Sinai Life: Bugs and 'Bedouinism'

"It seems incredible," says Fodor's Guide to the Sinai Peninsula, "but there has been a constant flow of traffic across this corner of hell since time immemorial." Last week the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution that will allow some 200 American technicians to become the latest pilgrims to the Sinai. The U.S. technicians will act as "custodians" at two multimillion-dollar surveillance sites along the Giddi Pass. They will also man two or three new watch stations in the area. Their life will not be easy, as TIME'S Jerusalem bureau chief Donald Neff discovered when he went on a Jeep-borne tour of the area. His report:

The passes are 2,000-ft.-high barren outcrops of granite and sandstone, sparsely dotted with desert scrub. Beyond is the vast loneliness of the desert. The only evidence of man is a narrow, two-lane asphalt road that slithers along for 20 miles through the minefields and war wreckage surrounding the passes, and the bristling patch of antennas that mark the sophisticated, underground listening post at Umm Khisheib, northwest of Giddi. Except for Egyptian, Israeli and U.N. soldiers, the only people the Americans are likely to see are camel-riding Bedouins eerily wandering through the emptiness with no apparent destination.

The climate is as burdensome as the loneliness. Temperatures during the day frequently soar above 110DEG F. and at night occasionally plunge below freezing. The silence is total, except when broken by wind whistling through the sere brush. Often the passes turn into wind tunnels, with sandstorms gusting through at 20 and 30 miles an hour. In the winter, sudden cloudbursts can cause flash floods.

Unless the Americans discipline themselves to keep busy, they will quickly fall prey to what Israeli soldiers call "Bedouinism." Dr. Amnon Shapira, a Tel Aviv physician who has served in the Sinai, describes the malaise as a pathological lethargy. "You lose all interest in everything. You don't wash, you have no energy or motivation. It's a matter of not letting the desert get the better of you."

The more immediate hazards, however, are physical. The wide-ranging temperatures cause respiratory infections: chronic colds, coughs and sore throats. The highly chlorinated water that is piped to the desert often brings on stomach cramps and nausea. Dehydration comes on quickly during the daytime heat, and unless the Americans drink much more water than they are accustomed to, they will be vulnerable to sunstroke and fainting spells.

Swarms of sand fleas, mosquitoes and flies infest the area. There are also scorpions and several varieties of poisonous snakes, including a viper that is only eight inches long but extremely toxic. To avoid snake bite, Israeli soldiers in the Sinai have been ordered to wear boots rather than sandals, which in turn has led to a virtual epidemic of athlete's foot.

In one sense, all this should be reassuring to the incoming U.S. technicians. Between sandstorms and flash floods, bouts of dehydration and nausea and attacks by insects and vipers, they should find little time to lapse into the dread Bedouinism.

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