Religious Tourism in Jordan part 2

Last Sunday I went with Feras and his cousins Bilal and Usama (Shadhi we decided was not as interested as the other two) and Carrie Swan, a Brown University doctoral student, out to Mt Nebo for another go at the tourists. This time Feras was pretty tooled up - nicely printed signs with easels, id tags for the crew, sets of questionnaires in a variety of languages (though Portuguese would have been handy as it turned out, and definitely Chinese) and seats that didn't collapse.
(Bilal, Feras and Usama, with id tags)

(professional looking research camp)

Carrie is here for the first time in Jordan, though she's worked in Turkey, Greece, Egypt and Israel. She had been stuck in ACOR, and was only too happy to lend a hand with the questionnaires in return for a trip to Mt Nebo (Feras gave her time to check out the mosaics and museum on the site) and a look at the mosaic map in Madaba after a late lunch.
(tourists doing research observed by tourist police)
Tour leaders. Mmmm. They're a mixed bunch aren't they? Some were friendly, and clearly on good terms with their groups with whom they could communicate quite well in the relevant language. Others, it's another story. A number of them told us that no-one in their tour group spoke a word of English, so couldn't do the questionnaire. Another got really cross with Feras for talking to his group without permission - South Africans as it turned out, who'd struck up a conversation with Feras behind their tour leader's back upon noticing the nicely printed University of Sydney Research sign. One took a set of 20 questionnaires to give to his group on their bus, and returned them, untouched 5 days later in Amman saying that they had had no time to fill them in. Feras subsequently visited a few in their offices here in Amman, to have one guy go through the questionnaire, toss it back across the table and say, these are stupid questions, this is rubbish research.

Feras was quite down-heartened, especially since they got blown off the mountain on Wednesday with a dust-storm - but I just got a text from him, and they got 100 completed questionnaires today from locals and internationals, so, phew, the doctorate is back on track. Bilal has taken over as registrar of the project, coding all the questionnaires as they're done, and keeping track of what is where with whom. Usama, who is a shy young man, is happy to pass around the lollies, keep track of the pencils, and spends a lot of his time plucking pine cones from the trees for elderly lady tourists of various nationalities, which for some reason they all want as souvenirs.
(Bilal, registrar)