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!

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....

...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....

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!

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

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.

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....

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.

From Kristen Conquers Her Fears

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:

From Kristen Conquers Her Fears

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.

From Kristen Conquers Her Fears

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.

From Kristen Conquers Her Fears

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!

From Kristen Conquers Her Fears

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

From Kristen Conquers Her Fears