Crick-Stompin' Shoes

...or, What Protests?

Wadi al-Kerak near the Dead Sea, Jordan

On Protests
I've been getting messages from Germany, Switzerland and the USA concerned about my safety here in this volatile part of the world. And yes, it's true, there were protests in Amman today. The US Embassy sent out warden messages advising caution:

The Arab Islamic Leaders asked the people to demonstrate over all countries and they called it the anger day against Israel and to support Gaza, so in Jordan the people will demonstrate after the pray and start from the biggest mosque in each province, in Amman from the Al-Husseini Mosque to the Amman Municipality building.

I understand that tear gas was fired into the crowds again at the Israeli Embassy today. One of our friends from Tareef Cycling Club, Jad Madi, was there and has put up his photographs on his blog. But the photos of my Friday midday are far more serene:

From Wadi al-Kerak

This weekend, Tareef Cycling Club left the bicycles at home and opted for hiking far, far away at the other end of the Dead Sea. And this time, I came prepared with my crick-stompin' shoes! (For those of you who didn't grow up in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, a "crick" is what some parts of the country call a "creek" but may also describe a "stream.")

On Jordanian Customer Service
You see, when we went hiking in Wadi al-Ghwayr, I didn't know that I would not be able to avoid getting my feet wet, and I got blisters, and my hiking boots were wet for more than a week. So, last night, I went to Mecca Mall to get a pair of shoes that I could hike in but that were meant to get wet. I knew just where I would find these shoes, and made a bee-line to Champions, where I explained what I was looking for. "Water shoes?" says the salesman, without even looking around. "No. We don't have anything like that." So I walked all around the entire Mecca Mall, went into every shop with shoes, and found nothing but ordinary trainers. So I thought, well, I don't know of anywhere else in Amman where I'm likely to find just what I'm looking for, so I'll go back to Champions and get a closer look. Guess what? I found a dozen styles of shoes meant for the water! And I found a pair that were perfect. No blisters!

On Hiking
So this is the biggest crowd I saw on Friday, today's incarnation of Tareef Cycling Club:

From Wadi al-Kerak

It was a perfect day for hiking, about 19C down below sea level, sunny, and green. The scenery is just beautiful, very green because of the crick we were stompin', sometimes with boxy, wind-scoured rock walls, sometimes with more curvaceous water-carved siqs that evoke the landscape of Petra. I saw several different species of frog in different shades of green and brown, and some freshwater crabs, and at one point a bird flew over head that looked very much like a North American blue heron from the bottom of the canyon.

It did seem, at times, to be the same as Wadi al-Ghwayr, but when we came to our lunch spot, with this gorgeous waterfall and palm trees, we agreed that it was much more spectacular. The company was pretty good, too. Stephanie brought her three German roommates along on the trip, Sina, Lena and Theresa, and they spoke a lot of German to each other and some with me. To my chagrin, however, when I tried at the beginning of the trip to translate Ammar's Arabic description of the trip into German for them, I failed miserably. Oh, sure, I could get the first sentence out in decent German. But after that I switched back to Arabic without even noticing, until finally Sina said, "In English! In English!" Embarrassing. I need a lot more German practice! Unfortunately, the girls are leaving soon, with the semester over, and I'll have to find new Germans to pester with my crazy, Arabized, Swiss-influenced German!

It was the perfect day, and perfect timing to get out of Amman. The closest we ever came to the issue of Palestine was watching the sun set over the Dead Sea and the West Bank. It looks so peaceful from Jordan's Dead Sea Highway!

From Wadi al-Kerak

Musical Manifestation of Solidarity

Amman, Jordan

In solidarity with Gaza, and in honor of the Palestinian martyrs, and in protest against the criminal Israeli war, and in rejection of the bias of the world regimes, a number of Jordanian artists and cultural activists are organizing a musical manifestation of solidarity at Al Balad Theatre, Jabal Amman, First circle, on Wednesday 7 January 2008 at 8:00 pm.

The event will include a piano performance by Tala Tutunji and Zeina Asfour, who will perform compositions by Tarek Younis. Omar Faqir, Tarek Jundi, Wissam Tubeleh and Fadi Ghawanmeh will also take part in this event which will include poetry readings in Arabic and English of poems by Mahmoud Darwish compiled and read by Serene Huleileh, Reem Abu Kishk, Amer al Khuffash, and Samar Dudin. Ayman Taisir will conclude the readings with poetry dedicated to Palestine. The event will be concluded by a visual presentation designed by Raed Asfour culminated by the virtual video presence of the late Palestinian poet laureate, Mahmoud Darwish.

We do not wish this event to be a simple artistic act of solidarity, but to come out with real solidarity by urging every participant to contribute, in whatever way he/she can, to support the perseverance of our people in Gaza.

Despite all the hours that Peace Corps spent ingraining in us the danger of approaching large groups of protesting Palestinians, my friend and I decided that this was one demonstration we could be a part of. I'm so glad we made that decision.

This ceremony (not just an event) was beautifully prepared and very moving. There was piano, violin, recorder and 'oud music, overlaid with poetry and a recitation of just some names of the more than 700 Palestinians who have lost their lives since Christmas.

Not surprisingly, we also saw many people we know.

Update

I've never heard of this musician before, but I applaud him:

Desert, Yes, But Warm...?

Amman, Jordan

When I arrived in Jordan for the first time in early February of 2004, I had no sweaters, no winter coat, no sweatshirt. Over two feet of snow had fallen on southern Pennsylvania the night before I left for Peace Corps Orientation. It was cold when we left Washington, D.C., cold on our layover in Frankfurt, but for some reason I didn't think it would be cold in Jordan. After all, Jordan's a desert! (I still don't know why it never occurred to me, traveller and researcher extraordinaire, to check the CIA Factbook for the average winter temperatures in Jordan...!)

When I stepped out of customs at Queen Alia Airport in Amman, the first thing I saw were several tall men with black-and-white Hattas wrapped around their faces, just like the terrorists I'd seen on TV. It took me a few hours to figure out that they do that to stay warm!

Amman is cold. It gets at least a foot of snow a year. That winter of 2004, some villages in the mountains in Shobak got so much snow that food and heating gas had to be airlifted in.

Yesterday, we could see our breath inside our apartment. And I just kept thinking, I don't understand how people could think that the total blockade that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip since November could be fair. We're not talking about an embargo on luxury items. We're talking about basic necessities, as described by Harvard professor Sara Roy here.

Maybe you think Gaza is a nice warm desert. It is a desert, yes, but while spending my third winter in Jordan, having been to the Sinai in January 2006, I can tell you that it must be cold in Gaza tonight, and there's no electricity and no heating oil.

Bike for Gaza

...or, How Jordanian Youth Respond To Crisis

Amman, Jordan

From Bike For Gaza

I was only a very minor participant in the amazing recent campaign wonderfully described by Black Iris here and here. I dropped off just one bag of non-perishable foodstuffs, having been unemployed for a number of weeks and unable to contribute more. I knew from some of my friends in Tareef Cycling Club when and where they were loading on New Years, and it was just across the Airport Road from my apartment, but I grossly underestimated the Jordanian people and didn't think they would need my help. I regret this, despite lingering shreds of my Peace Corps training telling me to avoid politically sensitive gatherings, because I think Black Iris makes a great argument in support of what I've been telling a half-Jewish friend here in Jordan: for all the anger that there is here about what is happening in Gaza, it's not being directed at individuals, but at the Israeli leadership.

I also did my part today, and a little bit more, when I went on the Save Gaza bike trip with the Tareef Cycling Club this morning. I mean, let's be honest, I was going to go anyway, because Tareef goes cycling every Friday, and I'm fulfilling a promise to myself from several years ago to become a competent cyclist post-Peace Corps. But when I found out that Tareef would be donating all the usual 5 dinar fees to the Red Cross for the relief effort in Gaza, I was especially determined to go, and even to contribute more than the usual fee.

I went because, while Tareef's members are passionate about the Palestinian cause and they were eager, as I am, to make some contribution, that was not the sole purpose of today's ride. These guys and gals get together to go cycling. Some of them are members of the Jordanian national team, others are even less athletic than I am, and there is absolutely no censure. These are some of the easiest people to spend time with that I know in Jordan, because they are all very ambitious, successful people, but they don't take themselves very seriously. The girls are very stylish, even at the end of a long bike ride, because there's absolutely no avoiding it here, but they're not the Barbie dolls you usually see around town. I suspect that most of them are of above average wealth, but you'd never know it by looking at them. And they didn't disappoint today. There was some talk about Palestine, but there was no diatribe, no vitriol, no censure of other viewpoints. More than angry, the people on this trip were disappointed.

But mostly, we were just biking!

From Bike For Gaza

A Subdued New Year

Amman, Jordan

Happy New Year!

Despite that exclamation point, I didn't feel much like celebrating this year. It was going to be a quiet New Years anyway, with Megan in the Cayman Islands and Ryan snowboarding in Lebanon. Not only that, but I wasn't really in the mood to celebrate, having spent two days watching my Jewish and Arab friends vilify each other (though they don't know each other) on Facebook over what's happening in Gaza, which finally decided to boycott temporarily.

But one of the advantages of Facebook is their IM system, however primitive and problematic. Aktham IMed me to say that some of our mutual friends from Tareef Cycling Club were getting together across town, and he invited me to join them. I was reluctant, after dark, to stray more than a few feet from my space heater and get in a cab by myself (I'm still very much a village girl in Jordan, despite 6 months in the big city). But I finally convinced myself that being a hermit was not going to make me feel any better. I almost gave up when I had to wait quite some time in the cold for a cab, but of course that was the moment when a cab finally stopped for me.

We were meeting at an absolutely huge Gloria Jeans Cave in Medina al-Munawwara Street, the size of the Starbucks in the Union at Indiana University. I went right in and ordered a coffee with some nostalgia; Gloria Jeans at the Galleria Mall was a special treat in my high school years. It wasn't until I was waiting for my drink and looking around for Aktham and the others from Tareef that I realized, while I thought I could hear Tareef on the second floor, I didn't see a single other woman in the place. This is something I would have noticed right away in Irbid or Jerash, or even just this past summer in Amman, as sensitized as I became in Peace Corps to gender. Since living in Amman, though, I have lost a lot of sensitivity, and this was sort of a sucker punch, and on top of my rough two days.

From New Years Eve

But sure enough, I went upstairs and followed the sounds of the loudest group in the place, and as soon as I saw Anis's fine-boned face at a table that was half women, I knew everything would be fine.

And it was. The members of Tareef are very non-judgemental, and that's why I enjoy their company! While there were occassional mentions of Gaza, there were no politics at the table, and it was a real relief.

Even still, I couldn't stop myself from what the Palestinians must see as crocodile tears while I was explaining to Aktham why I was boycotting Facebook and didn't think it was a good idea to go on with them to a protest in the City Center. I mean, in principle, it would have been okay, as it was billed as a silent candlelight vigil, but this is the Palestinians, and like Greeks, Italians, Jews, Spaniards, and other Mediterranean peoples, they're loud! But, in an attempt to distract me and make me feel better, Aktham convinced me to go with some of the rest to get food across the street, and the Shawerma Wok puts on quite a show!

From New Years Eve

A Call For Moderation

Amman, Jordan

I am not a touchy-feely person. It takes a great deal of effort for me to not laugh or at least roll my eyes at touchy-feely people. But what I have seen on Facebook today has really hurt me. I am literally crying as I write this. What is happening in Gaza is tragic, it really is. It is painful to watch. It has also engendered some real positive movement, like the food and clothing drive I contributed to today, and the decision of the Tareef Cycling Club to donate the rental fees for Friday's ride to the Red Crescent Society.

Unfortunately, there has also been a lot of vitriolic response as well. I have seen a lot of hate on Facebook and elsewhere on the Web today, and it really pains me. I know that a lot of it is engendered out of fear, anger and frustration. I've seen fellow Goucher Girls rail at Palestinians out of fear for their families in Israel. I've seen my Arab friends, whether Palestinian or not, lash out at Israel with equal vehemence. It really saddens me.

After the 2006 Lebanese War, an interdisciplinary group of Arab and Israeli professors (and all good friends) was formed at Indiana University, calling themselves the Mid East Conflict and Reform Group, and they began a series of guest lectures with a panel of those same IU profesors on the 2006 Lebanese War. I asked in this panel discussion if it was not true that economics has a great deal to do with the Mid East conflict, that from the Arab side of the border, Israel looks like a green, modern paradise, built on unequal water rights, unequal treatment by the West, and unequal military power, and this frustrates many on the Arab side. The Lebanese political science professor, Dr. Abdulkader Sinno, said something to me that has really changed the way I look at this conflict. He said that life is not a paradise in Israel, that poverty and especially child poverty are very high, and that this is largely because Israel chooses to spend its money on fighting its neighbors rather than providing services to its own people. The Bank of Israel released this report 18 months ago, including the following statistic:

Child poverty, as measured by the relative indices, rose by 2 percentage points in 2005 to an unprecedented 35.2 percent, which is high also by international comparison. The high rate of child poverty not only harms the children's current standard of living, but also adversely affects the creation of human capital, which is important for future earning power.

This is one of the highest child poverty rates in the West, right behind the good ole US of A!

I took a class on Palestinian nationalism from another member of IU's Mid East Conflict and Reform Group, Dr. Shaul Magid, who grew up and raised his own family in Israel, whose son is in the Israeli Defense Forces right now, and who is blacklisted on the Internet as a "self-hating Jew" for his views on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. He told us a horrific story about a triathalon in Israel, during which a bridge collapsed under a dozen professional cyclists, who fell into the river; half of them died of the effects of pollution in that river. This is not, he assured us, the only instance of ecological disaster in Israel.

I am generally pro-Palestinian because I feel that they have definitely gotten the short end of the stick in this conflict. As a teacher, a woman, or simply as a human being, I cannot help but be touched by the plight of children in the Palestinian Territories, generation after generation of them, who have lived in fear and uncertainty all their lives, who are dealing with enormous and weighty issues of traumatic and post-traumatic stress, all because they were unfortunate enough to be born on the wrong side of some arbitrary line in some "Imagined Community."

I simply don't understand why this isn't obvious to everyone! We don't choose where we were born, we don't choose our ethnicity, our mother tongue, or our childhood cultures. None of us did. We can grow up and change our language, our culture, our community, our identities (though not our ethnicities, if there even is such a thing), but Palestinian children are trapped in their parents' hell, as are Iraqi children, Sudanese children, Zimbabwean children, Tibetan children, Kashmiri children, Afghan children, and many Israeli children.

I do not believe in collective guilt or collective punishment. Not for Gazans, not for Lebanese, not for Iraqis, and not for Israelis. When we close a border to basic humanitarian aid, when we bombard a civilian population, when we cut off the electricity or water to an entire community, when we pray for a painful New Year for an entire nation, whenever we inflict or call for collective punishment, and whenever we are silent and allow it, we are also condemning large numbers of undeserving children and adults who are victims of circumstance and genetics.

So I beg you, my Arab friends and my Jewish friends and all my other friends alike, that when you speak of this conflict in Gaza or any conflict anywhere, remember that every community is made up of a great many diverse individual stories, many of them only just beginning to be written!