"Baba Jordan"

Ayn Jenna, Ajloun, Jordan
[Ayn Jenna means "font of Paradise"]

I'm in Ajloun visiting Wijdan's family. Here, again, not much has changed except that the kids have gotten bigger. It was nice to be able to visit them, not just because of the fond memories it recalled, but also because it so obviously gave them an excuse to see each other.

When I talk about Jordan, I always talk about how close families are. I like to describe to people how I lived next to my headmistress and all her in-laws, and how they all used to gather at the grandfather's house every night to just be together, to be a family. I talk a lot about the family from Zarqa coming to visit, or going to visit the family in Zarqa. But that was with the headmistress and her family.

What I don't often take the time to talk about is how economics can divide a family. I'm beginning to see this even with the headmistress's family in Zarqa, who are not able to come out to the village and visit as often. But it has always been an issue with Wijdan.

We had to postpone this trip to the village twice because of last minute obligations I had to the school, and we almost postponed again when we determined that Megan would not be able to make it to the village and/or Ajloun this weekend. But in the end I decided that I, at least, needed to go, because otherwise Wijdan wouldn't have the chance to see her family. It's always been expensive to hire someone to drive from Mshairfeh to Ajloun and back, a trip of well over an hour, but now it's getting rapidly more and more expensive as fuel prices have gone up all around the world. Prices are down a bit at the moment, but no one is counting on that lasting. But I know that Wijdan could only justify the expense on my behalf ... and anyway, I fully intended to pay for the trip and not take 'No' for an answer, which she probably expected.

And I'm glad that I did, because we got to stop along the way and see her sister Zain, and once we got to her parents' house in Ayn Jenna, two of her other sisters came with their families, one all the way from al-Khaldiya, a village in Mafrag where not one but 3 Peace Corps Volunteers I knew were living. Some of Wijdan's aunts came, as well, including a fascinating woman named Umm Hamze. She's a Macedonian Turk, so she grew up in Yugoslavia under Tito, but her native language is Turkish. Then she married a Jordanian, and has lived here for 10 years, and her Arabic is nearly perfect. Her children are both bilingual, Turkish and Arabic, and fluent in English; unfortunately, I didn't get to meet the children, even though her son had brought her to Ajloun, as the men were all sitting in the parlor. (Wijdan's father is rather more conservative than I'm used to from Mshairfeh.)

I also just really enjoy spending time with Umm Firas and Abu Firas, Wijdan's parents. Abu Firas has always referred to himself as my "Baba Jordan," my Jordanian dad, and although it's a little weird coming from someone I barely know, I find it very heartwarming, in large part because it shows me just how important my friendship is to Wijdan.

Hands Culturally Tied

Amman, Jordan

As I've mentioned before in my blog, Jordan is a very hard place to be handicapped. Aboud has it better than most, as his family has themoney and social standing to maintain their status despite his handicap, and to send him all over the world and give him all the possible opportunities to improve his condition. Even in the developed world, however, all the asistance and opportunity in the world can't always make up for the harsh realities of being handicapped.

Aboud has for 5 years been the boyfriend of the supervisor of our summer Arabic program, Eshrak, and the love of her life. When he was 14 years old, he woke up one morning to find himself paraplegic. Apparently, he's one of only about 6 people in the world to have this particular kind of spinal infection, and there is as yet no cure. Fortunately, his father owns a major manufacturing company in Jordan, and can offer him all the asistance money can buy, and has told him that he needn't work if he doesn't want to. But Aboud is a strong, independent sort, and doesn't want to be more reliant on others than absolutely necessary, not even on his family.

What's more, Eshrak's family once heard about her relationship with Aboud, and her father even met Aboud, and he forbade them from any further contact, but said afterward, "He's a very nice young man. It's too bad about the wheelchair." Eshrak has continued to see Aboud, but in secret, because they don't dare let her father know until he can prove that he has the means to marry and support her.

In Jordan, for a young man to get married, he must first provide a fully furnished home, right down to the silverware and bed linens and in some cases even a complete wardrobe for the bride. He has to be able to pay for a big engagement party and wedding, and for several thousand dollars worth of gold to be given to the bride in part at her engagement, and in part at her wedding. In some families, he is also expected to pay for the bride's engagement and wedding dresses, and her wedding night lingerie. In short, it is a huge financial undertaking for even a perfectly fit and normal young man, which is why most Jordanian men can't get married until they are 30 years old or more.

So in September, Aboud went to America for a month to look either for a spot in a clothing design BA program, or for a job. Not surprisingly, considering the global financial circumstance currently, he didn't find one. When he returned to Jordan, he was absolutely devestated, convinced that all his options had been exhausted, and he would never be able to marry Eshrak. In order to protect himself from being further hurt, he cut off all communication with Eshrak. He hasn't spoken to her or seen her except once, and she's devestated. So is he, but mostly too manly to admit it.

Instead, he's been calling my roommate Megan and asking her to relay messages to Eshrak, and Eshrak has been calling Megan and asking her to relay messages to Aboud. Perhaps because we're Americans and more sympathetic to their desire to be married, and more willing to believe that they'll be happy despite his disability, we've been put squarely in the middle.

The hardest part is that there's absolutely nothing we can do. Eshrak wants this desperately, she wants desperately to be Western and to be one of the boys, but she loves her family and respects them deeply, and is unwilling to offend their relatively conservative beliefs. And all we can do is sit by and watch.

Sometimes They're So Sweet!

Amman, Jordan

I've told my student Nadine over and over that she doesn't have to buy me things at lunch break, but should spend her money on herself. I thought I had finally gotten through to her, so I was surprised today when she offered me a bottle of water. When I started to protest, she launched into a story about how, once, when she was three, she choked on some food, and then got food poisoning, and had to have an injection and all this stuff, and that her mother had said it was important for her to drink a lot of water, so she wanted me to have some water for my food poisoning.

It was so sweet, how could I turn her down? (And it sure hit the spot!)

Jordanians from Abroad

Amman, Jordan

We had some very interesting conversations with Syrians about their perceptions of Jordanians, and they were not very flattering. In fact, the Syrians we spoke to were downright disdainful of the Jordanians. Frequently we heard "They have no culture" or "They left their tents and forgot their culture."

It's not hard to see where this attitude comes from. Here they are, living in the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, with the citadel and a 9th century mosque that was a cathedral before that, in the seat of dynasties and kingdoms. Just two hours away, we're living in a city that was a village of 5,000 people just 50 years ago.

But in Jordan's defense, and it's been my home long enough that I feel obliged to defend it, I said a number of times that Amman is a totally different country from the rest of the country, and in the villages like al-Mshairfeh where I lived, that history is not so far behind them as the Syrians suggest.

Carter's Revenge

Damascus, Syria

Well, we had a nice, slow vacation day in Damascus yesterday ... finishing up with a nice triple case of food poisoning, which started with me vomitting in the street and being pelted with plastic bee-bees by some local boys. So I guess this is what I get for breaking my promise to Carter not to brave the wilds of Syria ... diarrhea and nausea on the day we're supposed to be driving home from Damascus and dealing with Jordanian Immigration....

Pilgrims and Passion Plays

Damascus, Syria

Wow. What a day. With our fairly early start, we had a nice brisk walk down mostly empty streets to the Ummayad Mosque (once a cathedral). We donned our culturally appropriate cheap polyester robes, and I my hijab (photos forthcoming), and first saw the tomb of Saladin al-Ayyubi, the great noble opponent of King Richard in the Crusades, who eventually united his Kurdish people and the Arabs to their southeast to retake Jerusalem and most of the rest of the Holy Land from the Europeans.

Then we rounded the corner and rejoined a crush of what, judging by the women's abayas and chadors, were several tour groups of Shi'ites. It took a while to figure out what they were doing in Syria, a predominantly Sunni country ... until I read on the tickets that Hussein bin Ali bin Muhammad's head is supposedly enshrined in the Ummayad Mosque. (There are actually three possible locations for Hussein's head, but this is the most likely, since Yazid bin Mu'awiya lived in Damascus, and he ordered the army against Hussein that took his head.)

Hussein was the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, and it is one of the formative moments of Shi'ite Islam when the Caliph in Damascus sends his son Yazin to kill Hussein, whom Shi'ites supported as their rightful Imam and Caliph. When Hussein sent to his supporters in Kufa, they failed to come to his aid in Karabala, and a central theme of Shi'ism is atoning for the failure to protect their God-given leader and his entourage, mostly women and children.

So, intrigued, we followed these Shi'ite tour groups and their mullahs through the mosques, and sat for some time to watch one mullah's abbreviated recitation of Hussein's martyrdom at Karbala and the mourning of Zainab his daughter ... or at least I think so; it was all in Persian. In any case, the intersting part is watching the weeping and wailing and mourning in religious trance, much like what you would see in an evangelical Christian Passion Play.

Then we followed them into the shrine of Hussein's head, and saw them mourning again, including one middle-aged man leaning against the wall and flat-out sobbing so that his whole body shook. It was a very deeply moving experience for me, how these people can feel such a profound personal connection to a 1,300 year old story. And of course evangelicals are known to react similarly to the Passion of Christ, and Jews at the Wailing Wall, but in some inexplicable way, this just felt so much more legitimate....

And then, to top it all off, we went shopping. Oh, did we go shopping! Scarves, scarves, scarves! and jewelry and inlaid boxes and shoes (including some really fun ones for the little girls in the village)! I'm almost ready for Christmas already!

P.S. Apparently, there are quite a few sacred places for Shi'ites in Syria ... going all the way back to the hill where Cain killed Abel! Find out about them here.

Damascus or Bust!

Damascus, Syria

Well, here we are! And it only took us 6 and a half hours on the border and 30 Jordanian dinars (about US$40) to get here.... I feel bad for poor Megan, who, unlike Stephanie and I, already had her visa and was ready to cross the border in an hour....

We got here so late that we haven't really seen much yet, just a few blocks of the modern city. It reminds me a lot of Dresden and East Berlin and Prague, with the architecture of the buildings and the muras of Presidents Hafiz and Bashar Al-Assad in such a socialist-realist style. And of course I visited all those Eastern block cities long after the fall of the Soviet Union, but I can imagine that the security presence must also feel similar. There are military everywhere, whether in little beefeater-style booths painted with big Syrian flags, or just lounging in the street. I didn't notice the kind of weaponry you'd see in Switzerland or Jordn, but the sheer numbers of personnel are sufficiently intimidating ... or reassuring, if you're a tourist like me, worried about last week's car bomb blast....

Eid Sa'eed!

Jordan, Amman

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

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

Bribery and Extortion

Amman, Jordan

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

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

Sarah Bernhardt, I presume?

al-Mshairfeh, Jerash, Jordan

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

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

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

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

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

Standard Arabic, anyone?

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

Google Yourself

Amman, Jordan

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

Ramadan's Children

Kids say the darnedest things!

Amman, Jordan

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

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

Ramadan Kareem!

Amman, Jordan

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

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

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

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

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

All My Children

Amman, Jordan

Well, I never thought of myself as an elementary school teacher, but I was right when I told everyone I would feel much better about myself as a teacher once I met my students.

I've got a lot of boys, most of them just bursting at the seams with energy, and several of them prodigious talkers, but so long as I'm interesting enough to keep their attention (which I should be moreso once we start teaching actual curriculum next week), they're really quite well-behaved. I have several girls who demand a great deal of affection, but it's nothing compared to having the whole village school trying to touch me all at once every time I went on break as a Peace Corps Volunteer! And despite a couple new international students with very limited English, I have a very quick, capable classroom (and I know from experience that the new international students will come up to speed very quickly!).

I feel confident that it will be a good year.

Another Hick Dialect Under My Belt

Amman, Jordan

After I had been an exchange student in Switzerland, I met with Prof. Uta Larkey, who IS the German Dept at Goucher College in Baltimore, to object to the results of my placement test, which would have had me in third semester German because my grammar was so bad. I had hardly said two sentences in my heavily Swiss-accented but very best High German, when Uta grinned and exclaimed, in German, "Oh, your accent is so quaint!" I felt like I'd just dropped in from Hicksville.

The same thing happened to me yesterday. Here in Jordan, there are two ways to pronounce the words in colloquial language containing the Arabic letter qaaf. If one prefers to sound Bedouin and therefore macho, one pronounces this letter like an English G. If one wishes to sound sophisticated, one prefers the Palestinian custom of dropping the letter qaaf in favor of a little hitch of the breath called a hamza, usually represented in English as an apostrophe ('). Most women in Amman prefer the Palestinian accent. However, having learned my Arabic from the Bedouin in the village, I never learned to use the Palestinian accent, and often even find that the missing qaafs make it really hard for me to understand city people at all! Once again, I speak with a hick accent.

So yesterday morning I lent my pen (gellam) to a Teacher's Assistant, and promptly forgot that I had loaned it at all, as things were crazy preparing for the first day of school. Later that afternoon, I passed the same TA in the hall and she called, "Maryah! Maryah! 'ellamik! 'ellamik!"
I'm translating in my head and thinking, "My flag? What flag? I don't have a flag!" But I stopped anyway to see what she wanted.
Now, the student teacher in the fourth grade just happened to be standing there, and said to the TA, "You have to say gellam or she won't know what you mean." Suddenly I realized, the TA was trying to give me my pen back.
The TA, meanwhile, was incredulous. I get this frequently, the look that says, 'How is it that a foreigner like you sounds like a bred-in-the-cloth Bedouin?'
"That's right," I said. "You'll have to speak Bedouin to me. I don't speak your city-talk!"

Culture Shock At Home

Amman, Jordan

I'd been having trouble getting along with my TA this week, and finally figured out why. In part, of course, it's because I've been really nervous about getting everything done in time and feeling like I might be in over my head, both of which make me mean (just ask my mother!). So some serious apologizing was needed.

The main thing, though, was a cultural misunderstanding. Neither she nor I has studied education, but in addition, Diala has none of my teaching experience. Perhaps more to the point, she's never been in an American elementary school before, so she has no conception of what I'm picturing in my head as my classroom. Added to that, with so many native speakers and fluent speakers of English on staff, I forget that Diala is very advanced but still very much an English learner, and I often talk too fast for her, she tells me.

So we sat down and I explained the major difference, as I see it, between Jordanian and American educational culture: In Jordan, the emphasis in the classroom is put on the information being transmitted; rote memorization is de rigeur here, and the classroom environment is more or less irrelevant, or at best, haphazard. American educators, on the other hand, tend to feel that the learning environment is at least as important as the material; if a student is comfortable and happy in his classroom and stimulated by bright colors and lots of informational input around the room, he will want to come to school and be more engaged in his learning.

I can't say I find either system ideal. I admitted to Diala that I often think American educators, and perhaps especially administrators, sometimes put too much emphasis on the environment and not enough on the curriculum, but I also recognize that the Jordanian philosophy is also flawed, and fails many of its students. In any case, we're in the American system here, and thus it's American educational culture we have to respect.

And when she told me that I often talk too fast for her to understand, I realized that we needed to go back over much of the material that was covered in lectures given to the faculty as a whole, in which native speakers of English had spoken too quickly for Diala to take in all the important information.

However, once we'd had a couple little pow-wows about the American teaching philosophy, once we acknowledged and began to bridge that cultural gap, things have been so much smoother in our working relationship!

All About Wasta

Sweifieh, Amman, Jordan

For those of you who haven't heard yet, after about 48 hours of being technically homeless because the State Dept stopped paying for my summer housing and my new apartment wasn't ready yet, I am now moved into an unbelievably nice apartment in Amman. And it's all thanks to this little thing known here as "wasta."

Or, as my father would say, it's all about who you know! After meeting with our tutor Saleh's uncle to see and apartment "like" the one we'd be renting from him, "but not as nice" (the previous tenants were still in it), we decided that however much we like Saleh, his uncle was decidedly sketchy. (Saleh seemed to feel the same way about the whole encounter.)

However, when I had mentioned to my supervisor Angela that we were looking for an apartment, she said she'd just found out that her rental property was going to be vacated the next day ... an apartment just two blocks from the Modern American School! And this apartment is just beautiful. A steal at the price she offered (since we're old pals, Angela and I!). It's in a posh neighborhood of Sweifieh, has windows on three sides for amazing air flow, one and a half baths with a washer, an American stove with an oven, three bedrooms, and an absolutely enormous common area. There's even a history teacher our age in the Senior School who's also looking for an apartment, which makes the rent an even better deal. So Megan and I told her on the spot that we'd take it, and Ryan from the Senior School will be moving in later this week.

Unfortunately, it took the previous renters a little longer than anticipated to move out, thus I was briefly "homeless," i.e. sleeping at Angela's with all my worldly possessions in the back of her car.

But I'm moved in now!

It's a Small Country!

Amman, Jordan

Jordan is such a small country! Geographically it's the size of Indiana, but sometimes it can seem like the whole country is more closely related than merely the population of Bedford, IN! (No offense, Michael!)

Three years ago, almost exactly, the U.S. Embassy and the Jordanian Ministry of Education ran a workshop series for English supervisors in the Directorates of Education. The plan was for these supervisors to learn about the Progessive Theory of education followed in most American schools, and then retrain English teachers in their Directorates of Education to teach the new Progressivist curriculum. An English teacher in my village, Emad (who was by then madly in love with me, but that's another crazy story for my other blog), was assigned by the northern directorates to be the go-to guy for the two women facilitating the Irbid workshop. Apparently Emad told them wonderful things about this fabulous teacher who was volunteering in his village, and the facilitators suggested that he bring me along to their next session. He did, and I really enjoyed myself, even though my dirty-old-man supervisor Ali was there, too. (Ali must have been glad I was there, too, because when he was supposed to teach the same material in Jerash, in the middle of the second of three Saturday workshops, he handed me his notes and said, "Here. You finish" ... yet another crazy story for my other blog!)

Now, when I met my supervisor Angela at the Modern American School on Thursday, she said, "Do I know you from somewhere?" But we couldn't determine where. Today, however, she mentioned in a workshop that she had taught a seminar for English teachers in Irbid for the U.S. Embassy, and I realized where we knew each other from.

She's still in touch with the co-facilitator of the Irbid workshop, too!

Eleanor's Project

Madaba, Jordan

A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and friend (even after I became "that girl"), Arwen, had a younger sister, Eleanor, who was confined to a wheelchair, and died unexpectedly not too long before Arwen joined the Peace Corps and came to Jordan. She and her family run a private operating foundation called Eleanore's Project, which was already distributing wheelchairs to needy children in Peru. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in special education, Arwen established Eleanore's Project in Jordan, and has been back every August since to follow up with the kids they've already helped, and to help more kids.

I went down to Madaba after school today to see Arwen and her team in action, and I am so impressed with the work they're doing! Just before they came to Jordan, Arwen and her parents were at a conference on communication techniques for the disabled, and at the end of the conference, they went around to all the vendors to ask if there were any leftover products they didn't want to lug home with them and would like to donate to needy children in Jordan. The vendors did their obligatory spiel about how next year's models would be much better, but Arwen and her mother knew that even an outdated model would be more than what most of their kids in Jordan even knew existed. They came to Jordan with a treasure trove of communication aides, and that's primarily what they were working on with this trip.

Imagine being 17 years old and never having been able to say a work. This was the story of Yusef, a very bright, alert kid they've seen many times, who went on new medication in the last year that relaxed his muscles enough that he can now speak for the first time in his 17 years. Another girl was given a wheelchair last year, and at eight years old, finally learned to hold up her own head ... sort of. This time around, Eleanore's Project gave her labels to put on her table to indicate "yes" and "no" by gestures of her hands. That kind of control of her gross motor skills will take some practice, but she was certainly able to answer questions by looking very distinctly at one label or the other. Eventually, her family will be able to add more icons to her tray for more nuanced communication.

Arwen, I applaud you with all my heart! You are doing truly important, incredible work!

...and an old friend.
I also accompanied the Eleanore's Project team on a visit to the family of a Madaba shopkeeper who was good friends with many Peace Corps Volunteers. Yusef, in fact, is the one who sold me the locally hand-embroidered vest I gave to my godson, Nathan, which he insisted on wearing constantly for weeks!

Dialects Matter

Beidha (Little Petra), Jordan

A classmate of mine, Chris Shad, and I were talking to the woman who made the fabulous shrak bread for our Bedu barbecue in Beidha. (Shrak is a white bread, often two feet or more across, and paper thin, baked over a thin, domed metal surface propped over a wood fire, and it's my favorite kind of Jordanian bread.) I, of course, know all the right things to say to village women, and she had plenty to say in return about how wonderful a job Chris did when he tried his hand at making shrak with her.

Chris, however, had a bewildered look on his face. Finally he asked me, "Do you understand a thing she's saying?"

I laughed, and told him the absolute truth. "I understand her better than almost everyone I've spoken to in Amman!"

When I translated the exchange for her, the woman smiled and nodded and said to Chris, "You come and live in my house and make bread for me for a year, and you'll be a pro, and you'll understand me, too!"

The Expert Tour

Rajaf, Beidha and Petra, Jordan

Wow. These past two days have been incredible. You can see the best of my pictures here (and more will be coming).

I won't go into detail here, as the pictures are captioned with just some of the neat new things I learned about Petra, the Nabateans, and the various kingdoms and dynasties that followed them. We've been travelling around the south of Jordan with our program coordinator, Chris Tuttle, who is just finishing his dissertation on the Nabateans of Petra. But dissertating doesn't pay well, so he's also been coordinating our summer program as part of his job at the American Center for Oriental Research. When he's not shepherding around Arabic students (which is only part of his summer workload), he's hard at work helping archaeologists from all over the world come to Jordan and do exciting new projects. He also occasionally escorts media people, like BBC reporters, and the occasional celebrity, like FLOTUS Laura Bush.

This is, of course, not as easy as it sounds. There's a lot of bureaucracy and red tape, a lot of people who don't demonstrate much understanding of the archaeological, historical and cultural worth of many dig proposals, and the economic and logistical obstacles that plague any endeavor in Jordan. And then there are the treasure hunters and the tourists. The more Petra and its surrounds are opened up, the better known and more valuable they become. Since Petra was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World about a year ago, tourism has leapt up 68%. This is great for the Jordanian economy, but it means that the archaeological information enshrined in the rocks and soil of Petra will be erased at a far faster rate. When I suggested to Chris that the Lonely Planet tour guide's entry on Petra needed to be updated, and maybe I should rewrite it with his help and split the proceeds with him, he said, "Great! Write, 'Don't bother. Not worth the trip.'" On the other hand, he'll also be the first to admit that more tourism makes it easier to get the grants to do the archaeology!

Actually, it's economics as much as archaeology that motivates Chris Tuttle, and this is perhaps one of the most amazing things about this trip for me, more than the sheer glut of information we got about dead people.

You'll see a picture in my album captioned "Chris Tuttle knows every Bedu in Petra." This is not much of an exaggeration. Chris has been in Petra every summer for eight years, and more frequently since taking the job at ACOR in Amman. While many archaeologists come and learn to say please and thank you to a few faces they recognize and go home, Chris has made a real effort to get to know the community. He seems to know everyone by name. Though he claims to speak virtually no Arabic, he speaks more than many Peace Corps Volunteers I knew spoke after two years in the village. And last night, while our group was having dinner with some local Bedu after our tour of Beidha (Little Petra), Chris told me that one of his primary motivations behind opening Beidha to excavations was to give some source of income to the families that lived in and around Beidha, whom he had befriended in his time in the area.

A Few Updates

In fact, Chris Tuttle knows the people I was hoping to see in Petra, both of whom were extraordinarily helpful when I came to Petra with Auntie Viv, and with my parents. Unfortunately, I didn't see Shaher (I think that was his name), who served Auntie Viv and I tea in his brother's shop when we were very cold, and gave us the best advice for seeing the sunset in Petra.

I did go back to Jeff's Bookshop, where Auntie Viv and I bought our cookbooks, and where I arranged cars for she and I as well as my parents and I to take us back to Amman by the scenic route. When Auntie Viv and I were arranging our car and commenting on how amazing the shopkeeper's English, German, Spanish and Japanese were, we learned that one of his brothers, Jeff, for whom the shop was named, was in Denver, Colorado, getting brain surgery for a malignant tumor. I asked about Jeff at the shop this time around, and got more details from Chris Tuttle. The operation was temporarily successful, and Jeff came back looking hale and on the way to recovery (I saw the pictures myself!), but after about 6 months he suddenly declined and passed away. Allah yarHamuhu.

Me and the Fishes

Aqaba, Jordan

It's been a great summer, but I find myself very tired and quite nervous about my new job as a second grade teacher. I really love the people I've been here with, and the circumstances of our stay, but I didn't have true introvert time, not a day completely alone without any human contact, for more than 2 months, and it's been starting to wear on me. As we arrived in Aqaba this afternoon, I could already feel myself getting crabby and unpleasant, particularly when there was all this wavering back and forth as to whether we really wanted to go to the Royal Diving Club or not.

Eventually, most of us did go, and it was exactly what I needed!

I don't think I've been so happy to be in the water since I was about 10 and would stay in Grandma's pond till I was literally purple. Snorkelling in the Red Sea was a more intense introvert time than I've had in a very long time. Just me and the water. You can't hear anything, you can't see any people more than 10m away, and you can't talk to them anyway. You have the fish and the coral to keep your attention, who make no demands and no judgements of you.

When I developed goosebumps, I got out to lay in the sun and warm up, but I couldn't take it for long. Too much chatter, too many eyes. I'm so glad, though, that I got back in the water, because just as the goosebumps were starting to get to me again, something had changed about the light, making the prismatic little ripples of light on the sea floor glow golden. Suddenly there were fish everywhere, with their unbelievable bright colors. Fish that I'd been trying to get a look at under ledges or in the fan coral all day were suddenly in plain view, with their enormous, light-sensitive eyes. Some new fish, fat colorful ones longer than my forearm and outstretched hand, had come up from deeper, darker waters. It was incredibly beautiful, peaceful and restorative.

Quote of the Day:
"I just saw an unfortunate Eighties fish next to a more stylish Seventies fish. No, really! One was neon blue with neon pink stripes, the other was a nice yellow and brown."
--Reema Hijazi

Updates

Pictures, Arab Names, New Job

Amman, Jordan

There are more pictures up on my Facebook album "Back to Jordan," from Wadi Ram and my trip to "my" village where I lived as a Peace Corps Volunteer:

A Brief Explanation of Jordanian Names

In order to understand some of the captions of my pictures, you might want to take note of some Jordanian naming conventions. These are pretty standard for Arab countries, although Saudi Arabia has a somewhat more complex system, as I understand.

In my village, almost everyone has the same last name, so it's useless to call someone Muhammad al-HaraHsheh; there's one in every other house. Instead, an individual is known by his name, followed by his father's name, and sometimes his grandfather's name. So, to take my "favorite" Jordanian (because he didn't speak more Arabic than I when I lived in Mshairfeh), we get Zayd Radhwan Ahmed al-HaraHsheh, i.e. Zaid, son of Radhwan, grandson of Ahmed, of the HaraHsheh family. His sister is Aiat Radhwan Ahmed al-HaraHsheh, i.e. Aiat, daughter of Radhwan, granddaughter of Ahmed, of the HaraHsheh family.

Similarly, people's homes are referred to by the name of the father of the family, so that Zaid and Aiat live in Dar Radhwan (House of Radhwan).

Radhwan, however, is rarely referred to as Radhwan. Instead, he has what's known as a kunya, a particular kind of nickname. Radhwan is usually known as Abu Muhammad (Father of Muhammad), because Aiat and Zaid's oldest brother's name is Muhammad. Their mother is generally known by her kunya, Umm Muhammad (Mother of Muhammad).

Kunya can be a bewildering concept for many modern Americans, who are loathe to be reduced to their roles as parents and feel that the kunya erases a parent's individuality. My mother, however, tells me that kunya is actually a common shortcut in American PTA meetings. "Oh, you're Wesley's mother!"

Employed!

I am now employed as an early elementary teacher at the Modern American School in Amman, Jordan. Teachers start work next week!

Moral Dilemma Solved

Amman, Jordan

After much equivocating over whether to teach needy Jordanians at the Greek Orthodox School in Madaba and pay only the minimum on my student loans, or to teach rich kids and expats at the Modern American School in Amman at a more generous wage, I have made my decision. A phone call home last night helped me feel more like I'm making the best decision in the long run. I intend to sign a contract with the Modern American School tomorrow. There may still be an opportunity for me to teach the Orthodox Patriarchy at the new location they hope to open in suburban Amman in September, and I will be interviewing with the Director of AMIDEAST/Amman on Monday to talk about moonlighting there as a test-prep or English teacher.

I'm also really looking forward to seeing Arwen in the next couple weeks and helping her translate while she's in Jordan distributing wheelchairs and interviewing potential recipients for the charity she runs in honor of her late sister.

I discovered in grad school that it's important for me to be involved in at least some work that benefits people in need, and I suspect there will be plenty of opportunities for me to do that here in Amman, I need only find them. Among other things, by staying in Amman, and particularly by moonlighting at AMIDEAST, I hope to make contacts in the embassy and NGO communities that will help me move on to really exciting things when I'm ready to take my next step into the future.

For now, you will find me in Amman, Jordan, for at least the coming academic year, if not longer. Family and friends are welcome to come and visit any time; ahlan wa sahlan, as they say in Arabic: Be like family and be at ease.

Tawjihi Results

Amman, Jordan

There are fireworks going off all over town this evening. Today was the announcement of Tawjihi scores. Tawjihi is the exam that all students take at the end of the 12th grade here in Jordan, like the A-levels in the British system. You must pass your Tawjihi in every subject (English, Arabic, History, Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Geography, IT, Home Ec/Tech Ed, Religion) in order to be considered a high school graduate, and your scores in different subjects determine what subjects you are permitted to study in University. In other words, your whole future depends on your Tawjihi scores, so today was a big day.

Of course, I called the village, because I knew that Ghadeer Nasri, Alia Muhammad, Mahmoud Radhwan, Reem Nasr, Amal and other students whom I helped after school with English and other homework were all on pins and needles awaiting their exam scores. But things were not as I had hoped. Mahmoud, who is far from the academic sort, passed all his subjects on the Tawjihi, while all the girls, at least in the al-faiHa' neighborhood, except for Amal failed in Math and Chemistry. (If I'm not mistaken, some of Mshairfeh's teachers are going to lose their jobs this week!) So it's not the celebratory day I was anticipating.

Also, my thoughts are with Wesley and Mom this week.

Not a Pity Oscar

Amman, Jordan

When they said that Heath Ledger deserved an Oscar for his performance as the Joker in Batman: The Dark Knight, I scoffed. A pity Oscar, for sure: poor guy dies young, we give him an Oscar out of sympathy. I was wrong.

We went to see The Dark Knight last night, and I was amazed. There were many stunning performances in this film, not least of which were the supporting roles of Michael Cane as Alfred, and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, the man who runs Wayne Enterprises while Batman is capering about saving Gotham. And under all the fantastic special effects, the screenplay, too, deserves credit for exposing very real, visceral truths about human nature and politics, as well as the very thin line between the archetypical hero and the archetypical villain. Batman, the Joker and Harvey Dent/Two-Face have a great deal in common in this film. They are all idealists in their own way, all three acting outside the law as judge, jury and executioner, and it can seem in The Dark Knight that the only thing that makes Batman the hero and not the others is the moral influence of Alfred and Fox.

But ultimately, it was truly Heath Ledger's performance that distinguished this film. I don't know enough about acting to really express why, but despite his overt insanity, Ledger's Joker was the most human villian I can remember in a Batman film, perhaps even in a superhero film. He made the whole film work, on both its literal and its symbolic levels.

Pictures

My pictures from our trip to Wadi Rum and other escapades in Jordan are now available on Facebook, and can be accessed at this link even if you don't belong to Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31634&l=2f1bc&id=742577970

If you are a member of Facebook, there are also pictures of me taken by other people as we traipsed about the country. More of my pictures from Wadi Rum and the village will be forthcoming, so stay tuned to the above link.

P.S. Sorry for the quality of some of the pictures. My film's been in the heat and/or through airport security too many times!

I've Still Got It!

Amman, Jordan

I was beginning to wonder if I would ever learn Arabic well enough to be a simultaneous interpreter of Arabic, which is my current career goal, or even if I could still pull off a career in interpreting at all, but today I proved to myself that I've still got it!

We had a really special field trip today to Raghadan Palace, the seat of power (literally! We saw the throne) and oldest of Jordan's royal palaces, where we were treated to a tour (in Arabic, of course) of the palace. We were accompanied by an external auditor for the Critical Language Scholarship program, a delightful linguist who, however, speaks no Arabic, and so I asked her if she might be interested in a little translation. She was, of course, so I went right ahead. I was a little slow at first, very out of practice, but by the end of the tour, I knew that I had it back.

Not only can I still interpret, but when the subject matter is fairly familiar, I can even intepret Arabic. Another year or two here in the Arab world, a summer or two in Germany, and I'll be ready for the Monterey Institute!

Small Grants Are Still Effective...

...sometimes even more effective.

Madaba, Jordan

This hypothesis is, of course, what won economist Muhammad Yunus the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. He revolutionized development with his policy of microcredit, giving loans as little as $100 or less, especially to women, to start businesses in the cottage industries, handicrafts, and other mundane matters. Banks have traditionally believed that such tiny loans were not worth the effort, or were to risky, as such borrowers are the poorest of the poor. Yunus, however, found that these borrowers are extremely reliable, and that their contributions to the welfare and development of their communities were incredibly important to improving life in the poorest of the world's communities.

That's why I was so disappointed, in a job interview I did today, to hear that USAID has twice turned down a small grant of a few thousand dollars requested by the Greek Orthodox School of Madaba. They have started a new after school English program, open to the public and not merely their own students, staffed by volunteers who are native speakers of English and teach the British Council's internationally recognized Cambridge curriculum in English as a Foreign Language. Such English programs are available in Amman for JD150 (about US$220) or more, and the Orthodox School is offering these classes for JD35, while simultaneously bypassing the inconvenience and expense of travelling to Amman.

The program has been popular, and the students have done very well on the Cambridge exam, as administered by the British Council. The program has been so successful, in fact, that they're opening two more programs elsewhere in Jordan, and considering adding TOEFL exam preparation to their offerings. However, for many families in and around Madaba, even JD35 is far more than they can afford. In the interest of providing the most benefit to the most people, the Orthodox School asked USAID for a grant of just a few thousand dollars to provide partial or full scholarships to the poorest applicants, and the school's request was twice turned down at the 11th hour.

In a country where almost all conversation now revolves around rising unemployment and the rapid rise of the cost of basic necessities like food and heating, a solid background in English reading, writing and conversational skills is almost invaluable. I remember, from my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer, how much emphasis parents and students put on the study of English, which is necessary for university education abroad or even here in Jordan, and required in the IT economy that Jordan, which has no natural resources, is hoping to develop.

It's a real shame to deny the neediest families access to a resource such as the Orthodox School would really like to offer them.

Two Years Older, But Mostly the Same

al-Mshairfeh, Jerash, Jordan

Though almost nothing has changed outwardly about al-Mshairfeh except a few new houses and some new furniture sets, time has passed, and two years is a long time in the life of a four or five year old. I hardly expected Zayuuda and Hadeel and especially Saddeen to remember me after I'd been gone two years. I was wrong.

Zayd (aka Zayuuda):
Born about a month before I arrived in al-Mshairfeh, I used to tell people that Zayuuda was my favorite Jordanian, because he didn't speak more Arabic than I did, though by the time he was two and I left, that was becoming a difficult claim to make. I expected his brother Khalid, who is two years older and used to call me "khaala" (auntie), to remember me, but not Zayuuda. But when I walked into the living room of my friend Wijdan, who lives five doors down from Zayuuda and is no relation whatsoever to him, one of the first faces I saw was Zayuuda's, and he jumped right up and said, "It's Maryah!" He attached himself to my side and would hardly be parted from me for the whole 24 hours I was in the village.

Hadeel:
When I left Jordan, Hadeel was Wijdan's youngest daughter at three years old, but about a week ago, on my birthday, Hadeel became a big sister. When I lived in al-Mshairfeh, I had a standard issue Peace Corps whistle, in case I ever got in trouble, and Hadeel adored my whistle. Every time I visited Wijdan, Hadeel would beg me for my whistle, and when I needed it back before I left her house, she would make me promise to give it to her when I left Jordan. And I did, though she was only three and I was pretty certain she would either break it or lose it within a matter of months. I hadn't been at Wijdan's house long when a whistle blasted in my ear, the same whistle, with the Peace Corps logo still barely visible on its side. Wijdan reported that Hadeel had a very secure hiding place for her whistle, and would take it out to blow it, and then put it right back where it would be safe, and she never let anyone else use it.

Saddeen:
She was born in the middle of Ramadan of my first year in al-Mshairfeh, which would have been October 2004, and was only a year and a half when I left Jordan. I'm not sure that Saddeen actually remembered me, but she certainly knew who I was. Like all the other families I photographed in the village, her family had very carefully guarded those pictures like precious gems, and clearly these pictures had been taken out at intervals and shown to Saddeen, because she knew exactly who I was and where I had lived, and she stuck to me almost as tightly as Zayuuda did.

The only little kid who didn't remember me was Ali and Rania's son Saif, who was, after all, only 9 months old when I left!

Other Updates:
The headmistress's oldest Safaa' graduated from al-Balqaa' University with a Bachelors in Computer Information Systems yesterday.
The headmistress's oldest son Alaa passed his Tawjihi exams with high marks, and has just returned from his second year studying medicine in Ukraine.
The headmistress's second daughter Ala' passed her Tawjihi with even higher marks the next year, and is studying math at Yarmouk University.
Fatima and Muhammad's eldest Alia, "the sheikh" Radwan's third son Mahmoud, and Wijdan's eldest Ghadeer are all on pins and needles awaiting the results of their recent Tawjihi exams.
Anis got so tall and looks so adult that I was sure he was Osama, who also grew several inches taller. Sadly, Anis had a bicycle accident a month ago that broke his jaw in three places, and is in the middle of a long recovery.
Umm SaleH, the grandmother, passed away in February 2006, and Abu SaleH, the grandfather, recently remarried a well-liked middle-aged woman named Latifa.
The headmistress's husband recently got a Masters in something military in Pakistan.
Uncles Khalid and Ahmed, brothers of the headmistress and Fatima, got married in a double ceremony, which I think was last summer.

And the most visible change: The school across the street has a beautiful new, two-story building which is now a girls' school through the 10th grade, and the old building remains as a boys' school through the 8th grade.

I'm looking forward to going back for mensef when they're ready to celebrate Ala''s return from the Ukraine.

HJ for Lunch!

Madaba and the Dead Sea, Jordan

Today was our third group field trip, altogether with the Beginners and Intermediate students. You know what's great about these field trips? When you're travelling in a group of 50, you're going to look like a tourist no matter what you wear, so I feel free to wear my sleeveless shirts and tight pants despite the presence of Arab Muslims. I don't mind dressing conservatively most of the time; I think it's important to respect the cultural norms of your surroundings. At the same time, it's so bloomin' hot here, it's nice to get out of the long sleeves once in a while!

When we got to St. George's Church in Madaba, there were flyers up that the Orthodox School next door was looking for native speakers to teach English in the fall, and as I was scribbling down the contact information, the souvenier shopkeeper suggested that I just go over the school and talk to them. The director wasn't there, but I did talk to a woman from the school's administration, gave her my name and number, and she said the director would be in touch. Just in case, I've just now emailed him my resume.

We also went out to the Madaba Mosaic School, which is a really cool place; I wish I'd gone before. They have all kinds of handcrafts, from painted ostrich eggs and jewelry to clothing and, of course, mosaics, and almost a quarter of their artisans are disabled, many of them homebound.

And then it was time for the one thing you must do when in Madaba: lunch at Haret Jdoudna! Everyone I know who's been there agrees, it's the best restaurant in Jordan, in terms of the food, which is nouveau Lebanese, and the atmosphere. And, of course, HJ has real sentimental value for me. We went there fairly frequently in training, and then again when Scott and Anyess were living in Madaba. I've taken Auntie Viv and my parents there. Most of all, I suppose, there are lots of things about Madaba that remind me of Oren.

We also went to the Dead Sea and swam at the Dead Sea Spa Hotel. This time I remembered not to shave my legs the day or two before the trip, so I was able to stand going into the Dead Sea itself, and playing in the mud. And, of course, playing in the regular pool, too, because there are some places that the public shower just can't reach to get off the salt!

Even if it was 44 Celsius, it was a great day!

Change the Subject!!

Amman, Jordan

If we never have another class discussion about marriage again, it will be too soon!

For the past two days, our literature teacher, Manal, has been asking our opinions on the roles of the partners in a marriage. She agrees to a large to degree with the text on marriage we've read by 19th century Egyptian Sheikh Tahtawi, which says that the husband is the Prime Minister of the family, and the wife is the Interior Minister. This was controversial enough, inasmuch as it seemed to suggest that the wife's influence was restricted by the walls of the home, though Manal tried her best to point out that the Interior Minister is engaged with plenty of international issues.

My classmate Ann got really inflamed when Manal said she believed that, while the wife's opinion was important and should be discussed, the husband should have the first and last word in the family. It has been the subject of intense debate for two days, abetted by opinions by other students, ranging from liberal Muslim to conservative Christian to Muslim convert and in between, with everyone determined to convince the rest.

Though I have been doing my best to stay out of the conversation, Manal keeps saying, "Maryah will agree with me! She knows how the Eastern woman thinks!" but not (thankfully!) giving me any opportunity to affirm or deny. Then, today, Galaal kept saying, "Let Maryah speak! I want to hear Maryah's opinion!" even though I was very carefully keeping my hands in my lap and my head down.

I hate this conversation, and I avoid this topic whenever I can. There's a good bit of the Western feminist in me, though not as much as Ann, and sometimes it bothers me how deferential wives I've known here can be to their husbands. When my Arabic teacher Wijdan used to say, "We'll walk over to the neighbor's house, if Nusri gives us permission," it would just grate on my nerves. On the other hand, Nusri almost always said yes, and always had a good reason to say no, and eventually I learned to hear Wijdan's qualification as my mother's "I'll just let your father know where we'll be."

In any case, it's clear to me that opinions on the roles of husbands and wives is not anything that I can change with logic. At best, I can give examples of how, in my family, it tends to be my mother who's the President, and my father who's the Secretary of Labor and/or Secretary of State. Or of my Girl Scout leader's husband, a career Marine who, when invited somewhere or asked to help with a project, always replied, "I'll have to check with the Boss," meaning his wife.

I learned a long time ago, probably sometime in middle or high school when my evangelical classmates were preaching at me at every opportunity, that there are some topics better left alone. In Jordan, and probably in most of the Middle East, this is probably one of them. Certainly, Queen Noor and Queen Rania have managed to ruffle plenty of feathers in Jordan by calling for reforms to women's status in law and practice.

Eventually, I couldn't help but step in, though, with my favorite quote from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, in which the mother says to her daughter, "Don't worry. Your father is the head of the family, but I'm the neck, and I tell him where to go!"

Unfortunately, it did not quite end the conversation as I had hoped.

Free Birthday Drinks!

Amman, Jordan

A whole bunch of us went out last night to celebrate my birthday with dinner at the Blue Fig, which I can't believe I never visited when I was here with Peace Corps. The food is delicious, the atmosphere really fantastic.... (It's an expat restaurant/bar in Abdoun, the richest part of Amman ... which is probably why I didn't go as a Volunteer, but I'm a bona fide tourist in Jordan this time!)

Then I remembered that the last time I had a birthday in Jordan, and Anyess was not only having her birthday but also celebrating her engagement, we got free drinks at the irish pub in the Dove Hotel. I remember the Dove Bar as a dark, crowded, dingy little hole-in-the-wall bar/dance club dive, but I remember it fondly, especially when I was getting free birthday drinks! (Also, it doesn't have a cover charge!) So we decided to round out the evening with some dancing at the Dove Bar.

Wow. Has it ever changed! The dance floor is gone, with its colored lights, the whole place has been repainted, the bathrooms were cleaner.... It's a pretty respectable bar now, which explains this rumor I've heard that Peace Corps Volunteers are no longer welcome there... (though I've not heard why!). But there are still free birthday drinks, and at the end of a large, electric blue birthday drink, we decided we were going to dance anyway, and by the time we left, it was just like old times!

The Village Called!

Amman, Jordan

It really must be my birthday, because I got a fabulous gift today. The village called!

First I got a call from Wijdan, my Arabic teacher and one of my closest friends in the village, who had all her local in-laws and Radhwan's family over because she'd just gotten home an hour earlier from having a beautiful baby girl! Wijdan was very excited about the letter I sent them. (I'm just glad it got there, with my luck with the Jordanian post!)

Then Abu Anis and Umm Anis called, my immediate neighbors who frequently sent me meals, equally excited to have gotten a letter, and wanting to know why I hadn't emailed them from America. NOW he tells me he has email! When I asked after the family, and particularly after Saddeen, who was born while I was living there, Umm Anis said, "She's really grown up!"
"Well, of course!" I replied. "It has been two years!"

I think I'll be going up to visit them next Sunday and Monday. I'm really excited to see how the kids have grown up, what has changed and what has stayed the same. And in particular, I'm really looking forward to the food!

Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind

Wadi Rum, Jordan

We're spending the night at Wadi Rum tonight, almost the whole CLS group, plus our program coordinator Ishraq, her friend Aboud and some of their friends. On our way into the campsite, I was telling about my brother Wesley's adventures in Wadi Rum, getting stuck half way up the rockface at sundown with a Frenchmen who was not nearly as good of a climber as he claimed, but having no choice but to go the rest of the way up and then down in the dark. So, of course, while most of us watched a gorgeous sunset from sand-level, Chris, Doris, Sam and Galaal decided they were going to scale a rockface (without lines!) and watch the sunset from the top. And as they were coming down and it was getting darker and darker, they said to each other, "Perhaps we should have listened to Maryah!" But then, I'm too timid to hitchhike and drive across Central Asia like Chris, either, so what do I know? ;)

Then they showed us how they were cooking our dinner the real Bedouin way: First, dig a hole in the sand, put in a big metal tube, mound the sand up around it, and build a fire in it. When the sand is good and hot, remove the fire and put in a metal rack of chicken and potatoes, put on a lid and cover with sand, wait an hour and remove. Delicious! And they had my favorite kind of Jordanian salad, just like Umm Alaa makes it, with chopped cucumbers and tomatoes drenched in tahini!

After dinner, Ishraq and I taught the rest of the group the Jordanian dubkeh, and then out came the CDs of Nancy, Ruby, Deena and the rest of the Arab popstars for more dancing!

I had a very interesting conversation with the owner of the camp, Ribha, that started out very inauspiciously with "Oh daughter of the Bedouin [Aboud was telling everyone that I was a "real" Beni Hassan Bedouin, and it had become a joke across camp], why didn't you marry a Bedouin?" But after the initial awkwardness, he told me about his own American wife, who went back to the States when her mother got cancer, and we talked a lot about why it's important to visit other cultures, live in other cultures, marry into other cultures, etc., in order for people to better understand each other.

In the process of this conversation, he mentioned the town of Rajef, near Petra, and I mentioned that I had a Peace Corps friend in Rajef. "Ah, Josh!" says Ribha. "Josh is a good guy! So is Zane!" In case Josh is reading along, I wanted to put this out there, because it's often considered bad luck in Jordanian culture to compliment someone in their presence.

Hip Hop for Peace

Amman, Jordan

Unfortunately, I only saw the last half of this film I've been waiting with such anticipation to see, "Slingshot Hip Hop," but the half I saw was both very hopeful and absolutely heart-wrenching.

Heartwrenching because of what they show of the destruction of the Palestinian environment. They showed pictures of an apartment building in Gaza they had filmed at the beginning of the process, and it was beautiful, like the newly redone 30s Bauhaus communities in Berlin where my cousin Gwen lived, with verandas and crisp whitewash and bright blue trim. Then they showed the same buildings recently, after the Israelis had come through, and they were untenable, despite the fact that there were kids playing in some of the upper floors. I was struck, too, but the pictures of the refugee camp in Khan Younis in Gaza, with six and seven story cinderblock buildings, unfinished as they are in many Palestinian refugee camps here in Jordan, just overflowing with people. (Khan Younis is one of the most densely populated places on earth.)

Most heartwrenching of all, tho, was when they showed film footage from the last year in Gaza of Israelis bulldozing whole orchards of olive trees that had to have been at least fifty years old. An olive tree is like one's child, they say in the Arab world. It requires attention for 7 to 10 years before it bears its first fruit, and longer until it's really productive, but then an olive tree will provide olives and olive oil for the family, the pruned branches help feed the goats in the fall and heat in the winter, and the leavings from the olive pressing can be made into balls called "jiffet" that can also be burned for heat in the winter. And that olive tree can continue to provide for the family for literally a millenium. Every time I see Israelis bulldozing olive trees, it makes me cry.

But it was hopeful to hear the artists talk about why hip hop is so important to them. I think it was Ibrahim from Gaza who talked about how impossible it is to feel anything when you've lived your whole life in Gaza, and hip hop helps him to feel again. Others talked about how constricted their lives were, and how hip hop helped them to expand their horizons, to reach out to other artists, Palestinian and otherwise, and feel like they're connected to a larger world. Others talked about how hip hop was bridging a gap between '48 and '67 Palestinians; for some, the first time they'd ever heard anyone admit that both groups suffer equally was through hip hop. And in the Q&A afterwards (though I think this comes up in the part of the film I didn't see), the artists from DAM talked about being interviewed on Israeli television and asked if they thought the political agenda in their music was divisive and problematic. We don't have a political agenda, said DAM. We don't care about independence or any of that. We just want peace, and then we can work out the rest.

If you get a chance to see this film, in my opinion, it's a must-see!

Like a Real Arab

Amman, Jordan

Today we went to visit the Council of Deputies (the parliament) and met an MP of one of the tribal southern districts, himself a Huweidat Bedouin. As soon as I opened my mouth, he declared that I sounded like a real Jordanian. My first question concerned the changes that had been proposed for the school-leaving exam when I was here before, so I mentioned that I had been an English teacher in a government school in the village of former MP Harahshah, and immediately MP Huweidat said, "Al-Mshairfeh!" which is indeed the name of the village where I did Peace Corps.

It's not the only time I've been told I sound like a real Jordanian. We ordered in from Pizza Hut the other day while I was helping Galaal with some grammar questions, and he had gone down the hill to get us sodas when his phone rang. Thinking it must be the pizza guy, and unable to see the number that was calling, I answered his phone. I started talking to the woman on the other end as if she were the pizza delivery person ... in Arabic, of course!
"Are you with Galaal?" she asked me (also in Arabic, as Galaal's parents are both native Egyptians).
"Yeah, yeah," I said, "he's just gone down the hill to the store. Have you found the American Center?"
Eventually I figured out that she was not the pizza person, about the time she said she would call him back. So I asked if I could tell him who had called. When she said she was his mother, I switched over to English and apologized profusely and told her I'd let him know she'd called.

So, yesterday I was hanging out doing homework after another grammar tutoring session I took with Galaal, when he said he'd talked to his brother, who had asked who the girl had been on the phone. When Galaal said that I was part of the Arabic program, he says they were surprised, because they'd been sure that I was a real Arab!

And yet, I still turn on al-Jazeera and understand only one word in six or seven, although in "Noor," the soap opera all of us girls have been watching and calling "studying," I understand about two thirds of the dialogue, because it's in Syrian dialect.

Hip Hop for Hope

Amman, Jordan

I've been waiting for this film to come out. It's being shown now at film festivals all over the US, Europe and the Middle East, including Sundance, and I'm hoping to go see it next week here in Amman, to be followed by Q&A by the group DAM, who feature prominently in the film and Palestinian hip hop generally.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=35309296

More info and links to the Websites and MySpace pages of various Palestinian hip hop groups and organizations, as well as other spoken word artists, can be found through "Slingshot Hip Hop"s website: http://slingshothiphop.com/index.php

Struggle for the Middle East

Amman, Jordan

We read a fascinating article this week for our first hour of class, which has been devoted to topics from the news media and politics, and has focused thus far mostly on the Iranian nuclear issue, including the recent military exercises Israel executed over the eastern Mediterranean in early June. The article in question, from moheet.com, was a summary of a new book published by Syrian journalist and writer Rana Abu Dhaher ar-Rifaa'y titled The Iranian Nuclear Issue and the Struggle for the Middle East. It's not available in English at this time, and I think that's a shame; although I don't think that her conclusion is a new one, it's one that bears repeating for American audiences.

She begins with a common theory floated in the Lebanese media, particularly in the newspaper "an-Nahar," which says that the real reason behind the current crisis between Iran and the United States is the increasingly critical situation in Iraq, where the U.S. would like Iran to play a positive role in the future of Iraq. On the other hand, the Bush administration is eager to be seen as playing an important role in securing Israel against threats to its borders, especially in the Palestinian Territories to the east and west, from Hezbollah from the north, and from the spectre of Iranian nuclear missiles.

As far as Iran's nuclear program is concerned, ar-Rifaa'y goes into great detail over the state-of-the-art missile defense systems that Israel has developed over the years, including early warning systems and other technologies that make it virtually impossible for any missile attack on Israel, conventional or nuclear, from Iran or elsewhere, to even penetrate Israeli airspace. Furthermore, it's no secret that any attack on Israel would be met by an immediate, devastating counter-attack by Israel. Or, as Syrian President Bashar Assad said Sunday in response to accusations that his country is developing nuclear weapons for use against Israel, any attempt to crush Israel would only crush Israel's attacker. In ar-Rifaa'y's opinion, the chances of Iran actually launching an as-yet theoretical nuclear attack on Israel, or even a conventional attack, are minute and would be prohibitively costly to Iran.

Nevertheless, the crisis between Iran and Israel continues. Why? I don't find at all credible those who say that Iranian President Ahmedinijad is crazy, and there's no predicting what he'll do. For one thing, he doesn't hold the real power in Iran. Mostly, however, I don't believe that he's suicidal, and for Ahmedinijad to attack Israel would be tantamount to committing actual, not just political, suicide. Nor do I believe, and neither does ar-Rifaa'y, that it's in Israel's interest to attack Iran, because the outrage over such an attack would go far beyond the borders of Iran. It would enrage the whole Muslim street, ar-Rifaa'y says, from Baghdad to the Palestinian Territories to Lebanon, and if Israel attacked Iran, it would also have to be prepared to simultaneously do battle in the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon.

Ar-Rifaa'y concludes that the current accusations by Israel and the U.S. of an Iranian nuclear threat is not about Iran and Israel; it's about a much larger struggle by the U.S. for influence and power in the Middle East. I find her conclusion compelling. I remember, during the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, a great deal of talk of the conflict actually being a "proxy war" between the U.S. and Iran. The same accusations have been made about the struggles between Hamas and Israel, or Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that we are witnessing a new "cold war" between the U.S. and the nations of the Middle East, but it's not about democracy and communism this time. The stakes here are simply the right of Middle Eastern nations to self-determination. Will the people and countries of the Middle East be afforded the right to build their own futures, or will they continue to be pawns in a chess game in which the very real victims are the uncounted Iraqi families and Palestinian youth and Lebanese children who are dying and suffering, physically and mentally.

The Circle's the Thing II

Amman, Jordan

Apparently, according to a conversation some of my colleagues were having on the bus this morning, traffic circles are preferable to traffic lights in Jordan because almost all the automobiles here are standards, and traffic circles require less shifting and produce fewer bad emissions than traffic lights.

This is one of the fascinating things about Jordan as a developing country, and perhaps it has to do, as Queen Noor says in her memoir Leap of Faith, with the nature of kings, who can better afford to aim for results fifty years down the road than can presidents or prime ministers, who have to produce results by the next election cycle. I had a student in the writing center at IU whose paper argued that GNP was an insufficient measure of a country's potential, in part because GNP doesn't factor sustainability or the global interconnectedness of ecosystems into its calculations. At the end of the paper, almost as an aside, he said that only rich nations and not developing nations could afford to consider sustainability, and I took real issue with this statement, on the basis of a single example: King Abdullah II of Jordan, in his National Plan and subsequent development initiatives, has proposed that all development in Jordan be based on environmentally safe and sustainable means, because if Jordan builds its economy at the expense of the environment, such results will be short-lived, and Jordan will be worse off in the long run. The March 2008 issue of National Geographic includes a story about the Kingdom of Bhutan, the king of which is pursuing development along a path of GNH (Gross National Happiness), and one pillar of GNH is sustainable development. I think this is part of what Fareed Zakaria means when he talks about "the rise of the rest," the concept that the United States is no longer the driving force behind global markets and concerns; in the age of globalization and the Internet, the smaller, poorer, developed countries are just as capable of making significant contributions to global trends, and it is to the disadvantage of the United States to discount what was once dismissed as "the Third World."

So here's to the developing world, sustainable development, and the traffic circle! SiHa wa 'aafiya!

Hooray for the Passive!

Amman, Jordan

Finally, I found a tutor who didn't change the subject when I said I wanted to learn how to conjugate Arabic verbs in the passive voice! And he is a very good teacher, too. While I can appreciate that most of the people in the group need more work on listening and speaking in Arabic, I've got that down pretty good, especially compared to my reading and writing skills, and I was really hoping that this program would focus a little more on pen-and-paper skills!

After my semester in Tuebingen (Germany), for some time I said that I aspired to someday be a nerd like my friend "Molly the Rhodes Scholar," to have her work ethic and patience for study and detail, to be writing or co-writing papers that earned me scholarships to present at conferences in exotic locales like, say, Rome. I was going to be a professor in my ivory tower with my little circle of admiring students, etc., etc.

Then I joined the Peace Corps, which, as I was saying to someone in the group yesterday, I don't consider a "real" job because it's so much more intense than any real job, with the long hours, the language and cultural barriers, the lack of amenities like cheddar cheese (damn the Danish media!) and tank tops (depending on where you're posted). In the Peace Corps, despite all its frustrations and disappointments, from time to time I produced real, immediate results (and hopefully long-term ones, too) that made other people's lives better.

When I got to grad school, academia had lost almost all its appeal to me. I didn't want to be a nerd in my ivory tower. That's great for the Mollys of the world, and lots of other people I know who find real satisfaction in academic pursuits. But I myself couldn't help but feel that all I did was sit and read and write and talk, but I didn't DO anything, and what results I had were for my own benefit. It seemed selfish. Sure, I needed those two years of grad school to be qualified for really effective work in that future "real" job, in order to make significant positive impacts on other people's lives, but I felt trapped in that ivory tower.

Now, though, I wonder if it was the academics that frustrated me, or the departmental politics. I wonder because here in Amman, where I have no responsibilities but to go to class and sit for hours at my homework, I've become a virtual shut-in. It seems like all I do is study and sleep, and I'm really happy doing it!

As Dad would surely point out, it's all relative!

The Circle's the Thing

Jerash, Umm Qais and Irbid, Jordan

Today was our group excursion to the ruins at Jerash and Umm Qais. Not much has changed about Jerash since I left, though there are new police guard towers all around the archaeological park, and a lot more Tourist Police than I've ever seen before.

But are traffic patterns in Irbid ever changing! The north end of the Amman Bus Station where the "service taxis" to the University waited has been razed to make room for a traffic circle, and they're putting in more traffic circles at all the major intersections along that road down to Yarmouk University. The university itself has a new auto bridge onto campus from the south end, though it escapes me why such a thing is necessary.

Then, on the road out to Harima, there are several new traffic circles, and a bright, baby blue footbridge over the main road in the middle of Bait Ras, and a couple more new traffic circles on the road West of Harima towards Umm Qais.

I wish we'd had more time in Umm Qais. It would have been nice to wander around a little and enjoy the breeze, or at least sit in the restaurant for a bit and have a cold drink. It was unbearably hot today, even for Jordan, it seemed, and Umm Qais is just over the Yarmouk River valley, too, so it was pretty humid (for Jordan, anyway!).

We came back home along University Street in Irbid, and that, at least, is pretty much the same, with the addition of a Burger King and Popeyes south of the Pizza Hut. Speed2 Internet Cafe is still there, where we whiled away many an hour, and lots of little restaurants that brought back fond memories of our Peace Corps days.

At times, I have to say, it's pretty weird to be back here, and pretty surreal. It feels simultaneously like I'm in Jordan, and like I'm seeing Jordan from this little tourist bubble that I never wore before....

The Art of Anticipation

Amman, Jordan

I did some shopping today at the local souq, for juice glasses and a notebook, fruits and vegetables, and a plug converter (which I failed to find). As Yvonne and Alice and I were walking up, up, up and down, down, down the steep hill behind ACOR to get to the souq, I was reminded of something I thought a lot about in Peace Corps Pre-Service Training, which is that living in Jordan is a constant exercise in the art of anticipation:

• Where should I step on and off the high, uneven sidewalks that I will expose the least amount of leg beneath my skirt?
• Should I keep my long sleeve 'abaia next to me in case someone knocks on my door while I'm in this tanktop?
• If I purchase food here, where will I eat it so that I'm not eating in the street?
• What's the most efficient order in which to buy these supplies so that I walk (and therefore sweat) the least?
• I must be sure to have that drink of water before I leave the shop, because I can't drink it in the street!

In some ways there's less of the art of anticipation this time. I'm in Amman, where the rules are not as strict. I'm potentially only here for two months, so I don't really need to think so far into the future as last time. And perhaps most significant of all, I'm here for myself this time, not to do for others, which makes it far less necessary to be more Arab than the Arabs, because this time I'm not asking anyone to trust me with the security and honor of their children.

Nevertheless, the imperative to be not only respectful of the culture but to hold myself to local standards of propriety is deeply ingrained in me. I don't know whether to blame it on Rotary or Peace Corps or Fakhria's influence on the way my mother thinks about the rest of the world, especially the Muslim world. In any case, I have this strong feeling that I am an ambassador of my country, that everything I wear and do reflects on how people see America and Americans. I know that Jordanians have an extraordinary and admirable ability to distinguish between individual Americans, American pop culture and American politics, and I know that most Jordanians don't paint all Americans with the same brush, be it good or bad. Still, I can't help myself from thinking about ... anticipating what impact my dress, actions and words might have on others' perception of America and Americans.

Worse, I can't seem to stop myself from judging others in this group of students by my own extremely and perhaps even unreasonably high standards. I'm trying very hard not to offer my opinion unless asked first, but it's a struggle.

Wish you were here....

Amman, Jordan

Today we took a bus tour of Amman, including a tour of the Amman Citadel. Very little seems to have changed outwardly in the city, though I've heard through the program and from Jennifer that inflation is incredibly high in almost all sectors of life, and poverty levels are rising rapidly. It was a little weird to be here in this big group of Americans who hadn't yet had any of the cultural training that we got in Peace Corps Pre-Service Training, who have mostly been to the big cities of the Middle East before, and many of them to Amman itself, but have not been prepared for village life, dress and propriety like we had been by the time the J7s got our bus ride around Amman.

But probably the weirdest thing was just being there on the Amman Citadel, in such familiar surroundings, without the familiar faces I'd been there with before. No Jennifer, no Naureen, Jeremy or Audra, no Sultan or Samiir.... Perhaps it was because I spent all that time last week (was it just last week?) trying to make prints of Auntie Viv and Oren's pictures of the Amman Citadel, but it seemed that all I could think about as I wandered around up there was when I had been to the Amman Citadel with the two of them. I would look around me and think, That's where Auntie Viv took that picture of Oren and I that I love so much, or That's where Oren took that picture of our shadows, or If I just went around that corner, I'd find the medeival squatter toilet Auntie Viv photographed me on, or That's the relief on the floor that Oren took that really neat, artsy photo of. It's funny, really, that Auntie Viv took much clearer pictures, and I had a lot of them in mind, but it was more Oren's pictures I remembered, the grainy, unfocussed shots made with his PDA. Maybe you're right, Oren, and the candid shots, the unplanned moments are the best.

Made it!

Amman, Jordan

Well, after a grueling eleven hours in the air and thirteen of layover in Frankfurt, we all made it safe and sound to Amman, Jordan! We're on our way out to do placement tests today, so you'll have to wait for further updates, but I'm hoping to get things posted here every two or three days, so keep in touch!

Ah, Maine!

South Bridgton, Maine, USA

The sun is shining, the daffodils and horse chestnut are blooming (achoo!), the snowbirds are back, and I have a Master of Arts!

So now what? Good question. I'll be leaving mid-June to go back to Jordan for 9 weeks on a Critical Language Scholarship from the U.S. State Dept, and after that, your guess is as good as mine. I'm probably applying for more jobs as you read this. It's my philosophy that I keep throwing balls into the air until I catch one. But those of you who know me well know that I've always been really bad at catching balls.... Nevertheless, as a philosophy, it has stood me in good stead. I'll look for work while I'm in Jordan, too, since the best thing for me and my Arabic at this moment is full immersion in an Arabic-speaking environment ... and the whole Middle East, like much of the rest of the world, is looking for English teachers!

Stay tuned for tales from the Middle East and news on my employment prospects!
M