternative to Aqaba’s swanky resorts, I was ready to pack my toothbrush.  The only catch was it closed two years ago.

I learned the sad news after a friendly Dutch guy named Theo answered my emails to their website, explaining some of the backstory. It got me wondering about the people behind these sensitive, small eco-projects.  What happens when their hard work and dedication is dashed by economic or political hiccups?

Meet Theo van de Laar, Middle East tour guide and the guy behind the Aqaba House:

Green Prophet: Holland to Jordan, didn’t you like tulips?

Theo: Yeah, I’m from the Netherlands. I studied history and after a few post-grad years working in marketing, I decided a traditional office job wasn’t for me. I applied for work as a tour leader, got hired and was sent to Egypt for three months. That was in 1999 and I’ve been on the road ever since.

After three years working in the Middle East, I wanted to experience actually living in the region and in 2002, I moved to Beirut.  Lebanon was my base, but I worked as a tour guide to Sri Lanka and Morocco and to everywhere in between. At one point I was hired to guide academic tours to Jordan. That’s how I met Florentine Visser, the architect for TAH, who turned out to be from my Holland hometown. When she asked if I’d be interested in running the place, I jumped at the challenge.

I’ve always behaved in an eco-friendly way. I’ve never owned a car; I’ve recycled paper and glass even in the most remote places. But to me, this house was less about sustainable technology and more about turning traditional tourism on its head.

So, spill the beans on The Aqaba House.

TAH was a pilot project to demonstrate eco-friendly building in a hot, dry climate.  Designed as a private home (called the Aqaba Residence Energy Efficiency), EU underwriting required that the premises be open to the public for at least one year.  So it was reborn as a guesthouse called TAH.  Through the architect, I was asked to devise a plan for exploiting the house’s unique qualities.  A few months after its official opening in 2009,  I moved to Aqaba.

Unfortunately, financial support immediately got wobbly, promised cash didn’t materialize. At that point I probably should’ve turned around, but I didn’t. I totally believed in this project.

I staged a lot of activities and TAH became a “happening” point in Aqaba’s art scene. I managed the personnel, organized the events, did the marketing and ran the B&B and art gallery for almost a year.  The house attracted publicity and visitors, however relations with its owners became problematic. Within a year its doors closed to the public.

I’m glad I was given the chance to run that special project. It was presented as “good living made sustainable,” and that slogan that had a lot of truth in it.

So when those doors closed, did others open?

After Aqaba, I returned to guiding tours throughout Jordan.  Together with winemaker Omar Zumot, I worked to set up an eco-friendly tourist stopover in northern Jordan.  In 2010, new project development was stalled by regional unrest in Egypt and Libya, and tourism in general was slack, so I returned to Holland.

I consulted with Volunteer Services Overseas (VSO), an international development organization that sends volunteers abroad, and did a lot of travel writing. Eventually I got back into guiding tours through Jordan, Ethiopia, Georgia and Armenia. My clients tend to be Dutch and Belgian: I conduct my tours in English, Dutch and French.

What are you doing now?

Last October, as a VSO volunteer, I traveled to Dushanbe, in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan, where I now work as a teacher and consultant at a local university. Land-locked Tajikistan’s the third least-visited country in the world.  Tourism could, in a pretty sustainable way, make an enormous difference in this nation’s development.

My job is to act as an agent of change: open the windows to the 21^st century and to build capacity in both students and teachers to support Tajikistan’s tourism industry.

I organize ‘master classes’ for teachers and students, inviting 3rd party lecturers and establishing relations with other, relevant organizations in and outside of the country.

I’m deeply honored to have had a chance to work here, but at the same time I have to admit that I’m starting to miss my old life and touring work.

Partly, that’s because of the volunteer-life: sharing a house with 3 (and sometimes 4) others on a very limited income is challenging, especially in the relatively expensive capital city of Dushanbe.

On the other hand, Dushanbe is a very attractive city, and Tajikistan is absolutely worth a visit.

But political rest knows no boundaries. Civil conflict in the mountainous southeastern region of Tajikistan is undermining Tajikistan’s potential as a tourist destination.

It’s heartbreaking, because this nation has a lot to offer world travelers. Competition for touristic dollars is steep.

Aqaba to Tajikistan: what’s next?

I’m planning tours to Lebanon, Morocco and trips to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, all with a culinary focus. I’m heading to Lebanon in mid-October to manage a fully-booked food and wine tour. Food is an excellent way to connect to a culture.

Looking back over my career, I don’t ever seem to do “normal” things. I’m passionate about helping people and places to develop, in maximally sustainable ways, because along the way, I develop myself.

End note:   As someone who threw a dart at a university admissions book and hit jackpot with a major that’s seen me happily employed through global upheaval and economic thunderstorms, I’m fascinated by people who recycle their skills, always adding new ones, and reapplying them with passion to new opportunities.

Got a Middle Eastern touristic challenge?  Contact Theo through Green Prophet.

All images of Theo with VSO Tajikistan colleagues courtesy of Teodore Kaye

The post Recycling Yourself When Green Projects Go Bust appeared first on Green Prophet.

My husband’s people come from the Silk Road region of Tajikistan, where the elders pride themselves on wearing grey or black karacul hats. Football shaped, with soft fur, they give a man a look of distinction. On a recent outing to a flea market my husband stopped by a Bukharian clothes shop, where the owner had just brought back a pile of supplies form Tashkent. Upon finding a hat that reminded him of his grandfather, my husband immediately shelled out the $50 for the hat, and came home excited to show me. I put it on and he said I looked like a supermodel. Admittedly, I kind of felt like one, and started wondering where I could wear this hat. Until I read how it was made.

Feeling the “fur” of the hat, it seemed to be sheepskin, but a kind of animal skin I have never really felt before. Heading to Google I looked around using various word combinations and was aghast to learn that the hat is made from the fur of aborted lambs. The fact that the lambs are not permitted to be born gives the fur an extra “virgin” quality.

A Karakul (Qaraqul) hat (Urdu, Pashto, Persian: قراقلی) is also known as Jinnah Cap in Pakistan for its frequent use by the country’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

Fox News reports on the problem with karacal hats back in 2002.

Shepherds in northern Afghanistan slaughter the mother and then remove the fetus, whose downy fur is incredibly smooth because it has never been exposed to the air or sun. Sometimes shepherds wait for the ewe to give birth before killing the lamb.

In defence, a local is quoted in the same story criticizing the way Americans slaughter and eat cows.

More info about these hats and the culture of them are needed. It would be strange to see PETA throwing paint on Afghanis wearing karacul hats, but wearing them certainly goes against PETA’s mission to safeguard animal rights.

In Afghanistan, for instance, where the karacul hat was in fashion, people have started to wear turbans instead to stop the unnecessary killing of fetal lambs according to one source I read (can’t find link).

But this could be a story where western values clash with traditional ones. Some questions I have about karacul hats remain unanswered. Unlike mink stoles, where the minks are bred just for fur, wouldn’t local Afghanis and those in the region eat the meat of the fetal lambs they kill? And if so, does it make karakul hats so bad? What should we do with the hat we now own? Should we keep it since it’s been bought, or should it be returned for the next fetal lamb fur buyer to make the faux pas?

Lower image of Afghan sheep farmer from Lizette Potgieter/Shutterstock

The post Caught Wearing An Aborted Lamb Fetus Karacul Hat! appeared first on Green Prophet.