Red Rocks & Racing Camels

Zuwaideh Camp, Wadi Rum, Jordan

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

Finally, we got the relaxation we were hoping for! It started with an incredibly tender zarb dinner in the traditional Bedouin style (baked in the sand, that is). There were a couple of adventure tourism groups there, mostly middle-aged Brits with a taste for hiking. One gentleman had worked for the UN most of his career, so we spent a lot of time brainstorming ideas for me to get into that exclusive club.

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

This morning, the tour groups woke in the dark to take a camel ride out to see the sunrise. Jad and I took the car out instead for some nice pre-breakfast shots. One thing that I'd never seen before was galloping camels. There's a camel race track across the street from the Zuwaideh camp, and three young camels were being put through their paces this morning. As the camels were racing around the track, three 4X4 trucks were racing just outside the rail, cheering them on. Beside them came Jad and I playing tourist, trying to get a few good shots of racing camels:

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

Then we hung around a bit for the morning, and headed back to Amman. Relaxing but not exhausting. Just what a vacation should be. And exactly what we needed to take the sting out of the hotel fiasco in Aqaba. Wadi Rum's much better, anyway, even if there's no ocean!

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

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.

"ya rait-ni 3andi kombuter!"

["How I wish I had a computer!"]

Mshairfeh, Jerash, Jordan

I'd been at their house less than an hour when Ghadeer said this to me, and it was the perfect opening. I patted the fersha beside me. "Come sit next to me for a minute, Ghadeer." She gave me a funny look. "Just come here! I have a gift for you from my friends in Amman." So she sat down beside me, and I reached into my bag to pull out the second-hand laptop Jad sold me for a steal and handed it to her. I can't even describe how excited she was. In fact, it wasn't long till she'd run out of the room to express her excitement somewhere out of sight. I think perhaps she was running all around the yard getting her parents to come back to the house and see what she'd gotten.

From Laptop Surprise!

It wasn't long until the aunts started showing up with ICDL practice disks. The UN's International Computer Driving License is a pre-requisite for most jobs that village women can get in Jordan. For those of us who grew up with computers, it's ridiculously simplistic, but Mshairfeh has barely had computers for 6 or 7 years, so people need to start with the basics.

From Laptop Surprise!

I'll tell you who's going to be a technology whiz kid, though. I had brought along my laptop, too, and Hadeel wanted to know if I had any games she could play. I discovered that Windows Vista comes with a children's game called Purbles, and she had the game figured out almost as quickly as I did, and without the benefit of being able to read the directions (which were in English). And then, she tried to teach her brother and sister, but they were convinced that they knew better, so instead she resorted to telling them the wrong things and tripping them up at the game.

The same thing happened with my digital camera. She watched me take a few pictures, and just like that, she was off taking pictures of her own, showing them to her sisters and cousins, taking a few more. She even mastered the zoom with only a small hint from me. Her little hands are a bit unsteady, so she cuts off a lot of people's heads, but she's got the general idea!

From Laptop Surprise!

And that, of course, was how the fashion show started. Once the camera was out, the girls were dressing up in every headscarf and new piece of clothing they could get their hands on, begging me to take dozens of pictures. For once, now that I have a digital camera, I could happily oblige and take as many pictures as they wanted, and then download them right to Ghadeer's new laptop.

From Laptop Surprise!

Now, naturally, since I had given their sister a free laptop, the boys had to find something to complain about.
"How come it doesn't have games on it? What good is a laptop to us without games?"
Well, it's not for you, is it? It's for your sister!
"Why doesn't it have sound? It should have sound!"
Just as soon as I can get back to Amman and the Internet and find a driver for it.
"Only 24 giga of hard drive? Come on! The boy up the street's got over 100 giga, and it wasn't that expensive!"
Maybe not, but it wasn't free, was it?
I was a little peeved by all the complaining, but Ghadeer certainly never complained, and I suppose the boys were just jealous!

I have rarely seen a laptop excite such joy. Thank you, Jad, not to mention Carter, Ryan, Rebecca and everyone else in Amman who helped to make it possible.

100 Years of Amman!

Amman, Jordan

From Amman Centennial Parade

Happy Birthday, dear Amman....

My new co-worker Kristen and I had a slow brunch at Books@Cafe with Ahmed, and then made our way down to the Balad, where we saw the Centennial Parade. Arnoux managed to join us mid-way through, a little forlorn without his lady love....

For more beautiful photos try this Flickr stream.

We headed out for dinner at Jafra afterwards. It was spooky to walk through the downtown with all the streets closed. You've never seen the Balad so quiet! We could walk right down the center of the streets, and weren't the least bit crowded!

Like a Real School

Marj-al-Hamam, Amman, Jordan

It struck me as my last class was on their break, and I went walking down the second floor hallway past Kristen and Fadi's classrooms.

We all had at least 9 students, grouped at tables, hard at work. Despite the post-Ramadan slump (everyone's maxed out their budgets on Eid al-Fitr gifts), we've got nicely packed classrooms. We're starting to look like a real school around here, and it's quite satisfying. (Not to mention, a relief: it means we can feel fairly secure about our continued employment!)

And with the corporate contracts pouring in, I feel fairly confident that it will only get better.

Miss You Already

From Muncie