Itinerant and Inquisitive

It's good to have friends with cars. I can't be stuck in the city indefinitely, and neither can my roommate Mel. We need frequent doses of nature, of broad vistas, of goats and camels and other things that make this Jordan, and if we're lucky, a bit of green. We got all that and more today.

Mel's friend A is afraid that his students will find his pictures on the Web, so I won't mention his name. He's got a car, though, and today's trip was his excellent idea. When Mel said they were going to Azraq, I was really jealous. Much as I love my teaching job at Ruwwad, Saturday afternoons can be an inconvenient time. But unexpectedly, my class was cancelled and I was able to go after all.

Of course, though our destination was Azraq Oasis, that didn't keep us from making a few stops along the way. I mean, when you see Qasr Harranah rise up out of the desert, how could you not stop? With our residence permits, it cost the four of us no more than one dinar to see three castles, and as Mel pointed out, the stone was so photogenic. For the details, click on any of these photos to check out my Web album on Picasa, and don't forget to read the captions!

Half way to Qasr Amra, we stumbled across this herd of camels along the roadway, including the most strikingly adorable babies. The one to the far right in this picture was just two days old, and could barely keep his balance on his little feet. We spent almost half an hour following them around taking pictures.

Next on our tour, the deceptively simple little Qasr Amra. This little pleasure retreat built by an Ummayad caliph to escape the intrigues of the Damascus court was probably a hunting lodge, judging by the scenes of hunting in its amazing frescoes. But that's not all that happened there, with it's Roman-style baths and, well....

Our Muslim friends had a little difficulty believing that this was actually an Islamic building, insisting that it must have been built by the Romans or the Byzantines, maybe even the Greeks, because a Muslim leader would never paint such things on his walls. But, after all, the Abbasids did justify their toppling of the Ummayyad Caliphate with claims that the caliphs in Damascus had strayed too far from their duties and obligations as good Muslim leaders! And Islamic philosophy certainly holds that kings are inevitably corrupted by the power of their positions.

But we moved on...

...to beautiful Azraq Oasis! Well, ordinarily it's beautiful. Unfortunately, it was ravaged by a fire, perhaps deliberately set, last October, and the marshlands have barely begun to recover. The blackened trees did make stunning photography, though!

And I thought it was worth it just for the stroll through the exhibit at the visitors' center. Jordan is a country where criticism of the government is approached with great caution, but the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature seems to have a free pass in Azraq. After showing the fascinating diversity of the region at the beginning of last century, including how water buffalos brought by Chechan refugees actually made the oasis a more hospitable place for migrating birds, they then proceeded to pan the Jordanian government for agreeing to protect Azraq Oasis, and then draining it of unsustainable amounts of water for the faucets of Irbid and Amman. But I loved their take-away lesson: There will be enough water to help sustain people indefinitely if we leave enough water in Azraq to sustain the native and migrating birds like this one:

Then we made our way back via A's friend's farm in Mafraq for some sunset shots and a delicious little supper of labnah, homemade olive oil and eggs with bread.

I only wish Ryan were still here. We'd been talking for months about renting a car and doing this same trip....

Thursday, March 11, 2010

World Day Against Cyber Censorship

Amman, Jordan

Today has been declared World Day Against Cyber Censorship by Reporters Without Borders. I'm responding to a call by Black Iris for the Jordanian blogosphere to voice their concerns about the future of Internet press freedom in Jordan. Reporters Without Borders reports some reasons for concern in Jordan. While I am not Jordanian myself, I am less likely to be harassed by potentially restricting legislation. Nonetheless, I still feel great kinship to the Jordanian blogosphere, and many of the writers in My Blog List on the right could definitely have their feet held to the fire. I know that some of them already have.

I'd also like to point out that, while Jordan may make an appearance on the "under surveillance" list published by Reporters Without Borders today, there are many other countries who will appear on the far more troubling "Internet Enemies" list. Their netizens also deserve our strong support.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

End of an Era!

Amman, Jordan

"This is the downside of our job," said Melanie after the taxi had departed. "You're always saying goodbye."
"Yes," I said, "but usually you have a couple months to get used to the idea!"

I've had many roommates over the past two years: Keri, Megan, Kitty, Hannah, Claire, Martha and Melanie. One person, though, has always been constant: Ryan. And I thought I would have two or three more months to enjoy his company before his contract was up with the Modern American School and he went back to the friends and family he so adores back in Detroit. Just now, with the weather warming up, I was looking forward to more rental car adventures, more Marxist house parties, and more trips with Tareef.

I've said again and again that one of Ryan's most endearing qualities, one of the many qualities that made him such an excellent roommate, is that he never takes anything personally. I should know better than to say "never." As my friends followed my example and left the Modern American School one after another, we always figured that Ryan would stay. The kids loved him and he loved them, which made the parents love him, which kept the administration pretty much out of his way. Though he was repeatedly promised and then denied his residency permit and work permit, both of which an employer is obligated by Jordanian labor law to provide, Ryan persisted. Even though he had the same spoiled, unruly, disrespectful kids that the rest of us taught and the same lack of disciplinary support from the school's administration, Ryan persisted. He's helped three people get job offers there, three damned good teachers, two of whom were worn away by the administration's abuses much faster than Ryan. His friends and coworkers fled the company, even fled the country, one after another, and still Ryan persisted.

It was when the administration insisted on a much harder midterm than in previous years, and then when too many students failed it, fixed their grades in such a clumsy manner that the worst students came away with better grades than the most competent and diligent. That was when the first cracks started to show. It wasn't just the grade fixing. Because it was so clumsy and blatant, and after the students had already been shown their actual grades, teachers lost all credibility in the classroom. Student discipline and even attendance completely disintegrated. Then Ryan's paychecks from last summer, which the school makes a policy (an illegal one) of withholding for 6 months for first time teachers, were delayed another 2 months.

Quite suddenly it was personal. He started talking about leaving a week ago, decided on Friday, and bought his plane ticket on Saturday. Now it's Tuesday, and he's gone. I am really gonna miss that guy. This old apartment just won't be the same!

Monday, March 8, 2010

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.)

Friday, March 5, 2010

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!

Friday, February 26, 2010

Rainy Bliss

Amman, Jordan

From A Rainy Day In

I love rainy weekends. Not just because Jordan so badly needs the rain. I love the sound of the rain. I love being snuggled up in my bed listening to it out the window. Despite the cold, I've got my window cracked open so I can hear it better.

I like the rain as an excuse to sleep in, relax, catch up on my blogging, my emails, my job apps, my reading, my PBS Frontline and Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me! episodes, my cross-stitching, my scrapbooking, my creative writing. It gives me an excuse to not get dressed, not leave the house, not speak to anyone but my roommates, without feeling too terribly like a hermit.

I think it's time I revived Introvert Days. It was something I discovered the first time I was in Jordan, and that got me through grad school. Once a week, I would stay home, in my pajamas, and do things purely for myself, by myself. It took a long time to convince my neighbors in the village that this was a good thing. Arabs are generally terrified to be alone, and so they assumed that I was, too, and it took me a long time to convince them not to send their daughters over to my house to keep me company on Friday afternoons. But it was a necessary psychological defense.

These days, with Bell Amman growing by leaps and bounds, I think I need that refuge again. We've got full schedules, and most of our part-time teachers teaching full schedules, too. When I go to Aqaba to teach this intensive course, it's hard to say just what we're going to do to cover my classes. All of this is a good thing. It means that we might start to turn a profit sometime soon. In some ways, though, it makes work more stressful than ever, and regular Introvert Days more necessary.

Plus, check out the cool photos I got of an impressive thunder and hail storm:

From A Rainy Day In

Meanwhile, my roommates Ryan and Melanie had a very different idea of how to spend their rainy day:

From A Rainy Day In

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Taxi Drama

Amman, Jordan

I have, as my mother pointed out, been having a rash of blog-worthy taxi encounters recently. This is pretty unusual for me these days in Jordan. When I was here as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I must've had a more American accent or look, because people would immediately pick me out as a foreigner, and I had a lot of both interesting and uncomfortable encounters with taxi drivers. Now, though they may still think I look like a foreigner, the moment I speak Arabic with my heavy Bedouin accent, I guess people assume I must be Jordanian, or at least married to one. For taxi drivers, I think this means they don't speak to me anymore because they're afraid of what my family might do to them if they do.

Before I left with the Peace Corps, my mother said to me, "In Jordan, people will never mistake you for a native like they did in Switzerland." And maybe, at first glance, that's true. But it's more than a family joke that Jordan is the Switzerland of the Peace Corps, or the Switzerland of the Middle East. Just as the Swiss don't seem to believe that Swiss German can be learned as a second language, it also doesn't seem to occur to most Jordanians that I might have learned Bedouin dialect as a second language. Most foreigners only speak fuS7a, what you might call Al-Jazeera Arabic, which isn't anyone's native language.) They're so confused, they just treat me like an Arab.

Most of the time. Then occasionally I get taxi drivers like this morning. I get in the cab and tell him where I want to go. He starts to drive away, and then says, "Five dinar, right?" It rarely costs me more than JD 1.75.
"No!" I say in outrage. "By the meter, or you can let me out right here!"
"But you'll give me a half dinar tip, right?" Though not quite illegal, tipping is strongly discouraged by the Jordanian government. Still, I earn a very lucrative salary by Jordanian standards, and while it's just enough to cover my student loans back home, the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer in me feels guilty, and I usually tip generously. Unless taxi drivers try to rip me off, in which case I hardly feel that a penny extra is warranted! So I say, "Of course not! I come and go this route every day by the meter!"
And then, inevitably, the guy's got no clue where he's going, but when I give him directions, he either sneers at me in the rearview or tells me I'm wrong....

Saturday, February 20, 2010

How Cool Are Their Parents?

Especially the Parents of the Girls....

Amman, Jordan

I went to this really cool show sponsored by the American Embassy for African American History Month, featuring a hip hop crew from Houston, TX, called HaviKoro, and

this really awesome group from Jordan called 962 Street. (962 is the telephone country code for Jordan.) There was this great combination of popping, beat-boxing, break-dancing, and choreographed studio hip hop.

I think we're so distracted by Hollywood billionaire rappers and the images of the inner city you find in HBO's The Wire that we often forget that hip hop culture started as a social justice movement, a pop culture parallel to Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam calling for an equal say in their government. Here in the Arab world, though, I think hip hop culture is exactly that.

Still, with all the imagery around us that links hip hop culture to violence, vandalism, crime, drugs and misogyny, how cool are these kids' parents that they not only let them participate in these hip hop classes and events, but that they were right there in the audience cheering their kids on? I mean, most of these kids were under 16, and one couldn't have been older than 8. Most of the choreographed studio pieces were quite sexual in tone, too, as is often the case in hip hop dance, and in this Arab culture, you would think that kind of thing would be very taboo. It was a very cool event.

And How Cool Is The Job Of Cultural Attache?

First of all, let me say that the Cultural Attache at the American Embassy here in Amman speaks incredibly good Arabic! And what a cool job he has, that he gets paid to go out and explore these fun things that are happening in Jordanian youth culture, and then put them on stage at the King Hussein Cultural Center for all of us to enjoy!

Friday, February 19, 2010

Daughter Number Six

Mshairfeh, Jerash, Jordan

From Baby Milak

I went to my friend Wijdan's house in the village for the weekend, because she had a baby (#7) just before my disasterous trip to DC, and I brought back some baby clothes. Now, see if you can follow along: Wijdan's brother-in-law's mother-in-law was visiting for the weekend. Got that? I'd never met her before, so introductions were in order. Wijdan did the honors: "This is Maryah. She used to live in Mshairfeh. She's my sixth daughter!"
Just to be contrary, I asked, "Sixth daughter? Or first?" I am older than all her children, after all....

From Baby Milak

Her new baby's name is Milak. It means angel, but thus far she's proven herself to be somewhat less than angelic. After I'd been there a few hours, Wijdan said to me, "Taqwa was such a quiet baby. She was so easy!" I remember. I met Taqwa when she was less than a month old, too. I couldn't help but wonder if it was because, while Taqwa was a surprise baby, she was a pleasant surprise. Milak, I suspect, is an apology baby, and on an already tight family budget, hard to support.

From Baby Milak

Taqwa was also very unhappy about being usurped as the baby of the family. I've never seen her so withdrawn and uncommunicative,

and she was frequently trying to squeeze herself into Mama's lap beside or even underneath the new baby. It reminded me of the line in Berenstein Bears about how Mama's lap was getting smaller and smaller.... It will be fun to watch Taqwa grow into her big sister role.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Airport Vignettes

Vicissitudes of Check-In

I can't keep track of all the regulations for luggage - how many bags you can take without paying extra, how heavy they can be, what your carry-on can weigh - so every time I walk up to check-in, I start to worry what it's going to cost me (to date, despite many overweight bags, just one luggage fee of $200 for my first bag for a domestic US flight). At the Air France counter, the man next to me was getting nailed for every extra half kilo by the woman at the counter. (I couldn't help wondering if it was because he looked Middle Eastern.) The ticket agent checking my passport kept looking over and saying, "Is that a regulation?" to which she would snap, "Yes, it's a regulation! And this is a full flight, so we have to be really strict!" So I was pretty worried, because I was pretty sure that my bag was overweight. But when I loaded it on the scale, my ticket agent (a very cute young man) didn't even turn on the scale, and didn't even blink when he hauled it off again on his side. Check-in is so arbitrary!

"Random" Check

I felt so bad on my way through security for the poor young man, about 19, in a big ghetto sweatshirt and über-baggy jeans, with a big "Arab-fro" (you know, like a "Jew-fro" - see picture - except darker!) who got pulled aside at least 4 times for extra inspections. Extra check on his passport, then patted down even though he didn't set off the alarm, including having a TSA man put his hands all through the guy's hair, and then making him take everything out of his carry-on for inspection. And as I walked away, I saw him putting back into his bag an enormous manual on passing your FAA certification....

I mean, I understand the importance of the job TSA does. I both admire and pity them for it. They have to rely on racial profiling, even though they deny it. El Al is right when they say it's the only way to be effective. But, honestly, if you were a terrorist, would you put on such an distinctively rebellious look? Wouldn't you want to look inconspicuous, in bootleg jeans and a T-shirt with an unremarkable hairstyle? This kid, Arab though he clearly was, didn't look like a terrorist. Quite the opposite. He looked like a teenager rebelling against his conservative parents by embracing Western culture. He also looked used to this. Like all my Arab-American friends, I'm sure he gets pulled aside for "random" inspections every time he flies....

Jordanians Abroad

I seemed to run into them everywhere I went. At the airport, I found myself sitting next to an older couple, the woman wearing hijab. When the ground crew gave instructions for boarding, it was with a very thick French accent, and the woman started asking her husband in Arabic what was going on. He didn't know, so I jumped in and explained. "Are you Arab?" she asked, very confused.
"No, I'm American."
"Where did you learn your Arabic?"
"Oh, I've been living in Jordan."
"Really? We're Iraqi, but we've been living in Jordan for 22 years."
In the end, I got an invitation to dinner at their house with "some real Iraqi food"!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Just a Bit More Bad Luck

Dulles International Airport, Washington, DC, USA

I spent all morning hoping my flight might be cancelled and might be able to stay until Tuesday, crash Karla's Valentine's Day, and take the CASA exam on Tuesday morning.

When it became clear that my flight would really leave, I spent all afternoon trying to figure out how to get to Dulles. The Metro wasn't running. Even if it had been, the Metro bus to Dulles wasn't running. Neither was the Washington Flyer nor the Airport Shuttle. I could get a cab from Alexandria, but if I took the bus to Ballston I could save almost $15. Rachel and her friend said they'd seen the bus to Ballston, so that was the plan.

I dragged my suitcase, carry-on and backpack full of books for my supervisor's PhD over the snow to the main road. At 6pm it looked pretty much like it looked at noon:

But the longer I stood in the dark and the slush on the corner, waiting for a bus that might not come, contemplating the prospect of schlepping all my luggage on and off the bus.... I started to feel like $15 maybe wasn't so much money after all. I called a taxi.

When the taxi arrived, he was playing Arabic music. He loaded in my bags and as soon as we were off, he flipped the dial for the radio. "Oh, I liked the Arabic music!" I said. "It reminds me of ... home."
He gave me an odd look and said, with an unmistakably Arab accent, "Where are you from?"
"Well, I'm from Pennsylvania, but right now I live in Jordan. That's where I'm going, actually."
"Really?" he says. "I'm from Jordan!" And an intensely homesick Jordanian, too. So we chatted about home, until his car started making funny noises. He pulled over onto the shoulder of I395 and called his brother to take me the airport (such an Arab!). When his brother was busy, he called his friend, but he couldn't come either. That was when I started to notice the cab filling up with really foul rubber-smelling smoke. "Look," says my driver, "I'll take you down to the Pentagon Metro station and get you another cab. I'm not even going to charge you for this ride." He was very sweet, poor guy, and found a cab from his own company down at the Metro and handed me and my bags over.

My second cab driver was from Eritrea, a country about which I know very little except that there's apparently a significant Eritrean community in Amman (many of them cousins of a Peace Corps friend, in fact). I learned all kinds of things. I had no idea that Eritrea was a mainly Christian country, for example, and that there's a lot of Italian mixed into the local languages, left over from the colonial era.

And though it cost me a fortune, I made it to the airport in just the perfect amount of time to check in, get through security, and arrive at the gate a mere 10 minutes before boarding.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Here we go again....

Alexandria, Virginia, USA

Stuck indoors for yet another day.

Today it's not so much the snow accumulation, which is only a couple inches here, but the wind. Half the Metro is shut down again, and Georgetown University is closed, which means my Arabic exam is cancelled again.

Karla still thinks she's going to make it in tomorrow morning to see me, but I'm skeptical that many flights will even be coming in and out on Thursday night when it's my turn to fly away. As of now, however, Air France claims that the flight is still on and is refusing to let me change my return date.

It's all "wait and see" at this point, and "hope I'm not still here to ruin Valentine's Day for my hosts"!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Lunch With Megan

Washington, DC, USA

I don't know why I thought that the Career Conference for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers would go on even though the federal government was closed for snow that wasn't even scheduled to arrive till late afternoon. I guess I thought RPCVs were prepared for adverse conditions, but I guess we all go soft when we get back Stateside. Of course the conference was cancelled ... though we weren't notified until 15 minutes after it was supposed to start.

I guess I knew before I even got out of bed in the morning that it was just wishful thinking, and desperation to get out and do something before we got snowed in again!

Since I had come into the city, though, I did meet up with Megan for lunch. She was the first of my roommates in the apartment in Amman, and it was good to see her, even if she was not real encouraging about the prospects of finding a job through the government's Websites. As I suspected, there are lots of work-arounds to bypass the Websites, and that's how most people actually get jobs in the government. Still, with my new book on federal resumes, which Bob and I are poring over in great detail while we're snowed in, I'm ever-hopeful!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Snowpocalypse DC

This about sums up how the District feels today.

Alexandria, Virginia, USA

It's just as well that I didn't try to get to my sister's in Baltimore yesterday, because we would definitely have been stuck in her tiny studio apartment for the weekend. The state of Maryland's in a State of Emergency, which means that driving on the roads in strongly discouraged, so there's no way we would have gone to Pennsylvania this morning.

It is unfortunately, though, that I wasn't able to get in touch with Candice yesterday morning, because it would have been nice to be snowed in with her, Sparky, and a supply of Tension Tamer tea. It seems that God does not approve of our friendship. First swine flu, now the blizzard of the century.... Something out there doesn't want Candice and I to see each other!

Instead, I've spent the last 24 hours reminiscing about the last "Storm of the Century," when I was in my last semester at Goucher College. Martin O'Malley was Mayor of Baltimore at the time, and not Governor of Maryland. Also, I had snow pants, a Stimpson Cafeteria tray, and hills to sled down. Not to mention that Jason and friends went wading through the snow to the liquor store (only business open in Towson, and well worth it!) to fuel our evenings shut in. Actually, as I remember it, Sma and I spent most of the time in my dorm room sipping hot chocolate with Bailey's.... Ah, those were the days!

If only I could've made it to the snowball fight on Dupont Circle with Josh and Jenn. Facebook has given fun a whole new definition!

Friday, February 5, 2010

Cancelled!

Alexandria, Virginia, USA

Welcome back to the mid-Atlantic states! Snow in the forecast, and the city is panicking! I was planning on leaving home at 10am just to be sure I got to my 1:30pm CASA Arabic exam in Georgetown. When it still wasn't snowing at 10:00, though, I decided to stay till 11. I was checking my email every few minutes, because my Peace Corps friend Vanessa at Georgetown said the university would probably close and cancel the exam today. Meanwhile, I was hoping they wouldn't cancel, because I'm only in Washington, DC, for so long, and I was worried about whether I'd be here for the make-up exam. Sure enough, just before 11am, they cancelled the exam.

So then the next question became, do I try to make it up to Baltimore to my sister's? We were planning on going up to Pennsylvania tomorrow morning to visit my cousin Gwen and her family, and I was really looking forward to seeing all of them. But if we weren't going to make it to Pennsylvania, we'd be stuck in my sister's studio apartment, which I hear is smaller than a postage stamp.... Elizabeth emailed to say, Don't come.

Then I tried to get in touch with Candice to see if I could spend the weekend with her in Glen Burnie, since she was in quarantine at Bethesda Naval Hospital with swine flu last time I was in the area. I couldn't get in touch with her, though, so I'm here in Alexandria, Virginia, for the weekend. Bob and Rachel swear they don't mind the imposition, but I do feel like I'm in danger of overstaying my welcome!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

BBC's Most Famous Woman In Afghanistan

Georgetown, District of Columbia, USA

This evening I met Naureen at Georgetown Law to see a film about an amazing woman I've heard speak several times on NPR, Malalai Joya. If you have a chance to see the Danish film Enemies of Happiness, I highly recommend it. There are amazing people doing incredible things in Afghanistan, and Malalai Joya is one of those heroes.

On the American side, I am also following two friends, Emily and Arnoux, who are blogging their experiences in Afghanistan.

One Down, One To Go

College Park, Maryland, USA

I took the Arabic exam for the Flagship Fellowship today. Without divulging too much, I have a good feeling about it. And I'm so happy that they were able to arrange for me to take it today instead of tomorrow. The arrangement was originally made so that I and another student who were taking both the Flagship and CASA exams, scheduled for the same day on opposite sides of DC, would be able to make it to both. But now it looks like we may be facing cancellations of one or both exams tomorrow anyway, due to weather!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Ma'in Reunion ... with Sushi!

Washington, DC, USA

Today I met up with Naureen and Jennifer at Cafe Asia for sushi happy hour for a mini Ma'in reunion. Jennifer was our LCF (Language and Cultural Trainer) in our training village of Ma'in during Peace Corps Pre-Service Training. It was great to catch up on the Peace Corps friends we're still in touch with, and on each other's lives. (As I've said before, I'm terrible at keeping in touch!) Then we headed out for frozen yogurt near Dupont Circle. It was another great dinner date. I would so love to be living in DC with all these fun, fascinating people!

I also realized that I might have the perfect job for Jennifer in Amman. I seem to be getting quite good at this, finding jobs for other people. I found Heba her job at UNHCR, I got Andy an offer at the Modern American School. Now, if only I could just find a job for myself, too! Maybe I should try my own business: finding jobs for other people!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Job Search Fatigue Already

Alexandria, Virginia, USA

After my rejected requests for informational interviews, requests which I was already uncomfortable making, I decided to stay at Bob's today and work on more Internet applications. I just wish I had a better idea of how to make my application stand out.

I understand that applying through these databases is a more efficient way for employers of eliminating unqualified applicants and easing the workload on HR personnel. I understand that the sheer volume of applications in the digital age makes it necessary, and even desirable, to use these online forms to simplify the process.

My frustration is that, with my work experience and educational background, those forms make me look ineligible when, in fact, there are many things I can do that aren't reflected in those applications. My hope in the informational interviews was to get some of that on the table before they saw my resume. But all I could get was, Apply through our Website.

Yeah. Thanks. I've been doing that for almost 2 years now....

Monday, February 1, 2010

Catching Up With Kitty

Washington, DC, USA

I'm terrible at keeping in touch. I'm not sure I've communicated with Kitty since she got back from Yemen in August. Fortunately, my friends are forgiving, and willing to go out to dinner with me when I'm in town.

It was really great to see Kitty. I caught her up on what everyone is doing back in Jordan. She says hello to all our mutual friends from Tareef Cycling Club, Ryan and Heba, and Philip, wherever he is these days. She told me a little about Yemen, which she seemed to really enjoy.

She also had great things to say about her graduate program at JHU SAIS. I took a moment to pass on my latest advice for grad school (considering how much I wish I'd done so myself when I had the chance): "Do as many internships as you can manage, while you've got student loans covering your expenses!" It turns out that she started a completely unexpected internship at ABC TV just today.

In fact, we had so much fun catching up that we stayed at Nando's Peri Peri (delicious food! I recommend it!) until we were almost the only people left, and I almost missed the last bus from the Metro back to Bob's house in Alexandria. By the time I did get home, everyone else was already in bed.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Little Things I Love in America

Alexandria, Virginia, USA

Central heating. Rachel's welcome note suggested that I could turn it up when I arrived, but even at a cool 55 degrees, it was so much warmer than my apartment in Amman!

Flushing my toilet paper. There's really no thrill quite like it.

Egyptian baggage handlers at a Dulles Starbucks. Almost like Jordan ... but with central heat!

Teensie weensie little coins. I've gotten so used to Jordanian coins, the smallest of which is larger than a quarter, that American coins feel like play money.

Set prices to travel from here to there. I know it's part of the allure of the developing world for some people, but I hate to bargain!

Public transportation that runs on a timetable. It may not be easy to get from Georgetown to Owings Mills by public transportation, but at least there's a Website that will tell you how and how long it will take!

High speed, quality Internet. YouTube videos load faster than I can watch them!

Bob's awesome sound system. He was so impressed that I noticed!

Oddly, however, free WiFi access is far more widely available in Amman than in Washington, DC!

Saturday, January 30, 2010

The Problem With America's Economy...

...Is the New Monopoly

Alexandria, Virginia, USA

Since we were snowed in, and Bob's fiancee hates Monopoly, we tried out his new game, Monopoly Here And Now: The World Edition. It's got some pretty cool stuff. The houses and hotels are from 6 different continents, the prices are more realistic, and the Chance and Community Chest cards are pretty cool.

But the money is gone. Instead, the banker assigns each player a credit card, and you stick it into the machine and the gadget keeps track of how much everyone has.

Seems like a cool gimmick on the surface, but it makes it much harder to keep track of how much money you have. It also makes most of our family favorite house rules impossible, like paying your Chance and Community Chest fines and your taxes into Free Parking for a tidy little lotto....

(Bob will probably just tell you that I'm sour grapes because I lost.)

It also seems emblematic of the understanding of money that got us into this financial crisis in the first place. When it's all plastic, the numbers just don't seem to matter so much....

Not to mention the pedagogical losses it represents. Every time I shop for bargains at the grocery store, I remember Dee from next door hoarding her $1s and saying, "Every little bit counts!" She often won ... though she was sometimes handicapped by her reluctance to invest....

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

...And Now I Love Israel!

Amman, Jordan

I had another fascinating conversation with a taxi driver this morning. Almost immediately he announced that he was Palestinian. This isn't surprising, as most taxi drivers are.

Then he told me he'd been recently kicked out of Israel/Palestine, and would have to stay away for 6 years. I didn't ask why. I mean, what do you say to that kind of statement? ...smile and nod...

Then he told me that his daughter was in the hospital. This I do know how to respond to! Allah yasa3adha! (God help her!)

Then the real drama began. When his daughter was well enough to go home, the hospital announced that he owed them 1,000 dinar for her care and stay at the hospital. He was a taxi drive, so of course he didn't have JD1,000, but he offered all he had, and promised to return with the rest within a week to 10 days. Not good enough, said the hospital; they refused to release his daughter until his bill was paid, while adding to his bill for every day she stayed in the hospital. Can you believe it? Holding his own daughter as collateral? And charging him for it. At a hospital! It took him another 2 days to beg and borrow the money from friends and family, at who knows what additional cost to him.

Now, this is the good part: Here's a Palestinian who's been kicked out of his home by the Israeli government, forced to move his whole family to Jordan and build a new life for himself. And yet he said to me, "As much as I suffer at the hands of the Israeli government, the people of Israel are so much nicer than the Jordanians. In Israel, I wouldn't have paid a cent for that hospital stay; the Israeli government would have paid for the whole ordeal automatically. I wish I were back in Israel. I love Israel!"

And as I was telling this story, I was thinking how like America this is. In fact, I mentioned that to him: that Americans are talking a lot back home about how many people go bankrupt from healthcare costs. He knew exactly what I was talking about, too.

NHS Bliss
On a similar note, there's been much scrutiny of the details of our company healthcare policy in the office this week, and British Melanie is appalled at the things that are not covered. Every time she brings it up, I think, It looks like a pretty good policy to me. Just like your average American healthcare policy....

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Taxi Talk

Amman, Jordan

On my way to my English conversation class in the refugee camp this afternoon, I had a fabulous, unexpected conversation with a taxi driver.

Recently, as my Arabic gets better, taxi drivers are less and less likely to speak to me. I think this is because of my Bedouin accent. People often now mistake me for actually being Bedouin, and I imagine taxi drivers are afraid of what my brothers and cousins will do to them if they strike up a conversation with me.

This taxi driver, though, when he found out that I was going to Jebel Nathif, where he himself lives, did strike up a conversation. He asked me how long I'd been in Jordan, and when I said almost 4 years, he said, "It must be for love." This is pretty common. People often think the only reason to want to live in Jordan is because you've married a Jordanian. When I explained that it was actually for Arabic, he asked, "Don't you like Arab men?"

Now, this is a tricky question. I'm friends with many Arab men, and in any case, I wouldn't want to paint a whole group of people with just one brush. Still, I find it difficult to become romantically interested in Arab men, and today something made me want to be brutally honest. "I spent too much time in the Irbid bus station to want much to do with most Arab men."

This really got him started, and not in the way I expected. "It's true," he said. "Most Arab men want something from foreign women, something they can buy all over the city, as I'm sure you know. If it's not that, then they want something else, like a Green Card or some other way out of Jordan or a woman who can support them financially."

Now, if I say this to most Jordanians, they'll agree, but I can't remember a Jordanian ever volunteering this information unprompted before. In fact, it was such an interesting conversation, I didn't even mind that he missed his turn and had to take me around the block to get me to my destination!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Well Earned Bruises

Wadi Himara, Jordan

From Wadi Himara from the top

They called it a hike. Maybe last year it was a hike, but this year the rain that's been pouring down all week transformed Wadi Himara, and this was less of a hike and more of a scramble. Had we not gone with a group of gung-ho guys from Walking Jordan, Melanie and I would surely have decided it was too dangerous and gone back home. Pretty early on, we found ourselves more or less sliding down a scree slope to the wadi floor.

From Wadi Himara from the top

We were up and down, sliding down boulders, scrambling over rocks, sliding through mud. But the view from the waterfall, down the wadi, over the Dead Sea and into Palestine was worth every heart-pounding moment of the scramble.

From Wadi Himara from the top

Friday, January 15, 2010

The Engagement Faarida

Mshairfeh and Asfoura, Jerash, Jordan

I've been sick all week, and I wasn't going to go to Mshairfeh, but when I called to tell Wijdan this, she would hear none of it. "Sihil is getting engaged tomorrow, and you have to bring your camera and come!" I've been to a lot of weddings lately, but it seems I'm always wanted either for my translation skills or my camera....

I always thought the term faarida only referred to the procession to bring the bride on her wedding day, but apparently it also refers to the procession to the bride's village for her engagement party, as well. Nearly half the neighborhood piled into trucks and the father of the groom's bus and chanted our way across northern Jerash.

From Sihil's Engagement

I was hoping to get more still photographs to show you the steps of the engagement party, and to get some nice shots of the people I know best among the groom's family and friends.

From Sihil's Engagement

But Wijdan had other ideas. She wanted video. This was the best of the videos, taken by Wijdan herself.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Never Tell a Western Woman....

The Teletubby and Col. Ibrahim

Amman, Jordan

Earlier this week at Bell Amman, we had a new group picture taken for the Website. The photographer decided it would be interesting to line us up at the top of the stairs between the two levels of the center, but to fit us all in the shot, he had to use a wide-angle lens. Now, I haven't seen the picture, but I have a pretty good idea of how it looks, thanks to Saleh. He's the consultant business manager, and he walked into the Teachers Room to get a drink of water, saw me at my desk and asked, "Have you seen yourself in that group picture? You look like a Teletubby!"

"Saleh!" we exclaimed. "Never tell a woman that!"

"No, no! I didn't mean it that way! I just meant that the picture distorts...." We continued to pick on him for it, and the poor man kept coming back into the Teachers Room to apologize over and over.

That was yesterday. Today, Col. Ibrahim needed to see my residence permit to check the expiration date, and as we were going down the hallway to get it, he says from behind me, "Maryah! You got fat! Why did you do that?"

You've gotta love the Arabs for the their bluntness, I guess. At least you never have to wonder what they really think....

Friday, January 8, 2010

Kristen Conquers Her Fears

Dead Sea & Wadi Himara, Jordan

Our new Bell Amman colleague Melanie is determined to get Kristen to conquer some of her fears and phobias this year, and become a generally more self-confident person. To that end, she set Kristen a challenge as a New Years resolution: Do something that scares you every month. Today we addressed two fears: cycling and heights.

First she cycled 25km without getting off the bike once (voluntarily OR involuntarily), without going below 3rd gear, and still beating a third of the group!

Then we went for her fear of heights. Like Philip before her, Kristen got this far and decided to sit down and wait for us to come back:

But Ammar, bless his heart, would have none of it. He convinced her to give it a try, and coached her over the big boulders, and she made it all the way up to the little waterfall.

I figured she wouldn't climb up the waterfall with us. After all, I didn't on my first trip up Wadi Himara, and I'm not nearly so afraid of heights. In fact, I was so sure that she'd stay at the bottom that I left my backpack with her when I went up.

But Kristen's student, who happened to also be on the trip, was absolutely right when he said, "Just don't watch, and she'll come up when she thinks no one's looking!" We hadn't been up at our final destination for long when we turned around, and there she was! And let me tell you, it was worth the climb for the spectacular waterfall!

Not to mention the galayat bandoura and wood-fired tea!