#YesAllWomen, #NotAllMen, Peace Corps-style

It's probably June, 2004. The phone rings in the middle of the night, waking me out of an exhausted sleep. I grope for it, check the display. It's about three a.m. and I don't recognize the number. I mute the ringer and try to go back to sleep.

The phone rings again. Same number. I'm pretty sure I know what this call is, but there's an outside chance it could be someone from Peace Corps Jordan or the U.S. Embassy. I'm a warden, which means four other Peace Corps Volunteers would consolidate at my house in the event of political unrest or natural disaster, and I would be responsible for calling them all with the consolidation order. Just in case, I pick up. "'Allo?"

"Hello-oo! What your name?"

"None of your business. Don't call again." I hang up.

My phone immediately rings again. Same number. I mute the ringer and save his number as DoNotAnswer3. It rings again. I let it ring till it stops, then it rings a fifth time. I grab a notebook and start a tally. Six. Seven. On the eighth call, I pick up but don't speak. I'm cross-legged on my comforter, phone by my knee, but I can still hear him.

"Hello? Hello? What your name? Hello? Hello? Why you not talk me? Hello?" The phone goes dead.

He calls again. I hit the green button but leave the phone on the bed. "Hello? Hello? Why you not say hello? Hello?" After a few more tries, he hangs up and calls again.

In Jordan, it doesn't cost me anything to receive a call on my cell phone, but it costs him money if I pick up. I hear him getting angry. "Hello? Why you do this me? Hello? I spend money this call. Why you not talk me? Hello?"

All told, he calls me thirteen times in under an hour. The moment he or I hang up, he calls back. It's four a.m. on a Wednesday, and I have to leave for school at seven to teach, but I'm not angry. Not this time. I'm actually pretty pleased with myself, because I had never thought of picking up without answering, running up his phone bill. It feels inspired, and it feels righteously vindictive.

I have only recently begun saving these numbers in my phone as DoNotAnswer, so even though I'm calling this one #3, there have been dozens. They usually happen in the middle of the night. Sometimes, though, we Peace Corps Volunteer girls get these calls when we're with a Volunteer who is a native Arabic speaker. He'll take the phone and demand, "Who do you think you are, calling my sister?" That number, at least, will never call again. A male relative's authority carries extra weight in Jordan, where honor killings happen about a dozen times a year.

Before I leave for school, I call Samir, the Peace Corps security guy. I tell him what happened and give him the number of DoNotAnswer3. Samir says he'll take care of it, and I trust him to do the culturally appropriate thing. Peace Corps trusts Samir, and the U.S. Embassy trusts him, so I trust him more than any Jordanian man I know.

Samir is a small, compact, nondescript man. He's quiet, soft-spoken and gentle. I don't always notice when he's in the room. He doesn't talk about what he does for us, except to say, "I'll take care of it." Word gets around, though.

"Now, brother, is that how we treat guests in our culture? Is that the culture of hospitality the Prophet Mohammad taught us? Shame on you, brother!"

* * * * *

It's nearly midnight the next night when the phone rings again. It's DoNotAnswer3. I ignore it, but by the fourth ring, I am getting angry. "What do you want?"

"Why you tell him about me? I just want be friends." When I hang up, he calls back, again and again. This time, I don't bother to run up his phone bill. I just cancel the calls as they come in. I text Samir and tell him DoNotAnswer3 is calling again.

* * * * *

Friday morning, I'm yanked out of bed by a very angry gut. I spend more than an hour in the bathroom with food poisoning, and then collapse back into my bed. The phone rings, and I pick it up without looking. "'Allo?"

"Good morning, Maryah. I'm in Faiha', and I'm coming to see you." It's DoNotAnswer3, and this time he knows my name and the name of my village. From somewhere below my heaving stomach, I find the strength for outrage, and fear. I call Samir and tell him everything. He tells me to stay home and keep my door locked. I'm too sick to go anywhere anyway.

* * * * *

That afternoon, Samir calls. "The plainclothes police are coming to get your statement," he says. "They say they're in Faiha', almost to your house. Just tell them what you told me."

I can see the nondescript beige sedan pull into my neighbor's driveway, up to the gate of my garden. I come out on the porch as two men get out of the car. I can't invite them in, as a single woman living alone, and in fact they come no closer than the middle of my yard. They want me to explain what happened, but my Arabic isn't good enough and they don't speak English. Finally, I call Samir and pass the phone down so he can explain again for me.

We're three or four meters apart: I, standing up on my porch and they, standing down in the yard. All around us, the neighbors have come out on their porches, staring shoulder-to-shoulder, making no secret of listening to our conversation. It makes me feel safe today, knowing that my neighbors are watching out for me.

After the police return my phone and leave, the headmistress of my school sends her 18-year-old son to find out what's going on. I explain as well as I can, since her son doesn't speak English, either. When he understands, he grins and shakes his head. "You didn't have to call Peace Corps! You should have told him to come on over." He plants his fist in his palm with a loud slapping sound. "We would have taken care of him!"

* * * * *

DoNotAnswer3 is arrested the next day. They don't need me to press charges. He had already been arrested five times for the same harassing behavior.

Often, when Peace Corps Volunteers gather, we swap horror stories. Male Volunteers had their own kinds of horror stories, but they frequently ended theirs with, "But it's so much harder to be a woman in Jordan!"

One day, a married Volunteer pushed back. It was much harder for her husband, she said. It is the imperative of the woman to ignore her harasser, protecting her reputation by not responding, and her security by not further antagonizing him. Men, on the other hand, are compelled to respond. If her husband didn't confront every epidsode of misogyny with outrage, she explained, then they both lost their respect in the community. Her husband is a reticent man, quiet and gentle, and it was extraordinarily troubling for him to have to react with anger and implied violence every day.

Jordan has the highest attrition rate in the Peace Corps. It seemed to me that more men than women cited gender-based harassment as their reason for leaving. Their empathy for our experiences impressed me from the very first week on the ground. They took every misogynistic statement or action seriously and personally. They regularly called out their male colleagues and even strangers on the street. "Is that how you would want me to treat your sister?"

Looking back, I think it was harder for the men in Peace Corps because they weren't prepared. No one was talking about "rape culture" in those days, at least not where I could hear them, but I had internalized it like all the women I know. Before we even arrived in Jordan, we women had already developed some of the defense mechanisms we would need to ignore misogynistic micro-aggressions. We had developed the internal monologue to refute what we heard. "I'm not a baby, my worth doesn't depend on your sexual needs or aesthetic preferences, I'm not a bitch just because you're not getting what you think you deserve."

The men we served with likely didn't see these micro-agressions as often as we did back home. They had the luxury in America of choosing whether to get involved. I don't blame them for that. I think it made it all the harder for them to become the powerful feminist men they became in Jordan, among the strongest voices speaking against rape culture on my Facebook Newsfeed today.

I thank them for their support.

Staten Island Sunshine

Manhattan and Staten Island, NY, USA

From Staten Island Ferry

Today, Arwen and I set out to see the Statue of Liberty. We couldn't have picked a more perfect day, or hit the Staten Island Ferry at a more perfect time, as the sun set behind the Green Lady.

Crossing Brooklyn Bridge

Brooklyn and Manhattan, NY, USA

From Brooklyn Bridge

An old Peace Corps friend came to visit this week, and the timing couldn't have been better. In a happy/unhappy coincidence, I am newly unemployed this week, very glad to have a friend in town, and free all day every day to spend with her!

Today's agenda was a walking tour of downtown Manhattan, beginning with a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. My brother had done a similar walking tour when he was visiting in August, and it came highly recommended. And for good reason. The Brooklyn Bridge is a strikingly Old World piece of architecture in a very New World city.

Not to mention iconic. The Geiko Gecko has a great ad on the white line separating walkers from bikers. None other than Hugh Jackman jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge into another century in "Kate and Leopold."

Once in Manhattan, we wandered around in the historic seaport district, and along the wharf. I don't think of New York City as the home of tall ships, as I do Boston, but there they were! Not as old as Old Ironsides, I teased Arwen, but yeah, pretty old. Not long after, I had to leave her to wander the city alone, while I went back to Brooklyn for class.

From Brooklyn Bridge

The Not-Egypt

or, Jordan Is Approaching Modern and Entirely Stable

Amman, Jordan

I've been having the same conversation over and over again in the last few days ... no, in the last few weeks, in fact! I've had it with Returned Peace Corps/Jordan Volunteers, with Jordanians, with Egyptians, with Americans. While everyone in the media is calling Jordan "the next Egypt" and expecting Jordan's imminent collapse in its own revolution, my friends and I are talking about what a mistake it is to consider Jordan and Egypt even remotely in the same category.

As Peace Corps/Jordan Volunteers, we thought we were living in a really poor country. That's what Peace Corps Volunteers do, after all. And I don't mean to suggest that Jordan isn't a place with pervasive, urgent problems of poverty, unemployment, corruption, education and infrastructure. But those of us, Peace Corps Volunteers and Jordanians, who have been to Egypt have a very different view now. Jordan is not a Third World country anymore; it's solidly Second World, on its way to the First World. Poverty, education, corruption and infrastructure in Egypt are in a completely different category.

The degree of despair and hopelessness in Egypt was, until last week, an oppressive weight on me nearly everywhere I went in my daily life in Egypt. When you asked Egyptians about their future, they generally shrugged hopelessly and invoked God. "As God wills," or "It's in God's hands." It's not that you don't see such fatalism in Jordan, but it's not so nearly universal as it seemed to be in Egypt.

I think it's why there's so much more harassment in Egypt. Everywhere we girls go in Cairo, almost every young man we pass shouts "Ya muzza [banana]!" or "Ya buTTa [duck]!" or "Ya 3assal [honey]!" or one of a hundred other variations on "Hey, baby!" These are young men who probably hold a Bachelor's degree, but are likely unemployed or underemployed. They can't expect to marry before 40, or even have a girlfriend. They're socially, economically, sexually and emotionally frustrated. With no hope in sight, they amuse themselves by harassing passing women - not just foreigners, but Egyptian women, too, both with and without the hijab. You get a little of that in Jordan, but again, not on the same scale.

Since I returned to Egypt on Jan 27, though, I only heard these variations on "Hey, baby!" twice, and both times from pro-Mubarak thugs. For the first time Egyptians are feeling like they have some hope, some agency in their own futures. Jordanians have been developing that sense of agency for many years, and don't show the kind of hopelessness and despair I'm accustomed to in Egypt. A Bachelor's degree means something in Jordan; not as much as it means in America, but something. Men can expect to marry in their late 20s and early 30s. The job market is not as tight. An entrepreneurial Jordanian, especially among the increasing number with computer and English skills, can hope to make something of himself or herself that's better than what his or her father could achieve.

The country has a long way to go, but it's definitely going there. King Abdullah II's school reforms have transformed education in the Kingdom, and I watched it happen first hand as a Peace Corps Volunteer. University reforms are still necessary, but as today's schoolkids enter university, that change is inevitable. There are now computers in 99% of Jordanian schools, and more and more Jordanian families are acquiring computers and Internet access. From school reforms, the culture of the whole country is changing, becoming more aware of the greater world, learning more critical thinking skills, and becoming more politically active at home.

What's essential to understand about Jordan is that, though things are in need of significant improvement, you can see that improvement happening, bit by bit, around the country. The Jordanian standard of living is slowly going up, and the people know that their king, for all that he's controversial, has had a lot to do with how the country has improved. He has pushed for economic, educational and social reform. While many Jordanians may feel that he and his wife are more Westernized than Jordanian, they still see the tangible benefits of modernization, of conforming to the international standards of the Western, developed nations. Though privately they complain about this or that the king is doing, I still believe that most Jordanians are proud of their king.

You could see this clearly by comparing the massive protests in Egypt to the small demonstrations in Jordan. On Friday, 28 January, Egyptians came into the streets by the millions demanding "the fall of the system," i.e. of the whole government leadership, and the resignation of Pres. Mubarak. In contrast, a couple hundred Jordanians came out to ask for certain laws to be repealed. The Egyptian police responded with teargas, water cannons and rubber bullets, but the Jordanian police brought Pepsi and sandwiches to the demonstrators. On Friday, 4 January, millions of Egyptians came out again, demanding freedom of expression and the fall of the government. In Jordan, about 50 Communists gathered to chant a few slogans in the most desultory, bored fashion you could imagine for a demonstration. Even the sensationalists at CNN, when they went around downtown Amman, Jordan, looking for revolutionaries, couldn't find anyone who even wanted to protest, let along overthrow the government.

The Sad Consequences
Knowing what I know about Jordan, and what my American and Jordanian friends see on the streets here, I know that Jordan is still the safest place I've ever lived in the world. I've heard that hundreds of tourists have canceled their plans to vacation in Jordan, because it's an inch away from Cairo on a map, or because of the media's attempt to portray Jordan as the next powderkeg. Jordan depends heavily on those tourists and their money, and this will be a blow for Jordan's already shaky economy. But Jordan has been through this before, with 9/11, the War in Iraq, the Amman hotel bombings in 2005, and the economic crisis of 2008. Every time it seems that Jordan's tourism sector is finally stable, some global event sends it into a tailspin. Every time Jordan comes back, though, they come back stronger. In the long term, I think Jordan and Jordanians will find themselves in an even better position than ever: more foreign aid, more foreign investment, and more tourism, as Jordan becomes ever better known as the most stable nation on the Red Sea or in the Arab World entirely.

3 Countries, 2 PCVs

Cairo, Egypt

From Islamic and Coptic Cairo

When we got home last night, I had a message waiting on Facebook from my old Peace Corps friend Andy, whom I also visited in Israel/Palestine. "Guess who's in Cairo?" he said, and he'd be leaving in the wee hours of the 2nd, so the window to catch him was very small. I sent him my phone number, and all morning today, in Islamic Cairo and Khan al-Khalili market, I kept thinking, "When's he gonna call?"

So Gwen and I were trying to get into a jewelry store, but there was this big American taking up all the space. We finally squeezed in behind him and his female companion, and were looking at jewelry when I thought I heard my name. Now, I often think I hear my name when Arabic is being spoken, but I turned around anyway ... and there was Noureen! Turns out the big American taking up space was none other than Andy!

So we went to Al-Fishawy Coffee House, a staple of every tourist guide to Islamic Cairo, for tea and coffee. Andy told Gwen the adorable story of how he and Noureen met. Gwen finally had an Arab woman cornered who was willing and happy to answer all her questions about having and raising children in the Arab world, with Andy and I taking turns translating. Noureen understands a lot of English, but she's not so comfortable speaking it yet. (I'm sure that will improve with time, just as Gwen has become so much more confident and fluent as a German speaker over the years of her marriage!) We were having such a good time together, that Gwen and I took them out for dinner, too!

In the evening, Gwen and I went to this really cool piano concert by an international group called 12 Pianists. Some of the numbers were pretty standard, for example, played on 4 pianos by 8 hands. Others were far more creative, with 2 pianos played by 6 hands, and even one number where all 12 pianists played the same piano at the same time! It was so cool, and such an unexpected delight in Cairo!

Country Living as Spectator Sport

Siwa Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt

From Siwa Oasis

It's weird to think about being homesick for the Peace Corps. Maybe it's because Rachel quizzed me about my Peace Corps experience on the bus to Siwa. Maybe it's because the last time I was anywhere near this stressed was in Peace Corps. Maybe it's the PCV friends I miss. Whatever the reason, all weekend I was imagining what it would be like to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Siwa Oasis. My head was spinning with community integration and secondary project ideas. I itched to find out what the locals think of the tourist industry, of the local development projects. I wanted to sit down with local women out of their distinctive garb and learn more about their lives and their thoughts. I wanted to pick and dry dates, and sit down afterward for a family meal. Perhaps more than anything, I wanted to be back out in the country, away from the noise, crowds and pollution of Cairo!

From Siwa Oasis

Siwa is nothing like Cairo. Not at all. I don't just mean how quiet and green it is, or how clean the air, or how dirty streets means sandy with road apples, but far less littered with manmade trash.

From Siwa Oasis

What I'm talking about is the people. Cairo has made me defensive, suspicious and mistrustful of people. I live my life on the offensive against harassment, claustrophobia, scams and being cheated. I avoid speaking to strangers, because I expect them to either be creepy or take advantage of the "rich foreigner" or the "loose white girl."

From Siwa Oasis

The people of Siwa, though, remind me of the Jordanians I so love. Gretchen met a man on the bus to Siwa who offered to get us a reliable guide while we were in town. I expected, and I wasn't the only one, that he was going to rope us into giving our number to a lecherous local man who would bilk us of all our guineas. Instead, he introduced us to Yusef. We paid him, but not outrageously, and in return he helped us have a really great time. He's studying his Masters in history in Alexandria, with the intention of helping to preserve the local culture of Siwa against the onslaught of tourism and development. He took us bathing and to a sunset in the desert, and then to a great party with Bedouin music and dancing on the desert's edge. And he wasn't the only Siwan to help us out with great honesty and respect. It was such a refreshing change, even more than the vistas and clean air.

From Siwa Oasis

Dealing With Harassment

A Comparative Study of Trainings

Cairo, Egypt

We had a speaker today, a professor who has lived in Egypt pretty much all of my life, since she was a CASA Fellow back in 1982 and married an Egyptian. She gave us some interesting vocabulary for the moments when you just can't keep your mouth shut, like "Act like a man!" and "You've been brought up in the gutter!" She also gave some interesting background to why tourists and other Westerners are such frequent targets of scams and overpriced goods. The average Egyptian teacher makes LE300, which is about $60 a month; the average government work, LE400. Our rent alone is twice that, our stipend 4x as much, so by Egyptian standards we're very, very rich. The economic disparity is far, far greater than Jordan, and the competition for what jobs exist is far tougher.

She told some really interesting stories about various students and friends of hers over the years, but it was still a lecture. I found myself comparing it to the lesson on harassment that we did way back in Peace Corps Pre-Service Training in Ma'in, and found myself almost laughing out loud in the middle of the lecture at a memory of Jesse.

Our main objective in Peace Corps was to learn the language, so after drilling the terms for a bit, Jenn had us roleplay harassment scenarios. Jeremy and Jesse, as the only guys, were naturally chosen to play the role of the creepy Arab man. Jeremy is too sweet of a guy to do a convincing creep, but Jesse.... Even after Jesse went back to his fiancee in America, we were still talking about how well he played his part. It quickly ceased to feel like a roleplay and started to feel like you really were being stalked...!

In any case, I've determined that I learned a valuable lesson in Jordan. When my roommate and I walk down the street in Cairo, she's constantly bristling at the hissing and whistling of the men we pass ... but I don't even hear it! And the last 18 months in Jordan, when I was making 8x what most Jordanians could make at the same job, I became quite comfortable with what this professor termed "noblesse oblige," the idea that the few guinea that we're scammed of on a regular basis here doesn't make much difference to us ... but can mean a rare opportunity for protein for dinner that night for an Egyptian.

Jordan and Peace Corps In the News

Aqaba, Jordan

Yesterday on CNN, which I wouldn't ordinarily watch except that my new apartment doesn't have BBC or Internet, there was a story about Jordan. Not the usual "Jordanian kills a bunch of people" story we've seen of late. This time it was a positive look at Jordan, specifically the Dead Sea Ultra Marathon and the rising popularity of physical exercise in Jordan, and especially in Amman. Nice to see.



Also, Mel found this article in yesterday's Jordan Times that's not just about Jordan, but specifically about Peace Corps in Jordan. Apparently it also appeared in Al Ghad newspaper in Arabic. Peace Corps Volunteers rock, and now all of Jordan knows it! =D

No Honor Among Teachers

Marj al-Hamam, suburban Amman, Jordan

I find all my conversations turning to education in Jordan recently. Perhaps it's partly Nas's recent posts on education and the long comments I left on this one. As Jordan slips further into recession, and slips on the Freedom House scale from "partly free" to "not free," reforms of all sorts seem more important and elusive than ever. It may just be because I'm a teacher, but I feel very strongly that none of these reforms are possible without a foundation of education reform.

King Abdullah II's Jordan First and National Agenda programs both included comprehensive education reforms, and the Amman Message also calls for more critical thinking in religious and civic curricula. There have been significant (though hardly sufficient) improvements made to the national curriculum and teacher training, both in universities and in-service training (for those teachers who can actually attend). But none of that means anything if teachers aren't appropriately compensated.

The average public school teacher makes less than $350 a month, and is technically forbidden by the Ministry of Education from holding another job. In practice, of course, most male teachers are also doing private tutoring or teaching at after-school centers, as salaries are well below the cost of living for most people.

The student who comes most regularly to Bell's free Conversation Club on Thursdays is a physics teacher, Firas. Today he explained to me that he has 3 jobs and works an average of 18-20 hours per day, sleeping an average of 3 hours a night. In addition, he's taking English classes in hopes of being able to get a higher-paying job, perhaps $500 a month, teaching at a private school. He's also taking an International Computer Driving License course, a U.N. certification he will have to obtain to keep his teaching job with the Ministry.

Teachers in the U.S. or Europe would have gone on strike 5 years ago, when wages had already been stagnant for 8 years, and the cost of living suddenly doubled as a result of the Iraq War. As far as I can tell, though, there's no teachers' union in Jordan. Teachers have been voicing their discontent, but the government's response has been less than encouraging.

A prime example is this week's announcement by the Minister of Education. In response to teachers' complaints about wages, he made a statement on public television. Perhaps, he opined, if teachers shaved in the morning and ironed their clothes, it might be worth giving them a raise. He said this on public television.

As a result of this and other abuses, teachers feel undervalued and unsupported. They work 7:40-2:00, and whatever can't be finished in that time doesn't get done. They never take grading or lesson planning home. In fact, where lesson planning goes, after their first year of teaching, they just copy last year's lesson plans into this year's notebook. Any education reform, no matter how well-intentioned or theoretically sound, is doomed to failure in the face of completely understandable teacher apathy.

Firas was telling me of his and his friends' attempts to marry. When his friends have gone to meet the fathers of the girls they're hoping to marry, of course they are asked about their jobs. They are all teachers. Fathers say, "I've even had taxi drivers want to marry my daughter and turned them away!" Even as cheap as taxi fare is here, and as high as the overhead is in that industry, taxi drivers can still make 2 or 3 times as much as a teacher.

It's a real shame, given the history of the Arab world. Students would come from the very ends of the known earth - China, Morocco, Tanzania, Zanzibar - to study with the great Arab masters in Kufa, Basra and Andalusia. Abbassid Baghdad was a Mecca of great learning. Teachers and scholars garnered the highest respect in that world. How different the world would have been if they hadn't been able to preserve all the masterpieces of the Classical world? That kind of respect inspired greatness. JD150 a month inspires apathy. Can you blame them?

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....

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!

Ma'in Reunion ... with Sushi!

Washington, DC, USA

From My White Wintery Hell

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!

From My White Wintery Hell

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!

Wedding Crasher

(just kidding, Andy!)

Amman, Jordan

Ever since we reconnected last summer, the day before he converted to Islam and signed his marriage contract with Noureen, Andy had been telling me that I was invited to his wedding in December. I waited and waited, and yet no invitation was forthcoming. Finally, I decided I'd just ask Nadia when and where the wedding was, and crash it!

Turns out, Nadia was exactly the right person to ask, since Andy actually spent the night before the wedding at the house she shares with so-much-more-than-an-LCF Ahmed.

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

I got to be there for the whole thing, from one last trip to the barber's for hair gel...

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

...to a long wait at Muad and Ali's place while the car was at the florist and Andy fulfilled a 21st Century obligation: changing his Facebook status...

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

...to our own little faarida of 2 cars to pick up the bride...

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

...to their grand entrance at the Palmyra Hotel where Noureen works, and where Andy met her during his Operation Smile Iraq missions as a Peace Corps Volunteer...

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

...to all the fun of their fabulous reception.

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

Remember Me?

Amman, Jordan

Sometimes you can't predict the people who will remember and recognize you.

I needed a note from the college's doctor to go home early, and I knew the clinic was on Level B1, but I didn't know where, so I asked a security guard. She said, "Are you Maryah?"
"Yes," I said. Since my Peace Corps days, I've become accustomed to being the White Elephant, the person everyone recognizes in a crowd of locals.
"Don't you remember me?"
I get this a lot, too, and while I'm good at recognizing familiar faces, I'm very bad at figuring out why they're familiar. "You look familiar...."
"I'm Kawthar!" she says. "From Mshairfeh."
I take another look, and now I can see it. "Kawthar? How are you? What's new?" Four years ago, she was one of my students in the 10th grade at the girls' school in Mshairfeh where I taught as a Peace Corps Volunteer. "Do you come here every day from Mshairfeh?"
"Ali works here, and I come with him." Clearly I'm supposed to know who Ali is, too, so I smile and nod as if I understand, and change the subject a little. "There are two girls from Bleela [the village down the hill from Mshairfeh] who work at the college and come every morning, too!" She doesn't know them off hand, but maybe she'll figure it out and they can share the carpool burden that much more.
Ultimately, Kawthar can't help me find the clinic, and I really need it, so we part ways, but now I'll be sure to say hello when I can.

It's not a surprise that Ghadeer, Alia, Aaliya and Aiat remember me, or Amal whom I visited to congratulate on her Tawjihi results, or even the girl from my 8th grade class I encountered on the bus the other day. It's not surprising that Hadeel, Ziad, Khaled, FaraH and other little kids from my neighborhood remember me. But if you were to ask me which of my students was most likely to pick me out of a crowd in Amman and introduce herself, it wouldn't be Kawthar!

My 8th graders, May 2005

You see, the Jordanian 10th grade classroom is a very polarized place. By this time in their school careers, students like Alaa and Senabel knew that they would likely pass the Tawjihi and go on to university, and they were a joy to teach, really motivated and diligent. The other half of the class, including poor Kawthar, knew they would fail the Tawjihi, and that their only option in life was going to be to get married and have babies. They weren't going to get the pick of the litter in husbands, either! These girls came to school only because they could spend those hours with their friends instead of scrubbing floors, changing diapers and cooking for their mothers at home. Consequently, they were much more interested in socializing than learning, making them a classroom management nightmare.

It was my first year of teaching, and as a product of the American self-esteem culture, I guess I figured they just hadn't been given much of a chance to see themselves as learners. I had seen how other teachers treated this class, only letting Alaa, Senabel and a few other "smart" girls answer questions, not caring whether the rest of the class was keeping up or not. I used to try to include Kawthar and other troublemakers in classroom exercises. In retrospect, perhaps they thought I was trying to embarrass them, setting them up for ridicule, or trying to make a point about how "stupid" they were. In any case, it never went well, and it didn't help classroom discipline.

I do remember quite clearly how the headmistress lined Kawthar and other 10th graders up in front of the whole school at morning assembly one morning, and had each of them publicly paddled for failing to behave in my classroom. I was appalled, needless to say, and when I walked into their English class a little later, I found those girls, Kawthar chief among them, in furious, mortified tears. They berated me for taking a private matter of classroom discipline in front of the whole school. I'm not sure they believed me when I said that I had not uttered a word to the headmistress about their behavior in weeks (frankly, I'd given up thinking any such thing would make the least bit of difference), but that clearly one of their classmates had decided that the issue of their failure to respect their teacher had to be taken further up the chain of command. (I'm pretty sure it was the headmistress's daughter who tattled.) Ultimately, as I could have easily predicted, this public humiliation did nothing to improve the classroom environment.

Given my history with Kawthar, I would fully expect her to, at best, not admit she knew me, or at worst, to deliberately avoid me. I'm pretty sure I would in her shoes. But maybe, when it came right down to it, I really did make a positive impression on her and some of the other girls I felt were beyond my reach. I hope that's true. It seemed pretty hopeless, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, to make much of any effect on our students' English language within the constraints of the Ministry of Education's curricular requirements. We tried to focus on living as examples of strong, independent, ethical men and women giving back to communities in need. We tried to fan every spark of learning we spotted. I used to tell myself that if I couldn't get every student to pass their English exams, I could at least do my best to convince even the students who struggled the most that they could at least learn something. I hoped that maybe they would pass this on to their own children, and stop the cycle of "Don't ask those students. They're stupid. They can't be taught."

My 15 Minutes Remain Elusive

I finally found the YouTube broadcast of the panel that Queen Noor of Jordan participated in at last year's ServiceNation Summit.

I was sitting in my 2nd grade classroom at the Modern American School, having just sent my students off to gym class, when my phone rang. I put down the math homework I was grading, and picked up the phone, pleased by the serendipity of its timing. It wasn't a number I recognized, but I answered anyway.

"Is this Maryah? My name is Barbara, and I'm the Chief of Staff for Queen Noor." I was glad I was sitting down. "Her Majesty is participating in a panel in New York City next week, and someone recommended you as a Peace Corps Volunteer who loved Jordan enough to come back again. I wondered if I could get some stories from you about the importance of Peace Corps, and international service."

Of course, there are few things I love more than talking about my travels abroad, and especially about Peace Corps. I told her many of my favorite stories, including the story of the Jebel Bani Hamida bus station, which she thought would be too controversial for her purposes. Most importantly, I talked to her about Peace Corps' Third Goal, to bring knowledge of my host culture back to America. For the first time, I explained, I had come home from somewhere that people really cared about. Even the most unexpected people, housewives who'd never been 100 miles from home and never seemed interested in international affairs, had a thousand questions about Arabs, Muslims, Islam, women in the Middle East, public opinion of America in the Muslim world, the education system in Jordan, etc. And unlike the few questions I would get about the places I've lived in Europe, when it came to Jordan, people were very conscious that they really had no idea what the answers to their questions would be. People really listened to what I had to say.

Due to computer problems, I've not seen more than two thirds of the video myself, and I haven't yet heard Her Majesty mention anything that might have come from me. Nevertheless, what she and others have to say about public service, international service, and its importance to international relations are worth hearing.

She Puts the 'ifer in Joshifer!

Amman, Jordan

My first Arabic teacher is back in Jordan for a brief visit to her family, and we went out to dinner tonight. When I came to Jordan with Peace Corps, Jennifer was my Language and Culture Coordinator (LCF). She spent 5 hours 4 days a week teaching Arabic to me, Naureen, Audra and Jeremy (and a couple other trainees who left early). She also lived with us in the village of Ma'in, right next door to me. It was the first time she'd lived outside of Amman, and it was as much a culture shock for her as it was for us. Even though she, a Jordanian Christian, was living with Jordanian Christians in a village that had traditionally always been Christian, it was like another country. (I've always said that Amman isn't Jordan, it may as well be Eastern Europe minus the vodka!) Jennifer and I spent many evenings working through our culture shock together, and we stayed in touch throughout the rest of my Peace Corps Volunteer service.

Little did any of us know at the time, but Peace Corps Trainee Josh had a serious case of love at first sight of Jennifer, and not long after we became full-fledged Peace Corps Volunteers, he started getting to know Jennifer a little better. He was very discreet, and it was months before anyone but Josie knew anything about it! But once the secret was out, things moved fast. They were together as much as possible, and we started referring to them by just one name: Joshifer. By the end of my Peace Corps service, they were married, and on their way to a new life in Kansas City, Missouri.I kept telling Jennifer she was the bravest person I knew. Not only was she getting married and embarking on a new life a deux, but she was leaving all her family and friends behind and moving to America, too! She knew it would be hard, she told me tonight, and she'd thought she was prepared. But when I went to their American wedding reception in Missouri later that summer, it was clear that it was harder than expected. The sounds at night were different, she was struggling to find a job, she didn't have any friends except her sister-in-law to keep her company while Josh was at work.... Having grown up with bars on her windows like everyone in Jordan, she didn't feel safe in her home in America. It was a much greater challenge than she expected.

Three years later, she's quite well acclimated to the States. She and Josh are now living in Washington, DC, which is a city full of Arabs and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, including many of our fellow Volunteers from Jordan. Jennifer has old friends and new ones, a fascinating job as a media analyst, and a husband she adores and who adores her. But it's been 3 years since she's seen her family and friends, longer than she expected, and that has started to take it's toll on her now.

It was fun, too, to compare notes on how Jordan had changed since we left it three years ago. She confirmed what I had only suspected (not being particularly familiar with Amman in my Peace Corps days), that women were generally far more conservatively dressed - more hijab and niqab than ever. She had noticed in Cozmo grocery store a phenomenon I became very familiar with at the Modern American School, children who spoke English with a heavy Arab accent, but hardly spoke Arabic at all, most likely because they'd been raised, not by their parents, but by their Filipina or Indonesian or Sri Lankan maids (of which Jennifer says there are a lot more than she's used to seeing). We compared our impressions of Jebel Webdeh, too. I know that neighborhood as the trendy place for young expats - students and young professionals - to live and hang out, but Jennifer knows it as the very Arab neighborhood where she grew up.

It's so nice to see her back in Jordan! I only wish she could stay longer....

Where the Women Are Strong...

Mshairfeh, Jerash, Jordan

Wijdan: I have to tell you something, Maryah. I'm pregnant again. ... Sometimes I hate myself.

It's sad, because despite circumstances that make lesser women bitter and mean, Wijdan's a great mother. Her eldest daughter, Ghadeer, is one of the brightest students in the village, and Wijdan's doing her best to make sure that Ghadeer gets at least one university degree, even if it means no new Eid clothes for the rest of the family, and that she get it honestly. At the end of last semester, Wijdan went to meet one of Ghadeer's professors. "Did she get good marks? Did she deserve her good marks? Because if I hear that you've given my daughter a mark she didn't deserve, I'll go all the way to the Minister about it!" Her other children may not be particularly apt pupils, but she does her best to insure that they work their very hardest. Kids will be kids and complain about homework and housework and responsibility, but ultimately her children are good people.

That alone can't have been easy, given the influence of their uncle and cousins, who have the respect of almost no one, and are outright despised by many. As my father said when he visited, "I knew that was Wijdan's brother-in-law the moment he appeared, because everyone got stiff and angry. And I do not like that man at all." They didn't even have a common language.

And yet, when Wijdan's eldest son was accused during my visit of giving his female cousin's number to a young man who was making inappropriate phone calls, the family was outraged, and it was righteous outrage. We all know full well that he would no more give out his cousin's number than he would his sister's! He puts on a good facade of rebellious independence, but at his core he's fiercely loyal with strong moral convictions. He is what the Arabs call "ibn al-halaal," a kosher son.

It's easy to see where the children get this from. Wijdan is a one-woman contradiction of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which says that if basic needs are not met, an individual will not be driven to pursue personal growth or societal development. Here's a woman who can barely put food on the table for her 7 children, but dedicates enormous amounts of time and energy to her position as the chair of the village's social welfare society. Not only that, but she's become involved through the local LDS Volunteers in helping other welfare societies in the area. As she was peeling the last of her potatoes for breakfast, she said to me, "If I could, I would take care of everyone. I would make sure that every girl could afford to go to university. I would help everyone."

Quote of the Day:
Abu Tareq: Umm Tareq never teaches me any English!
Hadeel (6 y.o.): What do you want with English? You're a man!

It was the most I'd laughed all week. But it reflects a definite phenomenon in many Jordanian communities, whereby women are pushing their daughters to learn English and get higher degrees because it's their only way out of poverty and misery, but putting far less emphasis on the education of their sons, who have many other options that don't require a university degree.

Strengthening Local Aid Societies

Mshairfeh, Jerash, Jordan

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have very little patience for people who lecture others in order to convert them to any particular religious belief. But anyone who truly knows me knows that I have no objections to people who seek to change hearts through their actions. Jesus preached social transformation by deeds, not words, and I have nothing but admiration for those who embody their love of Christ by doing good works to benefit others. While I regularly turn away the Mormons who come knocking at my door in the States, I have great admiration for the work that LDS volunteers are doing in Jordan.

On one hand, it's about the effect they have had on individual people who are dear to me, namely Wijdan's family and the social welfare society she chairs in Mshairfeh. In addition to the material support they provided for the latter, the previous LDS Volunteers provided tremendous moral and financial aid to Wijdan. In short, the series of LDS Volunteers who have aided Mshairfeh have been good friends to Wijdan and her family. They supported her through a major marital crisis, they've helped her manage the complex politics of chairing a voluntary society, they hired her for occasional translation jobs, and they took her to the hospital and home again when Taqwa was born.

On the other hand, it's the philosophy of development that the current LDS Volunteers were espousing to me at Wijdan's. Their impact has now spread from a dozen societies to over 3 dozen societies in the Irbid and Jerash areas, and in part their philosophy has changed because it's become impractical to serve everyone directly. At the same time, however, it has become possible for societies to help each other, with the LDS Charities merely facilitating, coordinating and helping to provide funds and supplies for the projects in place. The schoolbags they're providing for local children are being sewn and filled by a local society. Another society is assembling hygiene kits. Another is assembling kits for newborns. Another society is teaching villages in the region how to grow and market mushrooms. When a container load of wheelchairs arrives shortly in Jordan, they will be working with Peace Corps Volunteers and local societies like Wes's center in Irbid and Arwen's family's charity Eleanor's Project to distribute the wheelchairs where they're most needed (perhaps in response to the fate of the last load of wheelchairs, which ended up in some local official's private stash). Sustainability is their byword, they said, and I believe it's the only way to go! "Strengthening Families" is their motto, but they're doing more than that; they're strengthening the grass-roots civil society movements that support local families, too.

In fact, it's not just about what they do in Jordan. I remember how impressed I was with what I'd heard about the LDS Charities when I was mucking out houses in New Orleans. It took FEMA, famously, months to get relief supplies into the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. The LDS Charities, on the other hand, had the essentials packed in container trucks and the drivers on standby 3 days before the hurricane struck, and were on the road as soon as it was clear where they would be needed. Consequently, their supplies were on site precisely when they were needed.

Walk Jordan, Clean Orjan

or, Was She Just Speaking Arabic?

Orjan, Ajlun, Jordan

Two days ago, I was in a terrible quandry. I had paid my money to go with my supervisor Nina on an overnight trip to Dana Nature Preserve with the Friends Of Archaeology and Heritage (FOAH); it's a trip I was really excited about, because it's complicated to get to Dana without having your own car and camping gear. Then I found out that Walking Jordan was going to the Orjan Soap House, which I've been wanting to see since Tareef's trip to Wadi Feynan Eco Lodge, and even moreso after reading in the Jordan Times last Friday about the new Calligraphy Centre and the Orjan Soap House. So I wavered between pleased and disappointed when the FOAH trip was cancelled, and I was able to go on the Ajlun hike with Walk Jordan. I even talked Jad into going along and taking fabulous pictures (even if I tried to make him think it was his idea...)!

From Orjan Soap House

I've been to Orjan before. My friend Betsy was a Peace Corps Volunteer there, and I went and visited her one weekend. I have very fond memories of the visit. We were invited to dinner at her colleague's house, a geography teacher from the Haddad family, where I had the best, moistest, most tender chicken of my Peace Corps days. We also visited her neighbor, and I distinctly remember her daughter, who was mentally and/or emotionally handicapped and is usually terrified of strangers, but came right into the sitting room and sat down beside me almost as soon as I arrived. (Perhaps, as Karla did years ago, she took one look at me and thought, Now, there's someone who won't reject me!) Her brother absolutely adored Betsy, and brought us the geography book Betsy had brought him from America to show us what he had learned.

From Orjan Soap House

On this trip, we started at the Orjan Soap House, which has a gorgeous collection of olive oil soaps made from all local products. Then Dr. Ramzi handed out black plastic trashbags and plastic gloves, and we set off down the trail. We filled at least two dozen trash bags with bottles, tissues, potato chip bags and other trash, and that was just what was lying right along the roadside! It's a terrible shame, really. Orjan is a beautiful little valley, full of figs, plums, apples, almonds, and fat, gnarled olive trees known locally as "Roman olives," dating back to Byzantine days and before. When my students in the village asked me, as they often did, "Is Jordan beautiful?" I would say wholeheartedly yes. But when my students would finish their potato chips and throw the bag on the ground, I would say, "How is Jordan beautiful when the whole country is one big trash can?" It was amazing to find that, even after we had collected all that trash, we stopped to rest under an enormous old tree, and when we got up to go to lunch in local homes, members of our own group left soda cans and candy wrappers right there on the ground behind them. Oh, Jordan! Sometimes you frustrate me!

From Orjan Soap House

Where are you from?

About half the people on this trip were old friends from Tareef - Bassem, Ahmed and his kids, Salah, Rasha, Moayad and Taymour whose photos I'm constantly stealing, Nara who will soon be my roommate, etc - but there were also many people I'd never seen before. There was a predictable mix of English and Arabic, however, and I was no exception. Jad is, by his own admission, selfishly determined to practice his English with me, and I understand the urge to take advantage of a native speaking friend ... plus, it's just easier for me. Rasha would walk past us and, as usual, look me right in the eye and demand, "3arabi! 3arabi! [Arabic! Arabic!]" which never fails to delight me. And, as usual, I got the chance to eavesdrop on plenty of Arabic conversations, which is a treat for me, as I am usually surrounded by English. And several people got the story, from me or one of my Tareef friends, of how I had come to Jordan, how I'd acquired my Arabic, and what I'm doing here now. One such explanation was particularly fun:

I was making arrangements with Nara to come and see the apartment before she moves in on the 1st, and because she'd been insisting all day on speaking Arabic and not English (and her Arabic is amazingly improved since we first met!), I also spoke to her in Arabic. And as we were making our arrangements, I heard a voice behind my shoulder say (in Arabic), "Is she speaking Arabic?"
I smiled as Rasha replied for me, "Of course! She speaks Arabic very well!"
"But, she speaks English, so I thought-"
Now I interjected, with a grin to soften the sarcasm, "So everyone who speaks English doesn't speak Arabic?"
"No, but your accent.... Where are you from?"
And before I could respond, Jad jumped in. "She's from Bleela! She's a real Jordanian! Her mother's American, right, Maryah? But she's Jordanian." And for a few minutes, this poor guy at my shoulder couldn't figure out whether to believe Jad or not. I just grinned, wondering where this would go. After all, Jad hadn't said anything untrue about my parentage; it was merely misleading. (When I was in Egypt, I did manage to convince some people that my father was Jordanian and I was a native speaker of Arabic, so I wondered if it would work in Jordan proper.)
But Rasha took pity on the poor guy and explained that I was not Jordanian at all, I'd just lived here for awhile.

From Orjan Soap House

Keri, the Dead Sea, and good ole Mohammad Naser

Dead Sea Panorama, Jordan

From Keri Goes Biking

This afternoon, my roommate from last summer, Keri, joined Tareef for a Panorama Sunset Ride from Madaba towards the Dead Sea. She's a much better cyclist than I, especially since I had the flu this week, but I was pretty pleased with how well I did. This was my second time on this route since my month in Budapest, and the last time I did this route was disastrous. I even had to resort to the bus! But this time I walked less than on any of my half dozen trips down this road.

It was also wonderful to watch the sun set and chat with Keri, about what we're both doing with our lives, reminiscing about Peace Corps, and dreaming about the future. Not to mention catching up on the life of one Mohammad Naser. One day last summer, it occurred to me that I knew someone other than Keri at the University of Arizona - Tucson. My Peace Corps TEFL trainer, Mohammad Naser, had gotten a Fulbright to study there mid-way through my time in Peace Corps. I mentioned him to Keri, but she didn't know him. Since then, however, she's taken 3ammiyya classes with him, and it was interesting to hear what he's been doing. He's married with a very small child, still working on his PhD, and was recently given an award by the university for his workshops on non-violence. I think that's the kind of role that would really suit him. I dredged up some of my most memorable stories of Mohammad, and it was fascinating to think back to how lost and timid I was then, compared to being Kitty's "Jordan guru" now!