Eid Sa'eed!

Jordan, Amman

Tomorrow or the next day will be Eid al-Fitr, the feast day that ends Ramadan. We won't know for sure on which day Jordan will celebrate Eid until the evening news at 8 tonight, by which time the official government sheikhs will have seen or not seen the new moon. (In some other Muslim countries, like Pakistan, the day of Eid is calculated using mondern astronomy, but the Hashemites are traditionalists in this regard.) Eid will be the first day in a month that practicing Muslims will eat during daylight hours, and most will be feasting throughout the day. It's a lot like Thanksgiving, with everyone gathering around the table or a platter on the floor with their families for a big feast, and then visiting and drinking tea and coffee and juice for hours. At the same time, Eid in the village always reminded me a little bit of Halloween, with all the neighborhood kids going from door to door collecting candy and "shillin" (nickels) in return for the traditional Eid greeting, "May you and yours be well all year." But no doubt this will be different in the city. Just like Ramadan, I expect eid to be better in the village than in the city.

In any case, we have the next five days off from school, and I'm looking forward to the change of pace!

Bribery and Extortion

Amman, Jordan

I decided that honey catches more flies, and perhaps sugar would tempt my students to behave more than rules and consequences. So last night I went out and bought pens and erasers and tofees and little note cards and wrote something for each student about why they deserved to have a present for Eid. I handed them out today, and I have never seen my class so quiet, as they sucked on their toffees and puzzled out what I had written for them.

And then I sent them off to Art class with their sugar highs, and was done for the week!

Sarah Bernhardt, I presume?

al-Mshairfeh, Jerash, Jordan

All throughout Ramadan, I've been thinking that the holy month just isn't as fun in the city as it was in the village, and I've been dying to get back to al-Mshairfeh. And the more I've said this to my roommate Megan, the more psyched she's been about seeing the village.

Unfortunately, the transportation's a little difficult to arrange in Ramadan. We'd been trying to get a ride from Abu Alaa' or Abu Anis on their way home from Amman after work. Unfortunately, their oldest brother Abu Ahmed, who was my landlord in the village, has been in the hospital. He has brain cancer, and since an operation in mid-Ramadan, has been deteriorating rapidly. He no longer recognizes his family, and speaks as if from twenty years in the past.

Eventually, however, we decided we'd take a chance this last weekend of Ramadan, and see if we could get a "service taxi" to the village, and we had good luck. For once, Um Anis actually told me I'd gotten a good deal on the trip!

It was so wonderful to be back in the village, even if it meant fasting with the others. It was really like going home. The food tasted right, the language sounded right, the people were familiar and did all their familiar things, the weather felt right.... I felt more certain than ever that coming back to Jordan was a good thing ... a place where I already have a safety net and a family. (Although I still maintain that I wouldn't want to live in the village again, as nice as it is to visit.) And given no alternative, Megan proved to be more than competent at Arabic, despite her constant protests that she was not very good.

Just like last time in the village, too, everywhere I went, people knew me and would shout out my name. When we went to Wijdan Um Tareq's house, all her in-laws came to see me (except, fortunately, the creepy brother-in-law). Megan kept saying, over and over again, "You're a celebrity!" ad I thought, it's just what my mother would say I always wanted; that's why she called me Sarah Bernhardt as a child.

Standard Arabic, anyone?

When we got to Wijdan's, she asked if Megan spoke much Arabic, and I said that she didn't speak much colloquial, but that she was brilliant at talking politics in Standard Arabic. "Then we'll talk about politics in Standard Arabic later!" declared Wijdan, and in true Wijdan fashion, an hour or so after Iftar, she started asking Megan questions about politics in Standard Arabic. This sparked an intense conversation with Abu Tareq's cousin about why America had such a thoughtlessly heavy hand around the world, to which we could really only say that we agreed. And although Megan frequently turned to me for translation, she really understood as much or more as I did of the conversation.

Google Yourself

Amman, Jordan

It's fun to google oneself every now and then, and today I found a little gem on the Internet I wasn't even aware of, which reminded me of some details of my trip to do clean-up in New Orleans that I had forgotten. That was such a fun trip, and it was so wonderful to do something for someone else after all the hours I'd spent reading in grad school for my own selfish edification!

Ramadan's Children

Kids say the darnedest things!

Amman, Jordan

My second graders get a mid-morning break upstairs in the cafeteria, where they can get all sugared up for the rest of their classes :-S and yesterday, one student looked up at me and asked, "Miss Maryah? Are you fasting for Ramadan?"
I waved the Coke in my hand. "What do you think?" (Fortunately, caffeine IS forbidden for my Junior School students, but teachers can still get it.)

This morning, I was riding herd on one of my students to get him to keep writing in his copybook instead of talking to his friends when he looked up and asked, "Miss Maryah, are you fasting?"
"Nope," I said (a bit gleefully, I must admit, but I knew he wasn't fasting either).
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because I'm not a Muslim."
"Oh, right," says my student. "You're an American."
And this from one of my students who has lived in Canada!

Ramadan Kareem!

Amman, Jordan

Yesterday was the first day of Ramadan, the month of fasting and abstention for Muslims. This includes not only physical abstention, but also the practice of restraining oneself from speaking or thinking ill of others, day and night for a whole month. Those who choose to fast will not eat, drink or smoke from first light till sunset, and then will probably stay up most of the night partying and stuffing their faces with delicious food and a whole array of special Ramadan sweets.

Fasting for Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, one of the 5 things which Mohammad said were the most important religious duties of a Muslim, in a test by the Angel Gabriel related in what is known as The Hadith of Gabriel.

Technically, second graders are not required to fast. They're too young. However, they are encouraged to try it for part of the day on some days, and perhaps especially in majority Muslim countries, many second graders do fast because it's perceived as a sign of being grown up, something second graders everywhere are desperate to be! (I don't know why! Being grown up and responsible is over-rated!)

I'm noticing something this year that I didn't notice when I taught in the village, perhaps because the village students are so habitually over-caffeinated and hyperactive generally. Yesterday I was really frustrated with students who couldn't concentrate on copying notes from the board into their copybooks for more than five or six letters at a time. They almost had to be prompted word by word through the whole day, until I began to worry that we had some serious learning disabilities in the classroom. Today I figured it out. My least "on task" students yesterday and today are the ones who are fasting. No wonder they can't concentrate!

Actually, I'm feeling really disconnected from Ramadan this year. I think it's probably living in Amman, which in Peace Corps always seemed like it may as well be America compared to village, and working at the American School. I don't often feel like I'm really connected to Jordan. (Then again, I suppose I haven't really been here all that long yet, either.) After reminding my students yesterday morning to be extra patient with each other in this time of fasting, I went yesterday afternoon to Starbucks to use the Internet, walked right in, and ordered a frappuccino. "Sure," said the barista, "but only to go."
"Oh, right!" I exclaimed, feeling stupid. "It's Ramadan." In Jordan and many majority Muslim countries, it is not just inconsiderate but illegal to eat in public in Ramadan. "But I came all this way to use the Internet!"
He just shrugged. So I guess I'm stuck with my stolen wireless connection, slow and frustrating as it may be.