Hot Stuff!

Aqaba, Jordan

There's a warm wind that brings spring over the mountains into northern Switzerland called the "Föhn," which is also the word they use for 'hair-dryer.' It's phonetically almost identical to the Arabic word for 'oven.' Wikipedia says they're not related, but either word - hair-dryer or oven - would have described the weather when I stepped out of the Central Bank of Jordan after my classes this evening.

Similar winds have swept over from the Negev before in the weeks I've been in Aqaba. They usually come in the evening, often carrying a dusty haze, and generally presage a miserable next day. Tonight's wind, however, was the most intense of this past month. In addition to being heavy with dust, and smotheringly hot, it also smelled exactly like the super-heated air that comes out of a hair-dryer!

Free Lunch!

Aqaba, Jordan

No, I can't debunk the old truism, "No such thing as a free lunch." I worked hard for these last three lunches ... but in the end I didn't shell out the cash for them.

Peter and Rebecca came to visit me this weekend, and to have a well-deserved mini 48 hour semi-vacation. I say "semi" because Peter was constantly on the phone with the company, having recently become the director of Bell Amman. He is in the middle of a serious culture change in the company, an opening up of dialogue between departments and with the CEO that I think will eliminate many of the most frustrating aspects of the business culture there that I was beginning to despise. It almost makes me sad to be leaving Bell Amman for this fellowship in Cairo. (In addition to already being very sad about losing my very nice salary, just when I was getting used to having money to save, and even a little money to throw around. So much for lasering away my leg hair...!)

Anyway, Peter was mostly writing a paper for his PhD on his "vacation," but Rebecca spent most of it on the beach with me, and we had 3 fabulous lunches in the various restaurants of the Intercontinental Hotel. It was so nice to have someone else to spend the weekend with. While I generally enjoy the company of me, myself and I, we do occasionally tire of each other and need to see other people....

The March of Time

Aqaba, Jordan

I've lived in Jordan for 4 of the past 6 years. I've reached an odd point in my life where I can't decide whether that's a long time or a short time. I do know that almost my only "real" jobs, in which I worked full time and wasn't also a full-time student, have been here in Jordan (with the exception of working full time as a substitute teacher while I waited for my Peace Corps assignment, which didn't feel like a "real" job). My whole adult, non-student life is here. Put in that perspective, it's no wonder I've got such mixed feelings about leaving Jordan. So much of the adult I've become was molded here.

In other ways, though, I'm ready for a new adventure. One of the things I noticed on my trip with Wade was how much many of my favorite places had changed, improved in ways that make me oddly nostalgic for their former "rustic" appeal. I've seen a lot of changes in Jordan's tourist industry in my time here.

The many times I visited King Herod's Castle at Macchareus, it was an entirely self-guided tour. Park your car and climb at your own risk. Now the parking lot has been fenced in and charges a fee, and is watched over by the Tourist Police. I appreciate the desire to earn money from this attraction, as well as the philosophy that when local people benefit economically from an archaeological site, they are more likely to be concerned about saving it. At the same time, the nearby Byzantine church ruins were locked up, it being Friday, and I wasn't able to show them to Wade.

About a month before my brother's rock-climbing tour of Jordan, they banned rock-climbing in Petra, at least in the easily accessible parts. The last time I went to Petra, you could walk on the portico of the Treasury, but not inside the dining chambers. When I took Wade to Petra, you couldn't even walk on the portico, but had to admire it from the sand down in front. When I took my parents to Petra, we climbed to the top of the Roman Theater and took pictures looking back across the wadi. Now they've cordoned off an area some distance in front of the theater, and you can only admire it from afar.

From A Rainy Day In Petra

I understand why, of course. I've heard my archaeologist friend Chris rail often enough about how the tourists are destroying the archaeological integrity of Petra and other sites around the kingdom. I've seen the appalling graffiti on the Treasury and other monuments. It's easy to see how just the rain has degraded the seats of the Roman Theater, and that human feet could only hurt it more. From a preservation perspective, it's absolutely essential that these steps be taken, and almost incomprehensible that they weren't taken much sooner. The dramatic increase in the number of tourists in the past 6 years only exacerbated the need for these changes.

From an Ammani evening

Most dramatic was the complete re-invention of Castle Hill in Amman, with a visitor's center, clearly marked pathways, scenic vistas and many more informative plaques. Equally dramatic was the new visitor's center in Wadi Rum, complete with entrance fees to the park and a big sign indicating standardized prices for all kinds of services for which tourists formerly either bargained or were fleeced. It's all far more informative and tourist-friendly, much more like the park at Bet She'an across the Valley. At the same time, I remember quite vividly how fun it was with Auntie Viv or my parents to imagine what each little building and chamber used to be used for. All that clear information sort of takes the fun out of it for me. I miss those days when Wesley could climb everything and photograph it from the top!

Honestly!

Aqaba, Jordan / Eilot, Israel

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” said the young women at the security check at the Eilot crossing into Israel. They had just repacked my bags for me, after carefully removing and handling everything in the kind of clear plastic gloves you see at the deli counter. They had sent everything I'd brought one at a time through the detector, oohing and aahing over my Jordanian jewelry and hair accessories. “No problem,” I said, thinking, Better inconvenient than insecure. They’d already asked me how long I’d been in Jordan, what I do there, why I’d chosen to study Arabic (“It seemed like an interesting challenge” seemed the safest of my many reasons), and why I was going to Israel. They were very cheerful about it, clearly very comfortable in each other’s company, and I was feeling really good about crossing the border. Plus, Jordan didn’t charge me the exit tax, or for the days I’d overstayed my visa.

Of course it wasn’t that simple. I hadn’t gotten to passport control yet. They flipped through my passport and saw its many Arab stamps: 3 for each Jordanian tourist visa, 3 more for my residency, plus every other entry and exit, half a dozen from Egypt, and a trip to Syria. They sent me to my own special window with my own special official. “We’re going to do a background check. I’m going to ask you some questions, and then it’ll take an hour, maybe more.”

She was very friendly, meticulous but pleasant. The whole time, a voice in my head was critiquing every answer: Oh, yeah, tell her again how the U.S. government has financed all your trips to Jordan. Oh, no! “I don’t actually know the French girl I’m staying with. I don’t know what she does in Ramallah….” Way to look like a terrorist! Good point about how Peace Corps doesn’t let volunteers choose their destinations. Be sure to mention how your best friend in Jordan works for the U.N. and was sent to the States by the U.S. government. (Crap! How could you forget that the Israeli embassy held her passport for months!) Don’t forget to mention how your other friend became an Israeli citizen and lives on a kibbutz!

Then I sat with Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States and waited. An hour passed. I started to make contingency plans for how I’d spend my vacation if Israel turned me away.

But in the end, as I suspected, blundering honesty was the best policy, and they let me in. In the end, it took half as long and was far more pleasant than crossing the border into Syria. Where, by the way, I won’t be going again on this passport. I needed the stamps from my crossing to renew my visa for my last 6 weeks in Jordan, and Syria won't let people in who have Israeli stamps.

Hospitality Is In the Eyes of the Beholder

Aqaba, Jordan

My Lower Intermediate students were reading a text in New Headway Plus about the souqs of Marrakesh. It describes how the carpet seller welcomes you into his shop, pulls out rug after rug, brings you tea....

“Now, there’s real hospitality!” my students said. It was a good salesman, they said, who anticipated his customer’s needs before the customer, who brought out tea, who engaged the customer in conversation.

It started an interesting conversation about differing ideas of hospitality. To most Westerners, what Arabs consider good hospitality and customer service is too intrusive, too pushy. When we walk into a shop, we want to be left alone to look by ourselves, with the shop assistant on hand to answer our questions if we have them. Arabs consider this extraordinarily bad customer service; they expect the shopkeeper to strike up a conversation with them from the moment they walk into the shop, and they don't feel that such a conversation constitutes pressure to buy something as we in the West often do. It was one of the many cultural adjustments I had to make as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and one that I still struggle with 4 years later!

Swimming Is For Everyone!

Aqaba, Jordan

I got my membership to the Intercontinental Hotel beach in Aqaba to avoid the crowds of raucous young men in tightie-whities on the public beach, where women swim in full hijab if they swim at all. It's not a place to be seen in a bikini, but the private hotel beaches are full of foreigners and upper-class Jordanians who are less likely to ogle (or at least more discreet about it).

Upper-class doesn't necessarily mean bikinis, though. Today there was a family on the beach in full hijab, and one young woman in niqab covering everything but her eyes. When they first came on the beach, I wondered why they would possibly want to pay the incredibly high price to sit on a beach in full hijab. Their Lebanese accents were a partial explanation, suggesting that they were staying at the hotel on holiday. Then the women and girls headed for the water.

The girls, about 7 and 10 years old, went in about waist deep, giggling and protesting, and then headed back to the beach. I figured the women would do the same, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Even the grandmother, ungainly on land and wearing the most layers of clothing, went right on in and got thoroughly wet up to her neck. Most unexpectedly for me, the girl in full niqab started swimming the crawl back and forth, parallel to the beach, clearly delighted by and used to swimming despite her layers of black dress and veils.

I so thoroughly enjoyed watching them enjoy themselves in the water that I could barely concentrate on my book for grinning. Not wanting to stare like some ignorant foreigner, nonetheless I kept finding myself watching. I almost wished I had a camera, though perhaps it would have been equally culturally insensitive to photograph a family that was trying so hard to be both Islamicly modest and secularly normal.

Jordan and Peace Corps In the News

Aqaba, Jordan

Yesterday on CNN, which I wouldn't ordinarily watch except that my new apartment doesn't have BBC or Internet, there was a story about Jordan. Not the usual "Jordanian kills a bunch of people" story we've seen of late. This time it was a positive look at Jordan, specifically the Dead Sea Ultra Marathon and the rising popularity of physical exercise in Jordan, and especially in Amman. Nice to see.



Also, Mel found this article in yesterday's Jordan Times that's not just about Jordan, but specifically about Peace Corps in Jordan. Apparently it also appeared in Al Ghad newspaper in Arabic. Peace Corps Volunteers rock, and now all of Jordan knows it! =D

The BMI Index

Aqaba, Jordan

My archaeologist friend Chris likes to say that Jordan runs on the BMI Index: Bukra (tomorrow), Mumkin (maybe), Inshallah (God willing). I've been here long enough to recognize it when I see it. In fact, a colleague was just commenting Thursday on how naturally and with such conviction I replied "Inshallah" to the latest news on plans for Aqaba. But nothing makes a bad day worse like the BMI Index.

This is the height of hay fever season in Jordan. I'm allergic to jasmine, lavender, olive pollen and ragweed, all of which are now in full bloom, in Aqaba most of all. Add that to my ever-present dust allergies and the stress and pressure of this project in Aqaba, and I was already set to have a bad day.

I was up at 5am to pack the last of my clean laundry, shower and get some coffee before the 4 hour drive to Aqaba. I didn't manage to sleep in the car as I'd hoped. By the time we arrived in Aqaba, despite being drugged to the gills on allergy remedies, my sinuses were packed full and aching from the swift drop in altitude of the last 100 miles. I stepped out of the car in Aqaba to a wall of stifling heat and humidity, half deaf and off balance from ears congested by allergies, to discover that the accountant had not actually made firm appointments to see any apartments.

We spent hours wandering around Aqaba, calling phone numbers spray-painted on walls, and looking at squalid little studio apartments above "Chinese massage parlors" (blatant code for something seedier). None of them had washing machines, and the accountant conceded that this was a necessity for a 5 week stay. We did look at one that would have been acceptable, except it was 50% over our budget, and the landlord wouldn't be bargained with. We'd been in Aqaba for almost 4 hours when we finally met up with the real estate agent who supposedly had some apartments to show us in our price range ... but who had only one apartment to show us, which was twice our stated budget.

Eventually we found an apartment that was in our price range. The kitchen counters and walls are coated in a layer of aged cooking oil, the cabinets full of mildew, and the kitchen lacking any kind of dishes or cookware (which was the point of having an apartment and not a hotel room). But I was informed that it's all the company could afford, and I didn't have a say in the matter.

Also, we were unable to arrange for any Internet access.

I sure hope the teaching goes well, because it's gonna be a long five weeks in that apartment! The German word "ekelhaft" comes to mind, somehow so much more evocative and appropriate than "disgusting"....

Say It Ain't So ... Hot!

Aqaba, Jordan

Aqaba is a free trade zone, so everyone coming and going is subject to Customs inspections. We stopped just past customs and rode our bikes down, down, down and through the streets of Aqaba to the resort hotels.

From Good Friday in Wadi Rum, Then Aqaba

Then we had a few hours to do whatever. Sameh, Mel and I had lunch, and bought the requisite coffee and cigarettes for my visit to Wijdan tomorrow. Then we found a bar by a pool on the roof of a hotel, and spent the afternoon sipping fruit juice in the shade.

It was soooo hot! I'm definitely not looking forward to moving to Aqaba on Thursday. Imagine how much hotter it'll be in another month!

Spring Resolution

Amman, Jordan

I'm spending way too much time on the Internet, and I think it's making me stupid. In fact, I've been reading and watching PBS Frontline videos on the Internet about how Internet makes us stupid.... The irony is not lost on me.

Jason and others have been pushing me to start writing again, but I've been wallowing in my rejections: manuscript rejections, resume rejections, vacation request rejections.... I'm also using that as an excuse not to study Arabic; it seems entirely useless when the only work I seem able to get is teaching English, anyway! Mel keeps giving me books to read, and I've got a stack of poli sci and Mid East history books sitting around courtesy of Ryan and Lowen, but I've been watching episode after episode of bad sci fi on the Internet instead.

But that's going to change. The weather is improving, so there's less and less reason to be curled up under the covers in bed. Shauna's book contract and her wonderfully lyrical blog have inspired me to start writing again. My tightening pants are giving new urgency to the desire to get more exercise, which would be much cheaper than a new wardrobe!

I'm hoping that my impending move to Aqaba will help to push me into a change of lifestyle, too. I'll be teaching down on the Red Sea for 5 (maybe 10) weeks starting a week from tomorrow. It's an awesome responsibility, with the potential for huge contracts resting on my performance down there, but for the moment I'm more excited than nervous.

Best of all for my resolution, my Internet in Aqaba will be pay-as-you-go, not a monthly plan like I've got in Amman. I'm hoping this will restrict my Internet consumption, and get me to diversify my private life a little. I want to do yoga 3 days a week. I want to cook again. I want to swim as much as possible. I want to get back to writing. If I've got satellite in Aqaba, I want to watch "itijah al-mu3akis" on Al-Jazeera Arabic every week. I want to walk regularly at dusk. Flat as Aqaba is, I almost wish I had a bike.

I know that if I can do just 3 of those things on a regular basis, I will feel much better, physically and mentally. And I'm hoping that, by putting it on my blog, I'll feel like I'm accountable to someone for whether I keep my resolution or not. Wish me luck!

Jordan In the Headlines

In A Good Way, This Time!

Amman – 8/3/2010 – “If I could also just thank (…) the people of Jordan who were so hospitable to us when we were shooting,” said Kathryn Bigelow yesterday evening as she accepted the Academy Award for Best Director for her film The Hurt Locker. The critically- acclaimed film also reaped the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Film Editing.

With this multiple win, The Hurt Locker makes cinematic history and yet again – the first time was with “Lawrence of Arabia” in 1963 - puts Jordan, where the film was shot, on the world film map. Kathryn Bigelow is the first woman ever to win an Oscar for best directing in 82 years of the awards’ history. As an independent picture, The Hurt Locker was able against all odds to obtain most major prizes on its way to the Academy Awards ceremony.

Jordan, and The Royal Film Commission – Jordan (RFC), have reason to share in the joy and pride of this cinematic feat: The Hurt Locker was shot in the Kingdom almost entirely for approximately two months in the summer of 2007. The local geography, settings and demographics played a pivotal role in ensuring the success of the shoot. To that, Bigelow announced: “You could look 360 degrees in any given day of the shoot and it would be perfect.” But Jordan was more than a location; the American crew worked closely with the local cast and crew, collaborating with some 70 Jordanian film professionals and some 150 local actors and extras. In addition to Bigelow’s recognition, Ray Becket - who won the Best Sound Mixing Award - thanked his team in Jordan during his acceptance speech, namely Baha Othman, the Jordanian instructor who heads the Sound Department at the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Aqaba (Jordan).

According to Her Royal Highness Princess Rym Ali, member of the RFC’s Board of Commissioners, the RFC has been praised for ensuring a high level of professionalism and for reducing bureaucratic hassles to a minimum. She added: “The flexibility with which foreign crews can work here and use their imagination to make some places in Jordan look like some others in a different country is very appealing.”

On that, Bigelow has also said that “shooting in Jordan was a great experience. It’s very cosmopolitan; they have a very rich film school and a young film infrastructure.” Since its establishment in 2003, the RFC has committed itself to providing support to Jordan’s upcoming film professionals. According to George David, General Manager of the RFC: “At the end of the day, it’s the talent and the skills of the people that make the difference.”

Princess Rym highlighted the positive impact of attracting international film productions, saying: “Aside from its economic value, it is a learning experience to those who come from outside to film in Jordan and plays an important role in helping foreigners to get to know our people, the Middle East and appreciate who we are,” adding “it’s not only about leaving our mark internationally but also about establishing our stories, owning them and making sure we have a cultural legacy to pass onto our future generations through film.”

(This article came to me through the Royal Film Commission's Facebook page, where it was not attributed to its author.)

Longest Work Day Ever!

Amman & Aqaba, Jordan

We started before 6am, didn't get home till half past 11 at night, and spent 10 of those hours on a very uncomfortable bus!

Somewhere in the middle we gave placement tests to about 90 bank employees. I'll be heading back to Aqaba in a couple weeks to spend a month or two teaching about 60 of those bankers, so stay tuned for posts from the beach!

I'm really looking forward to these classes, and the opportunity to strut myself as something of a free agent. I've learned a lot in the last year at Bell Amman. As I kept saying during our inspection last week by Bell Cambridge, I'm a completely different teacher than when I started a year ago.

Without Nina and Rula's belief in me after the professional and psychological abuse I suffered at the Modern American School (more on this to come), I might never have had the confidence to teach again.
Without the CELTA that Nina, Rula and Rebecca fought tooth and nail to get the Luminus Group to pay for, I wouldn't have recognized how good my instincts as a teacher already were, or be putting nearly as much thought into lesson frameworks and unifying lesson objectives.
Without Peter and Rebecca's teacher training and phenomenal support, I wouldn't have known about task-based teaching, or have had the guts or imagination to try it in an ESL setting, and this methodology has completely transformed my classroom in the best ways.
I've learned a great deal from full-time and part-time teachers, and others at Bell.
My extensive involvement in the months of preparation for inspection also taught me a lot about the big picture elements of education and curriculum design.

In the next two months, I'll be putting the new "Teacher Maryah" to the test in Aqaba, and I can hardly wait to begin!

Jordan Gladly Welcomes Tourists....

...But Jordanians? Not So Welcome!

Aqaba, Jordan

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

Jad and I just wanted a relaxing weekend outside of Amman. After the week I had, I sure needed it! We both took Thursday off and headed south. We were going to stay in Aqaba tonight, and then tomorrow night in Wadi Rum. It's a very long drive, so we got sandwiches in Aqaba when we arrived, and then headed further south to the Darna Village hostel, just across the main drag from the beach. My brother had stayed in another campground in that area a few years back, and really enjoyed the area. Jad had tried to make a reservation there and been unsuccessful, but when I called to make a reservation for two people, I got one quite easily. It was when we handed over our IDs to register for the room that the trouble started.

The guy at registration asked what our relationship was, and we said we were friends. "You can't have a double!" he said angrily to Jad, in Arabic. "It's illegal." So we asked for two singles. That was when he started yelling, and eventually told us to get out. So we did.

Now, I know that this law exists. I had forgotten about it, but I know about it, and I don't think it's all that unreasonable. After all, if you aid and abet an illicit relationship in Jordan, you put yourself at risk of being victim to an honor killing. It's just good business practice to protect yourself from murder! But I don't think it's reasonable to deny us two single rooms.

In the end, neither did the owner when we reached him by phone. He offered us two singles, but by that time we had driven back to Aqaba city, and couldn't contemplate the idea of subjecting ourselves to that kind of attitude again.

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

After a few hours of driving around, we managed to contact the camp in Wadi Rum and change our reservation, so we headed out of Aqaba and back north.

Me and the Fishes

Aqaba, Jordan

It's been a great summer, but I find myself very tired and quite nervous about my new job as a second grade teacher. I really love the people I've been here with, and the circumstances of our stay, but I didn't have true introvert time, not a day completely alone without any human contact, for more than 2 months, and it's been starting to wear on me. As we arrived in Aqaba this afternoon, I could already feel myself getting crabby and unpleasant, particularly when there was all this wavering back and forth as to whether we really wanted to go to the Royal Diving Club or not.

Eventually, most of us did go, and it was exactly what I needed!

I don't think I've been so happy to be in the water since I was about 10 and would stay in Grandma's pond till I was literally purple. Snorkelling in the Red Sea was a more intense introvert time than I've had in a very long time. Just me and the water. You can't hear anything, you can't see any people more than 10m away, and you can't talk to them anyway. You have the fish and the coral to keep your attention, who make no demands and no judgements of you.

When I developed goosebumps, I got out to lay in the sun and warm up, but I couldn't take it for long. Too much chatter, too many eyes. I'm so glad, though, that I got back in the water, because just as the goosebumps were starting to get to me again, something had changed about the light, making the prismatic little ripples of light on the sea floor glow golden. Suddenly there were fish everywhere, with their unbelievable bright colors. Fish that I'd been trying to get a look at under ledges or in the fan coral all day were suddenly in plain view, with their enormous, light-sensitive eyes. Some new fish, fat colorful ones longer than my forearm and outstretched hand, had come up from deeper, darker waters. It was incredibly beautiful, peaceful and restorative.

Quote of the Day:
"I just saw an unfortunate Eighties fish next to a more stylish Seventies fish. No, really! One was neon blue with neon pink stripes, the other was a nice yellow and brown."
--Reema Hijazi