6 December 2008
Strangers and Pilgrims
The low, twangy notes of the oud player reverberated through the cloud of argeelah, laughter and hand-clapping in Jafra cafe. A cool wind blew in from Wast al-Balad and I sank deeper into the sofa, embracing the warmth of the curling argeelah smoke around us. The little lights above flickered, suspended in their woven-shades and keeping time with the oud player and the clapping. People sang the familiar songs, the old songs everyone knows – Jordanian, Palestinian, Arab songs. We felt a certain solidarity with the crowd, and a sense of belonging, yet longing for somewhere else, someplace we call home. If I could reduce my experiences in Jordan to this moment in Jafra with a few good friends who I probably won’t see again for some time, I would. I would roll it up into a ball and carry it with me. And when I’m back home with my family and friends, and find that I can’t quite express what I want to, I would take it out and let it slowly unravel before you.
We are strangers and pilgrims, just passing through Jordan, and tomorrow I won’t call it home anymore; won’t settle into the back of a smoky taxi, the arab beats buoying me away to Dahiat al-Rasheed, to my little room with a window facing the bare, hazy desert sunrise, bringing Bedu and flocks of sheep whose clinking bells wake me at dawn; won’t duck in Al-Quds, the best falafel place in Amman, where the old man behind the counter winks at me behind his thick glasses and knows I want one sesame falafel, so cheap and so good; won’t enjoy rolling the L’s off the back of my teeth when I order it; won’t wander through certain streets and feel the cobblestones beneath, breathe the air dusky with cardamom and coffee, see the earthy, vibrant colors – the reds, browns, golds – in store windows; won’t see red, green and black flapping in the breeze.
Today is overcast, and I know I am romanticizing. I can’t help but feel nostalgic for Jordan. I love this place.
I packed my Jordanian clothes first: the dishdasha which I wore in al-Badia (the desert) when I lived with a Bedouin family for three days; the hijab I wore with a friend when we went shopping at the mall, and we felt more conspicuous with than without the veil; the ivory dishdasha with gold sequins my host mother, Um Dunia, gave me when we broke the fast after Ramadan. My red and white koffiya, the national cloth of Jordan, I set aside, then wrapped securely around my neck. I don’t intend to remove it for quite some time, at least figuratively.
After scouring the bedding for stray socks which seem to collect at the foot of my bed, I turned to look at the bare room and remembered the first time I sat my bags down, back in August.
At breakfast the zeit (olive oil) was clouded; the zatar (thyme) was dry; the pita stale; I didn’t care.
On the way to school this morning, the last “on the way to school”, I passed by both the Indonesian and Sri Lankan embassies, and I wondered about the women, runaway maids, I met in the shelters there. They taught me so much, and I am indebted to them. The feeble 50 page report I produced about women migrant workers in Jordan does not capture their humble and courageous spirit as I wish it could.
Somehow I feel my experiences are already being reduced to snapshots which capture and yet don’t capture my time in Jordan: exploits of camel riding, hiking through Petra or Wadi Rum, and floating in the Dead Sea, the ones which will remain with me in the form of photographs people want to see and stories they want to hear. What’s in my heart, so full from my time in Jordan, can’t be reduced to such snapshots. The real experience doesn’t fade like photographs, but becomes more complete, as it is lived and relieved in the recesses of my mind and heart. And in time, what remains of my time in Jordan is myself. Myself, more fulfilled in Christ as he has used this time to prepare me, in ways and for what I can scarcely imagine.
Goodbye, Jordan. Until next time.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
It's been a while since my last post. In my study abroad program, the month of November is for conducting an independent study project. Because of the politically and socially sensitive nature of my research topic, female migrant workers in Jordan, I have decided not to publish posts about it. Perhaps after the completion of the study I may be able to share more about the research. Thanks for your patience and understanding. I may still have posts about other topics during these last couple of weeks, provided I have time.
As much as I have enjoyed this experience in Jordan, I am beginning to anticipate returning home next month. I've missed you all!
As much as I have enjoyed this experience in Jordan, I am beginning to anticipate returning home next month. I've missed you all!
Friday, October 31, 2008
A note on blog comments
A note on comments:
First of all, thanks for all the comments from readers. Most comments I’ve published, and I try to answer them as often and as best I can. So keep up the good work, faithful readers!
Here is one comment on my last post which I wanted to address for everyone:
“It's funny, sometimes reading this I almost forget your host family is Muslim. And then I read this discussion and remember that England/America/Christendom is one side and they are on the other. And again, I'm impressed at your being in a place so foreign and coping with it.”
I find it revealing that the quote links countries (England and America) often associated predominately with terms like "the West" and with "Christendom". Certainly, American religion has become so entangled with American culture (for further reading I recommend Alan Wolfe’s The Transformation of American Religion) with concepts of Christendom in the earthly sense, that we often, at least in our thinking, use America and Christendom interchangeably and pit this category against "the East", "Arabs" or "Muslims". We had better be careful about forming "us versus them" mentalities. I'm seeing more and more that when we Americans create this sort of dichotomy, even quite innocently, Muslims take the cue and assume that the two categories (America and Christendom) are inherently linked, not just as historically constructed, linked categories, but connected at the deepest level, and hence adopt the same sort "clash of civilizations" thinking of which we are guilty and which fuels Islamic fundamentalism. While many ideas and practices in American culture may be very different from those in Muslim societies, it has been and continues to be American foreign policy which contributes most to the perceived "clash". Let's not confuse cultural values with more tangible political policies in our understanding of "us and them".
The last thing I want to do in my blog entries is to "other" my host family, that is to make them seem inherently different from myself and my readers. I’m glad to hear that some readers “forget” that my host family is Muslim while reading about them, at least in the sense that I’m not creating “an other”. But I never forget that they are Muslim – I’m confronted with it everyday; the only way “to cope” is to seek to understand. That doesn’t mean that I’ll embrace everything about my host culture and “go native”, but that I’ll observe, analyze, and interpret what I encounter as best as I can as a novice anthropologist. And as I conduct my field work over the next five weeks, as a Christian (and not just a cultural Christian), I’ll always be aware of the moral dimension in my work.
Please feel free to continue to comment and question – this sort of interaction is really helpful to us all. I’d like to think that my blog, at times more thoughtful than others, is one small way of not just sharing my experiences with general readers, but of helping to improve intercultural dialogue between “East and West”.
First of all, thanks for all the comments from readers. Most comments I’ve published, and I try to answer them as often and as best I can. So keep up the good work, faithful readers!
Here is one comment on my last post which I wanted to address for everyone:
“It's funny, sometimes reading this I almost forget your host family is Muslim. And then I read this discussion and remember that England/America/Christendom is one side and they are on the other. And again, I'm impressed at your being in a place so foreign and coping with it.”
I find it revealing that the quote links countries (England and America) often associated predominately with terms like "the West" and with "Christendom". Certainly, American religion has become so entangled with American culture (for further reading I recommend Alan Wolfe’s The Transformation of American Religion) with concepts of Christendom in the earthly sense, that we often, at least in our thinking, use America and Christendom interchangeably and pit this category against "the East", "Arabs" or "Muslims". We had better be careful about forming "us versus them" mentalities. I'm seeing more and more that when we Americans create this sort of dichotomy, even quite innocently, Muslims take the cue and assume that the two categories (America and Christendom) are inherently linked, not just as historically constructed, linked categories, but connected at the deepest level, and hence adopt the same sort "clash of civilizations" thinking of which we are guilty and which fuels Islamic fundamentalism. While many ideas and practices in American culture may be very different from those in Muslim societies, it has been and continues to be American foreign policy which contributes most to the perceived "clash". Let's not confuse cultural values with more tangible political policies in our understanding of "us and them".
The last thing I want to do in my blog entries is to "other" my host family, that is to make them seem inherently different from myself and my readers. I’m glad to hear that some readers “forget” that my host family is Muslim while reading about them, at least in the sense that I’m not creating “an other”. But I never forget that they are Muslim – I’m confronted with it everyday; the only way “to cope” is to seek to understand. That doesn’t mean that I’ll embrace everything about my host culture and “go native”, but that I’ll observe, analyze, and interpret what I encounter as best as I can as a novice anthropologist. And as I conduct my field work over the next five weeks, as a Christian (and not just a cultural Christian), I’ll always be aware of the moral dimension in my work.
Please feel free to continue to comment and question – this sort of interaction is really helpful to us all. I’d like to think that my blog, at times more thoughtful than others, is one small way of not just sharing my experiences with general readers, but of helping to improve intercultural dialogue between “East and West”.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Of Koffiyas and Chick-fil-A
29 October 2008
Of Koffiyas and Chick-fil-A
I was somewhere in Nigeria, commiserating with anthropologist Laura Bohannan when I quite unexpectedly heard a familiar accent – familiar in the most literal sense of the word. I jerked my head up from Return to Laughter to study the group of laughing, chatttering Americans coming up the café steps toward me; the middle-aged man in front, presumably their leader as he thereafter presided over their informal meeting in the upper room of Bless café in Abdoun, spoke with a warm Southern twang which I hadn’t heard since I left Alabama; he sounded, in fact, just like my family. And he said “ya’ll”; I was thrilled beyond words.
For some time I sat with pg. 27 open before me, mechanically scanning the words without reading them, listening intently to the conversation of the 15 or so Americans. They used a churchy jargon with which I was familiar; if one were to seek out such a group in Jordan, Bless café would be the place to find them. They spoke of shared experiences in the field, but in a very different sort of field than the one in which the anthropologist works; they mentioned a name which I’d heard before, an American missionary imprisoned who shared her story with me in person, whose story had been a spark to the kindling of my interest in the region, though of a very different sort of interest. Now things had come full circle.
The leader stood up and moved past me; I could no longer resist. “Excuse me, sir,” I spun around to face him as he passed. “Would you mind telling me where ya’ll are from.”
His serious eyes brightened at my use of “ya’ll”. “We’re mostly from the States,” he began. “I live in Atlanta….” “I knew you were a Southerner!” I exclaimed. Then I checked my excitement. “I’m sorry, I was so curious when I heard the accent. It sounded so familiar.”
“But,” he continued, “I was born and raised in Birmingham.”
“I’m from Birmingham!” I nearly shouted. I never realized I’d ever claim that city, or the South much less, but I was so glad to hear their Southern speech, I couldn’t suppress my enthusiasm. The leader inquired about my study abroad, my University back home, and then he excused himself, only to return a moment later.
“Being from Birmingham, I guess you know Chick-fil-A…” he said dryly as he handed me a free chicken sandwich card. I stared at it, mouth agape. Chick-fil-A, that moral bastion of fast-food chains revered by my family and every other patriotic, religious Southerner. I remembered from early childhood all those Sundays when we passed the restaurant after church services, my father solemnly and approvingly pointing to it and commenting on it being closed “to respect the Sabbath”.
So Chick-fil-A, bastion of morally-inclined business, has come to Jordan – to lead a seminar about women in business, no less. I smiled half-heartedly at the group as they passed by my table, feeling somehow estranged from them as much as I identified with the accent. Again I stared at the card in my hand. I put it away and thoughtfully fingered the fringe on my koffiyah (the traditional Arab head-scarf for men, now donned by hipsters as a trendy scarf). The young people chattering and sipping coffee around me had draped koffiyahs about their necks and shoulders various ways and in some ways I felt closer to them than the Americans I had just encountered. Already I feel caught between the two cultures; already I’m apprehensive about re-entry and readjustment. But I think that free chicken sandwich might facilitate readjustment.
Of Koffiyas and Chick-fil-A
I was somewhere in Nigeria, commiserating with anthropologist Laura Bohannan when I quite unexpectedly heard a familiar accent – familiar in the most literal sense of the word. I jerked my head up from Return to Laughter to study the group of laughing, chatttering Americans coming up the café steps toward me; the middle-aged man in front, presumably their leader as he thereafter presided over their informal meeting in the upper room of Bless café in Abdoun, spoke with a warm Southern twang which I hadn’t heard since I left Alabama; he sounded, in fact, just like my family. And he said “ya’ll”; I was thrilled beyond words.
For some time I sat with pg. 27 open before me, mechanically scanning the words without reading them, listening intently to the conversation of the 15 or so Americans. They used a churchy jargon with which I was familiar; if one were to seek out such a group in Jordan, Bless café would be the place to find them. They spoke of shared experiences in the field, but in a very different sort of field than the one in which the anthropologist works; they mentioned a name which I’d heard before, an American missionary imprisoned who shared her story with me in person, whose story had been a spark to the kindling of my interest in the region, though of a very different sort of interest. Now things had come full circle.
The leader stood up and moved past me; I could no longer resist. “Excuse me, sir,” I spun around to face him as he passed. “Would you mind telling me where ya’ll are from.”
His serious eyes brightened at my use of “ya’ll”. “We’re mostly from the States,” he began. “I live in Atlanta….” “I knew you were a Southerner!” I exclaimed. Then I checked my excitement. “I’m sorry, I was so curious when I heard the accent. It sounded so familiar.”
“But,” he continued, “I was born and raised in Birmingham.”
“I’m from Birmingham!” I nearly shouted. I never realized I’d ever claim that city, or the South much less, but I was so glad to hear their Southern speech, I couldn’t suppress my enthusiasm. The leader inquired about my study abroad, my University back home, and then he excused himself, only to return a moment later.
“Being from Birmingham, I guess you know Chick-fil-A…” he said dryly as he handed me a free chicken sandwich card. I stared at it, mouth agape. Chick-fil-A, that moral bastion of fast-food chains revered by my family and every other patriotic, religious Southerner. I remembered from early childhood all those Sundays when we passed the restaurant after church services, my father solemnly and approvingly pointing to it and commenting on it being closed “to respect the Sabbath”.
So Chick-fil-A, bastion of morally-inclined business, has come to Jordan – to lead a seminar about women in business, no less. I smiled half-heartedly at the group as they passed by my table, feeling somehow estranged from them as much as I identified with the accent. Again I stared at the card in my hand. I put it away and thoughtfully fingered the fringe on my koffiyah (the traditional Arab head-scarf for men, now donned by hipsters as a trendy scarf). The young people chattering and sipping coffee around me had draped koffiyahs about their necks and shoulders various ways and in some ways I felt closer to them than the Americans I had just encountered. Already I feel caught between the two cultures; already I’m apprehensive about re-entry and readjustment. But I think that free chicken sandwich might facilitate readjustment.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Of Olives and Dates (the historical variety)
28 October 2008
Of Olives and Dates (the historical variety)
On the table were two, large plastic tubs brimming with dirty green and purplish-green olives and beside them, a cold, orange plate of spaghetti; as hungry as I was, I was much more interested in what was happening to the olives. “Hadol zaytun min Filistine (These are olives from Palestine),” said Umm Dunia (Khatm, my host mother), as she pounded the olives individually with some sort of mallet. Realizing I was fairly gawking at her – one for having some sort of dinner available for me and secondly, for the strange olive processing - I carried my backpack to my room and returned. Umm Dunia looked up at the clock pointedly, as if to quietly rebuke me for just missing dinner, the most inconsistent of mealtimes in our family.
The metal chair scraped noisily as I pulled it away from the table to sit and stare at the process. After mechanically eating half the plate of spaghetti, I clanked my fork (I couldn’t remember the last time I had used a fork in place of the all-purpose spoon) on the plate and pushed it aside. “Mumkin (Can I)…?” I asked shoving my hand into the cool, grainy tub of olives, rolling them about in my fingers. Umm Dunia left the room, returning with a rock; she demonstrated how I should beat the olive to make the flesh split open to facilitate the soaking/seasoning process. Abu Dunia (Mohammed, my host father) joined us. Khatm gave him her mallet and procured a large-handled knife with which to beat the olives.
It had been a while since I had been included in any sort of family activity; my parents have been busy preparing another apartment (which they rent out) and helping their daughter’s family move into a new condominium; I was overjoyed to be included.
“Ah…min Filistine, sah?”
Khatm continued pounding and didn’t look up to answer, “Sah.” She thought I meant the olives.
“Aihwa, bas entoum (gesturing to her and Mohammed)…min Filistine, sah?” They looked at each other in askance.
“La,” Mohammed shook his finger at me. “Min Salt.” Salt. A city just outside Amman, maybe half an hour away. But surely they were from Palestine, as often as they commented on it in my presence: about the news we sometimes watched, about the origins of fruits and vegetables, etc. All this time I had assumed they were from Palestine, for they identified with it so often.
“Oh,” I said. “Bas, abuho (But your father)…?” I pressed on.
“La, min Salt.”
“Oh. And your grandfather?”
“Min Salt.”
At this point Khatm interjected. “Kul ei3leh min Salt (The whole family is from Salt). Jordanian. All Jordanian.”
“Oh.” We three pounded our olives in silence. I felt slightly embarrassed for having assumed they were Palestinian for so long. I don’t suppose they were insulted; they merely stressed their Jordanian heritage and then were silent.
“Bas,” Mohammed began, placing his mallet down purposefully, “Filistine balad ‘arab (Palestine is an Arab country)…” I nodded.
“Ou Israeli khod min homeh...,” he began as he launched into a rapid lecture about the conflict.
“Aihwa,” I interjected, “fi 1948.” This pleased them.
“Ta3raf ean hadha (You know about this?).
“Na’am, fi jame3ahti badros tareekh (Yes, in my university I study History)…”.
“Qweyes, Qweyes (Good, good),” Mohammed nodded vigorously, picking the mallet up again, only to shake it at me in the next sentence. “Bas, Britainiyya khod al balad min Filistine…(But Britian took the country from the Palestinians, followed by a lot of words I couldn’t quite understand)…Ball-foor…”
“Shu yaeni Ball-foor?” What kind of new Arabic word was this? I had no idea.
“Ball-foor ism (is a name)” Mohammed insisted as if I should know this. A long pause. Then I realized:
“Oh! Balfour, the Balfour Declaration!” They both nodded then clicked their tongues, saying “Ya haram (how shameful, what a shame). And I was really glad in that moment that I was not British and thus “to blame” for the mess next-door – not that being American is much better (reputation-wise). After that followed our limited discussion of the conflict – I cited historical dates as I knew them – and a brief discussion about the American political situation.
“King Obama,” Umm Dunia said. I had to suppress a laugh, because she was quite serious.
“Uh, fi amreeka, eindna ‘president’ moush malik (In America, we have a president, not a king)…” I began.
“Aihwa, bas (the Congress picks him).”
“Aihwa, bas…,” I began again. How do I explain the presidential election, especially that strange animal, the Electoral College?
“King Abdullah, Congress, fi Urdun (picks him).” Mohammed interjected. O.k. a referendum to affirm a monarch is not a democracy.
“King Clinton, qweyes, qweyes…King Bush, moush qweyes (not good),” Khatm clicked her tongue disapprovingly.
‘Bithebbi Obama (Do you like Obama)?” I asked carefully.
“Ma baeraf,” Khatm said, shaking her head and shrugging. “Mumkin Obama, mumkin McCain.” I remember one of our lecturers a few weeks ago commented on how popular Bush had been when he was elected, but the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and his silence on other Middle East issues, namely the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, were major disappointments for Jordanians. “We never know,” Khatm concluded.
Yeah, we don’t. And I felt sad for my country.
Of Olives and Dates (the historical variety)
On the table were two, large plastic tubs brimming with dirty green and purplish-green olives and beside them, a cold, orange plate of spaghetti; as hungry as I was, I was much more interested in what was happening to the olives. “Hadol zaytun min Filistine (These are olives from Palestine),” said Umm Dunia (Khatm, my host mother), as she pounded the olives individually with some sort of mallet. Realizing I was fairly gawking at her – one for having some sort of dinner available for me and secondly, for the strange olive processing - I carried my backpack to my room and returned. Umm Dunia looked up at the clock pointedly, as if to quietly rebuke me for just missing dinner, the most inconsistent of mealtimes in our family.
The metal chair scraped noisily as I pulled it away from the table to sit and stare at the process. After mechanically eating half the plate of spaghetti, I clanked my fork (I couldn’t remember the last time I had used a fork in place of the all-purpose spoon) on the plate and pushed it aside. “Mumkin (Can I)…?” I asked shoving my hand into the cool, grainy tub of olives, rolling them about in my fingers. Umm Dunia left the room, returning with a rock; she demonstrated how I should beat the olive to make the flesh split open to facilitate the soaking/seasoning process. Abu Dunia (Mohammed, my host father) joined us. Khatm gave him her mallet and procured a large-handled knife with which to beat the olives.
It had been a while since I had been included in any sort of family activity; my parents have been busy preparing another apartment (which they rent out) and helping their daughter’s family move into a new condominium; I was overjoyed to be included.
“Ah…min Filistine, sah?”
Khatm continued pounding and didn’t look up to answer, “Sah.” She thought I meant the olives.
“Aihwa, bas entoum (gesturing to her and Mohammed)…min Filistine, sah?” They looked at each other in askance.
“La,” Mohammed shook his finger at me. “Min Salt.” Salt. A city just outside Amman, maybe half an hour away. But surely they were from Palestine, as often as they commented on it in my presence: about the news we sometimes watched, about the origins of fruits and vegetables, etc. All this time I had assumed they were from Palestine, for they identified with it so often.
“Oh,” I said. “Bas, abuho (But your father)…?” I pressed on.
“La, min Salt.”
“Oh. And your grandfather?”
“Min Salt.”
At this point Khatm interjected. “Kul ei3leh min Salt (The whole family is from Salt). Jordanian. All Jordanian.”
“Oh.” We three pounded our olives in silence. I felt slightly embarrassed for having assumed they were Palestinian for so long. I don’t suppose they were insulted; they merely stressed their Jordanian heritage and then were silent.
“Bas,” Mohammed began, placing his mallet down purposefully, “Filistine balad ‘arab (Palestine is an Arab country)…” I nodded.
“Ou Israeli khod min homeh...,” he began as he launched into a rapid lecture about the conflict.
“Aihwa,” I interjected, “fi 1948.” This pleased them.
“Ta3raf ean hadha (You know about this?).
“Na’am, fi jame3ahti badros tareekh (Yes, in my university I study History)…”.
“Qweyes, Qweyes (Good, good),” Mohammed nodded vigorously, picking the mallet up again, only to shake it at me in the next sentence. “Bas, Britainiyya khod al balad min Filistine…(But Britian took the country from the Palestinians, followed by a lot of words I couldn’t quite understand)…Ball-foor…”
“Shu yaeni Ball-foor?” What kind of new Arabic word was this? I had no idea.
“Ball-foor ism (is a name)” Mohammed insisted as if I should know this. A long pause. Then I realized:
“Oh! Balfour, the Balfour Declaration!” They both nodded then clicked their tongues, saying “Ya haram (how shameful, what a shame). And I was really glad in that moment that I was not British and thus “to blame” for the mess next-door – not that being American is much better (reputation-wise). After that followed our limited discussion of the conflict – I cited historical dates as I knew them – and a brief discussion about the American political situation.
“King Obama,” Umm Dunia said. I had to suppress a laugh, because she was quite serious.
“Uh, fi amreeka, eindna ‘president’ moush malik (In America, we have a president, not a king)…” I began.
“Aihwa, bas (the Congress picks him).”
“Aihwa, bas…,” I began again. How do I explain the presidential election, especially that strange animal, the Electoral College?
“King Abdullah, Congress, fi Urdun (picks him).” Mohammed interjected. O.k. a referendum to affirm a monarch is not a democracy.
“King Clinton, qweyes, qweyes…King Bush, moush qweyes (not good),” Khatm clicked her tongue disapprovingly.
‘Bithebbi Obama (Do you like Obama)?” I asked carefully.
“Ma baeraf,” Khatm said, shaking her head and shrugging. “Mumkin Obama, mumkin McCain.” I remember one of our lecturers a few weeks ago commented on how popular Bush had been when he was elected, but the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and his silence on other Middle East issues, namely the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, were major disappointments for Jordanians. “We never know,” Khatm concluded.
Yeah, we don’t. And I felt sad for my country.
Friday, October 24, 2008
"View --> "
24 October 2008
And boy, was it a view.
You won’t find Petra in this photo. It’s far behind me, far below, somewhere back there with Indiana Jones. Here I looked not to a travel book or a tour guide, but to these barren, perilous cliffs and their ancient sacrificial high places - to the wilderness before me to read there about the history behind me. If you want the kind of history you can read about in a textbook, then look up Wikipedia’s entry (or some other encyclopedic source). History is not set in stone, not even in Petra: we can clamber over it, breathe it in, examine it – experience the environment from which it comes – for ourselves.
“View –>”
It’s hard to avoid being told when and where to look and what to photograph when you’re a tourist. Why I should photograph the Roman columns of Jerash soaring above me at the most extreme angle (achieved by lying on one’s back beneath them and pointing the camera upward) or why I should “walk like an Egyptian” in front of the Great Pyramid is beyond me. Why we all take those silly photos of each other holding up or smashing between our fingers various buildings or places of historical interest, or simply standing in front of them, possessing them proudly, donning our fanny packs and floppy sun hats like conquerors – I’ll never fully understand. Sure, there were plenty of those shots in Petra, the “rose-red city half as old as time” in Southern Jordan, and inevitably they are now living in my camera. I can search “Petra” on Google images and find every single one of them.
Perhaps the most superfluous of photographic suggestions came after trekking a couple hours through the city, up approximately 800 stone “steps” to the Monastery and beyond to the mountaintops above it was this one:
It’s hard to avoid being told when and where to look and what to photograph when you’re a tourist. Why I should photograph the Roman columns of Jerash soaring above me at the most extreme angle (achieved by lying on one’s back beneath them and pointing the camera upward) or why I should “walk like an Egyptian” in front of the Great Pyramid is beyond me. Why we all take those silly photos of each other holding up or smashing between our fingers various buildings or places of historical interest, or simply standing in front of them, possessing them proudly, donning our fanny packs and floppy sun hats like conquerors – I’ll never fully understand. Sure, there were plenty of those shots in Petra, the “rose-red city half as old as time” in Southern Jordan, and inevitably they are now living in my camera. I can search “Petra” on Google images and find every single one of them.
Perhaps the most superfluous of photographic suggestions came after trekking a couple hours through the city, up approximately 800 stone “steps” to the Monastery and beyond to the mountaintops above it was this one:
And boy, was it a view.
You won’t find Petra in this photo. It’s far behind me, far below, somewhere back there with Indiana Jones. Here I looked not to a travel book or a tour guide, but to these barren, perilous cliffs and their ancient sacrificial high places - to the wilderness before me to read there about the history behind me. If you want the kind of history you can read about in a textbook, then look up Wikipedia’s entry (or some other encyclopedic source). History is not set in stone, not even in Petra: we can clamber over it, breathe it in, examine it – experience the environment from which it comes – for ourselves.
"He has set a tent for the sun."
24 October 2008
“He has set a tent for the sun.”
It’s 5:25 A.M. Why am I awake? A high pitched, tingling buzz tickles my ear. I swat madly in the dark and then jerk the sheet over my head. Namous (mosquitoes)…curse them! In the next room, Mohammad’s crackling prayer breaks the pre-dawn silence, as per usual. Moan and roll over, roll over, roll over. My hair smells of last night at the Blue Fig – cigarette smoke and spirits. Smells like Abdoun, that wealthy Western district of Amman, home to my study abroad school and to embassies; Abdoun - territory of expats and the most “unlocal of locals”. It smells like defeat – that feeling of shock when I returned yesterday from the one of the most refreshing times of peace and growth in my life to Amman, to a household of inquisitive kids, disgruntled family members, maltreated domestic helpers, cigarette smoke, greasy foods, traffic jams. Defeat – that an hour later as the sun begins to invade the gap in the curtains and my puffy eyelids, I curse the sun. How can the sunrise be so beautiful in the desert and so dull, a nuisance even, back in Amman? A vacuum cleaner rolls and bumps down the hardwood floor hallway, choking as it is turned on. I groan and jerk the blanket over the sheets. I can’t escape my impending research study, even in my own “home” – there are thousands of maids all over Amman. Now one of them is outside my bedroom door scrubbing the rug; undoubtedly she’ll work until late this evening. I punch my pillow and get up, giving up. Standing uncertainly in my pajamas, I stare blankly out the window and to the horizon where the northern outskirts of Amman meet the desert. Somehow I have to reconcile this. Nowhere to go but back to sleep/ But I am reconciled – I’m gonna be up for a while…
*****
“I haven’t had this much (American) coffee in…a long time,” I say as I swirl the cup in my oversized (maybe 20 ounces) mug. “I feel…normal. Alive, actually.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Katia says, looking up from her laptop and frowning. Well, things have reached a new low - Books@Cafe: the yuppiest of cafes in Rainbow Street - a welcome retreat from another episode of being secluded in my room, once again excluded deliberately from a host-family gathering. But this time instead of meekly agreeing, I excuse myself abruptly and catch a taxi to this haunt of study abroad students, expats, and tourists – and the “unlocal locals”. And I feel guilty about it.
“I just don’t get it,” I begin. “Just this morning I watched an hour of home-videos with them and asked questions in my limited Arabic…don’t they see I want to be integrated into the family?”
“I think you’re being treated like a source of income,” says Elaine, smugly, as this “confirms” her suspicions. Maybe we’ve all been a bit touchy since The Jordan Times (the English daily) ran an article about “Jordanian families graciously opening up their homes to foreign students.” In it we discovered how much our families are paid (out of the money we students/parents paid our study abroad program), and that some families complain we students are “unhygienic”. Granted, I can understand that the concept of toilet paper is pretty disgusting as opposed to rinsing; I can understand showering less to conserve water in a water-poor country; I have yet to appreciate the moldy pita episode and many other culturally acceptable practices (see earlier entry “Give us this day our daily bread.”)
“I don’t know, they’ve been so nice in general,” I begin in my host-family’s defense, as the waitress places an incredibly thick burger on the table in front of me. If I didn’t feel guilty before, I certainly do now. It’s a familiar, delicious smell I haven’t smelled (or tasted) since I’ve been in Jordan, two months to the day. But it also smells like defeat.
But the home videos were lovely…a wedding for one of my home-stay cousins. The bride’s face reflected the radiant joy beaming from her groom’s face…
*****
The sun is setting, the clouds streaked pink across the golden sky, as I take a taxi back home, leaving yuppy Books@Cafe behind, alhamdulillah. It’s beautiful again, this sunset. Somewhere many miles south in the Dana Nature Reserve is a boulder on a hilltop where I sat two sunsets previous, listening to the raw power of a call to prayer echoing through the jagged mountains and in the valley as far as I can see; it resonates in my soul.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.” Psalm 19: 1 – 6.
“He has set a tent for the sun.”
It’s 5:25 A.M. Why am I awake? A high pitched, tingling buzz tickles my ear. I swat madly in the dark and then jerk the sheet over my head. Namous (mosquitoes)…curse them! In the next room, Mohammad’s crackling prayer breaks the pre-dawn silence, as per usual. Moan and roll over, roll over, roll over. My hair smells of last night at the Blue Fig – cigarette smoke and spirits. Smells like Abdoun, that wealthy Western district of Amman, home to my study abroad school and to embassies; Abdoun - territory of expats and the most “unlocal of locals”. It smells like defeat – that feeling of shock when I returned yesterday from the one of the most refreshing times of peace and growth in my life to Amman, to a household of inquisitive kids, disgruntled family members, maltreated domestic helpers, cigarette smoke, greasy foods, traffic jams. Defeat – that an hour later as the sun begins to invade the gap in the curtains and my puffy eyelids, I curse the sun. How can the sunrise be so beautiful in the desert and so dull, a nuisance even, back in Amman? A vacuum cleaner rolls and bumps down the hardwood floor hallway, choking as it is turned on. I groan and jerk the blanket over the sheets. I can’t escape my impending research study, even in my own “home” – there are thousands of maids all over Amman. Now one of them is outside my bedroom door scrubbing the rug; undoubtedly she’ll work until late this evening. I punch my pillow and get up, giving up. Standing uncertainly in my pajamas, I stare blankly out the window and to the horizon where the northern outskirts of Amman meet the desert. Somehow I have to reconcile this. Nowhere to go but back to sleep/ But I am reconciled – I’m gonna be up for a while…
*****
“I haven’t had this much (American) coffee in…a long time,” I say as I swirl the cup in my oversized (maybe 20 ounces) mug. “I feel…normal. Alive, actually.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Katia says, looking up from her laptop and frowning. Well, things have reached a new low - Books@Cafe: the yuppiest of cafes in Rainbow Street - a welcome retreat from another episode of being secluded in my room, once again excluded deliberately from a host-family gathering. But this time instead of meekly agreeing, I excuse myself abruptly and catch a taxi to this haunt of study abroad students, expats, and tourists – and the “unlocal locals”. And I feel guilty about it.
“I just don’t get it,” I begin. “Just this morning I watched an hour of home-videos with them and asked questions in my limited Arabic…don’t they see I want to be integrated into the family?”
“I think you’re being treated like a source of income,” says Elaine, smugly, as this “confirms” her suspicions. Maybe we’ve all been a bit touchy since The Jordan Times (the English daily) ran an article about “Jordanian families graciously opening up their homes to foreign students.” In it we discovered how much our families are paid (out of the money we students/parents paid our study abroad program), and that some families complain we students are “unhygienic”. Granted, I can understand that the concept of toilet paper is pretty disgusting as opposed to rinsing; I can understand showering less to conserve water in a water-poor country; I have yet to appreciate the moldy pita episode and many other culturally acceptable practices (see earlier entry “Give us this day our daily bread.”)
“I don’t know, they’ve been so nice in general,” I begin in my host-family’s defense, as the waitress places an incredibly thick burger on the table in front of me. If I didn’t feel guilty before, I certainly do now. It’s a familiar, delicious smell I haven’t smelled (or tasted) since I’ve been in Jordan, two months to the day. But it also smells like defeat.
But the home videos were lovely…a wedding for one of my home-stay cousins. The bride’s face reflected the radiant joy beaming from her groom’s face…
*****
The sun is setting, the clouds streaked pink across the golden sky, as I take a taxi back home, leaving yuppy Books@Cafe behind, alhamdulillah. It’s beautiful again, this sunset. Somewhere many miles south in the Dana Nature Reserve is a boulder on a hilltop where I sat two sunsets previous, listening to the raw power of a call to prayer echoing through the jagged mountains and in the valley as far as I can see; it resonates in my soul.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.” Psalm 19: 1 – 6.
Friday, October 17, 2008
"Now we're talking."
I just had a fifteen minute conversation with my host mother – in Arabic. Funny how when you stop struggling with the language and just let it happen, you find yourself saying words without thinking about what they mean in your native tongue. Something clicked today when conducting bilingual interviews, and when I returned home exhausted and anticipating an all-nighter for my case study, I found myself chatting and laughing over a late dinner with Khatm. I'm still far far far from fluent, of course, but I am feeling more hopeful about communication with my family. She seemed pleased, and I was truly glad. We cleared up some misunderstandings, I think, and I’m looking forward to the next several weeks. I feel like I’ve been restored to them and to the culture, somewhat, a refreshing development after the complaints in the previous entry about “coconuts”.
"Jordanians are like coconuts."
16 October 2008
“Jordanians are like coconuts.”
“I call Jordanians coconuts. They look very rough on the outside, but they are very pleasant on the inside,” said the Jordanian lecturer. We all laughed, delighted at this metaphor and this lucid, engaging talk by a middle-aged economist with a great affinity for all things American, especially American film. “And when I was in prison (for being in Palestine illegally), I asked the guard what the difference was between me and him…like Burt Lancaster in The Birdman of Alcatraz.” And a few minutes later I was musing over what practical wisdom Jordanians like this lecturer (and previous speakers) could find in American movies. “Or like in The Godfather…,” he was saying as I was scanning the faces of my classmates; they were pleased. Not only was his English strong, his personality cheerful, his intelligence and wit sharp, and his love for American culture endearing, but hearing your country and people discussed so aptly by an outsider is such an eye-opening experience, perhaps one of the most valuable parts of studying abroad. You begin to see how the rest of the world sees your country and appreciate that perspective, even when you don’t agree with it.
“...Because we believe the United States to still be the most influential country,” the lecturer was saying, “we choose American hegemony.” I couldn’t recall anyone ever using that phrase, “choose hegemony”. Isn’t the concept of hegemony that an individual would believe in a certain set of cultural values and practice them accordingly, part of that belief and practice being a certainty (belief) that this system was the natural and best system? “…And I watch three to fours hours of American, you know, domestic, programming everyday…CNN, NBC, CBS, and I read the NY Times, etc.” Our eyes widened; I fiddled with my pen and paper, feeling shamed that I couldn’t even manage to read the Jordan Times everyday, much less keep up with international or U.S. news. He proceeded to give us his impressions of the candidates and issues, obviously more informed about the American political system than many Americans. And when asked what he felt were the greatest challenges facing Jordan right now, he suggested that foremost was the lack of resources, especially water (Jordan is the fourth water poorest county), and secondly, the upcoming U.S. elections. Perhaps Jordan should have some votes in the electoral college…
*****
“Yaeraf suaq al-salaam?” I’m trying to explain the location of a quickly approaching interview to this taxi driver; I suspect he wants me to get into the taxi without being certain of the destination (he’ll still get a fare). After we exhaust my Arabic, we think we know where we’re going, and I settle into the darkened backseat after a long day of research and transcription of field notes for a case study due two days from now. My mobile phone begins its annoying Nokia ringtone, saving me from the Arabic questions of the friendly (curious) taxi driver. “My dad needs to cancel the interview.”
“I’m already in a taxi on the way there…”
“I’m really sorry but he has to leave. He can do it tomorrow at noon.” I don’t say anything for a moment. Yeah, tomorrow will be interesting with two interviews when I should be writing up the final report, not conducting more interviews. Does no one respect times or appointments here?
“Yeah, no problem. Tell him I’ll come at noon.” The taxi driver looks askance at me. “Yaeraf saken omeima?”
“Taeraf saken omeima?” Of course I know saken omeima. It’s my neighborhood here in Amman. “Baiti fi saken omeima. Yalla.”
*****
Huffing and muttering, I’m fumbling with the key in the door when my host father appears behind me in the darkened stairwell, greeting me saying, “Assalemu alaykum.”
“Wa alaykum salem.” Good thing I didn’t say that nasty comment on the tip of my tongue about no one being home and having to fish my key out of my overpacked backpack. But I’m brightened by this thought: there’s a wedding tonight for my home-stay cousin, and she has invited me personally. As my father follows me inside, I wonder why Mohammad was lingering in the stairwell, looking ridiculous in his suit; I’m accustomed to his pajama-thob. Khatm is rushing around the house in her fancy dress and heels; she greets me uncertainly, perhaps not expecting me home so early. Does she know I have a personal invitation from the bride, her niece, to attend? She pauses in my doorway, disappears, and appears a few minutes later with the phone, handing it to me. It’s her daughter, who offers a vague explanation about some car being broken down, and there’s no room for me. “Ma fi moushkileh (no problem),” I say, my heart sinking. And I had been practicing that crazy tongue-trill that Arabs do in celebrations. No dubqa dancing tonight.
“Sor-ry,” Khatm said, taking back the phone.
“Ma fi moushkileh…,” I say, admiring her dress.
“Biddik akl?” (Do you want food?), she asks.
“Oh, la, ma biddi ishi. (No, I don’t want anything).” Especially not coconuts. I think I’ve had my fill of those today.
I retreat to my bedroom, this paper looming large over me. Sitting at my desk, I stare at my newly arrived absentee ballot. Hmm, case study paper or ballot? Either way it’s about as tricky as a coconut.
“Jordanians are like coconuts.”
“I call Jordanians coconuts. They look very rough on the outside, but they are very pleasant on the inside,” said the Jordanian lecturer. We all laughed, delighted at this metaphor and this lucid, engaging talk by a middle-aged economist with a great affinity for all things American, especially American film. “And when I was in prison (for being in Palestine illegally), I asked the guard what the difference was between me and him…like Burt Lancaster in The Birdman of Alcatraz.” And a few minutes later I was musing over what practical wisdom Jordanians like this lecturer (and previous speakers) could find in American movies. “Or like in The Godfather…,” he was saying as I was scanning the faces of my classmates; they were pleased. Not only was his English strong, his personality cheerful, his intelligence and wit sharp, and his love for American culture endearing, but hearing your country and people discussed so aptly by an outsider is such an eye-opening experience, perhaps one of the most valuable parts of studying abroad. You begin to see how the rest of the world sees your country and appreciate that perspective, even when you don’t agree with it.
“...Because we believe the United States to still be the most influential country,” the lecturer was saying, “we choose American hegemony.” I couldn’t recall anyone ever using that phrase, “choose hegemony”. Isn’t the concept of hegemony that an individual would believe in a certain set of cultural values and practice them accordingly, part of that belief and practice being a certainty (belief) that this system was the natural and best system? “…And I watch three to fours hours of American, you know, domestic, programming everyday…CNN, NBC, CBS, and I read the NY Times, etc.” Our eyes widened; I fiddled with my pen and paper, feeling shamed that I couldn’t even manage to read the Jordan Times everyday, much less keep up with international or U.S. news. He proceeded to give us his impressions of the candidates and issues, obviously more informed about the American political system than many Americans. And when asked what he felt were the greatest challenges facing Jordan right now, he suggested that foremost was the lack of resources, especially water (Jordan is the fourth water poorest county), and secondly, the upcoming U.S. elections. Perhaps Jordan should have some votes in the electoral college…
*****
“Yaeraf suaq al-salaam?” I’m trying to explain the location of a quickly approaching interview to this taxi driver; I suspect he wants me to get into the taxi without being certain of the destination (he’ll still get a fare). After we exhaust my Arabic, we think we know where we’re going, and I settle into the darkened backseat after a long day of research and transcription of field notes for a case study due two days from now. My mobile phone begins its annoying Nokia ringtone, saving me from the Arabic questions of the friendly (curious) taxi driver. “My dad needs to cancel the interview.”
“I’m already in a taxi on the way there…”
“I’m really sorry but he has to leave. He can do it tomorrow at noon.” I don’t say anything for a moment. Yeah, tomorrow will be interesting with two interviews when I should be writing up the final report, not conducting more interviews. Does no one respect times or appointments here?
“Yeah, no problem. Tell him I’ll come at noon.” The taxi driver looks askance at me. “Yaeraf saken omeima?”
“Taeraf saken omeima?” Of course I know saken omeima. It’s my neighborhood here in Amman. “Baiti fi saken omeima. Yalla.”
*****
Huffing and muttering, I’m fumbling with the key in the door when my host father appears behind me in the darkened stairwell, greeting me saying, “Assalemu alaykum.”
“Wa alaykum salem.” Good thing I didn’t say that nasty comment on the tip of my tongue about no one being home and having to fish my key out of my overpacked backpack. But I’m brightened by this thought: there’s a wedding tonight for my home-stay cousin, and she has invited me personally. As my father follows me inside, I wonder why Mohammad was lingering in the stairwell, looking ridiculous in his suit; I’m accustomed to his pajama-thob. Khatm is rushing around the house in her fancy dress and heels; she greets me uncertainly, perhaps not expecting me home so early. Does she know I have a personal invitation from the bride, her niece, to attend? She pauses in my doorway, disappears, and appears a few minutes later with the phone, handing it to me. It’s her daughter, who offers a vague explanation about some car being broken down, and there’s no room for me. “Ma fi moushkileh (no problem),” I say, my heart sinking. And I had been practicing that crazy tongue-trill that Arabs do in celebrations. No dubqa dancing tonight.
“Sor-ry,” Khatm said, taking back the phone.
“Ma fi moushkileh…,” I say, admiring her dress.
“Biddik akl?” (Do you want food?), she asks.
“Oh, la, ma biddi ishi. (No, I don’t want anything).” Especially not coconuts. I think I’ve had my fill of those today.
I retreat to my bedroom, this paper looming large over me. Sitting at my desk, I stare at my newly arrived absentee ballot. Hmm, case study paper or ballot? Either way it’s about as tricky as a coconut.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
al-Badia part II: "This is living history."
Al-Badia, part II: “This is living history.”
“See that village, far to the left?” I’m not looking for the village, I’m clenching the dusty glass mango juice bottle in my hand, watching in my peripheral vision my backpack sitting on the rock several feet away from me, out of reach, wondering about many unrelated things like how to trim the string trailing from my abaya sleeve and the production of mango juice, yet in the back of my mind trying to remember the location of my phone inside that bag. “Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s in Jordan. See that village just beyond?” Go up this mountain. O.k., I’m on this mountain in the middle of nowhere; now how do I get out of this?
“Yes.”
“That is in Syria. That’s where we’re going.”
“Just to the border, you mean.” My guide hesitates dramatically. Does he think this is funny?
“Of course. But the border is still very dangerous.” Right. “Very dangerous”. My academic advisor said we could see the border if we wanted, that our families might even offer to take us since we live so close. My guide is trying to impress me.
“O.k., let’s go.”
*****
The front gates of the K through 12 school in Naefa, the previous day: my black abaya flaps and furls around me in the strong wind. I pull my hijab lower and invite myself inside. In the courtyard, around 20 children circle in play around two teachers, also in dark, billowing abayas, who turn in my direction. As I stride toward them, faces appear in the windows of the three, bleak, utilitarian, sun-bleached buildings, the separate buildings for girls and boys. “Hello! Hello!” Children push through doorways and open windows to see me. My disguise is worthless; they have spotted my foreignness from across the courtyard. After introducing myself to the two women, one who speaks English well shows me around the school. While many of the younger students greet me with enthusiasm and curiosity, many of the older students, perhaps weary of fasting at the end of Ramadan, greet me mechanically, reciting the Islamic welcome rehearsed for guests regarding me with a haggard, almost hostile, look. As I felt like my presence was disruptive to the school, I ducked in a seventh grade math class for a while; the girls were studying decimals with Arabic numbers (not Arabic numbers as we know them), and that old fear of being called on in math class fluttered in my stomach and rose up in my throat. Realizing some of the teachers and students thought I was a prospective teacher, I was terrified at the possibility of being asked to demonstrate my knowledge of math, even simple math, for the class, even more than I was terrified of demonstrating my lack of Arabic. Alhamduillah, my math skills were not solicited, but my interest in Jordan was. Why would anyone from America travel all the way to Jordan to study, the girls asked; everyone in Jordan wants to study in America, the teacher explained. The class seemed unconvinced by my explanation about thaqafa (culture); I suppose if I were in one of those stiff desks and uniforms in a dreary school in a bleak landscape I might be unconvinced, too, even if that (what seemed to me dreary and bleak) setting was all I ever knew. A bell rang; a girl, who I later learned was a relative of my Badia home-stay family, appeared in the doorway and reached up to my hand, intending to lead me the half mile back to my house. At all times I needed an escort; even my four year old host-brother was preferable to me walking alone. But maybe this was better, after all.
*****
The clerk puts his cigarette down beside the identification documents on the rickety table to motion “discretely” to me; his glittering eyes met those of the men huddled around him. I start to get up from my observation place on the stool, but he must think my movement is too conspicuous; he motions for me to stay. Sitting up tall to see past the crowd of Bedu at the counter, he spots the old man entering the post office; he turns to me and makes a motion like taking a photo with a camera. One of the post office employees leans in from the open office window behind me, startling me with his whisper. “You see that old man?” he asks rather slyly. The old man, with a leathery tanned face scrunched into so many wrinkles and squinting, perhaps unable to see clearly, shuffles toward the counter in dirty, wrinkled thob, assisted by several men from the crowd. “That ,” he says triumphantly, “is living history.” Truly, the man looks like a veteran of the Arab Revolt.
“Are you sure it’s o.k. if I take photographs?” I ask, knowing full well they all want me to photograph not just their respected elderly, but everything – livestock, homes, university diplomas, road signs, and each other posing with all of the above and more. One boy insisted I photograph him holding each of the family chickens in turn. With only my notebook and pen in hand, I might be an unwelcome government worker; raising my camera to my face, several in the crowd straighten up and stare confidently into the lens. I wonder how and when the residents of al-Badia came to revere the camera, the photographer, and the photograph. Perhaps the photograph is a medium they can see and discuss in an oral culture, unlike handwritten notes. Despite being a woman and a student, the camera endowed me with access and authority among the Bedu which was unparalleled (and perhaps unnecessary) in Amman.
I perched on my stool, holding my camera up long after I had finished documenting the scene only to appease the eager post office employees and visitors. It wasn’t until I was leaving that the system was explained (or attempted at least) to me as a sort of welfare program. Before stepping back into the hot wind, I lingered for a moment, inwardly delighted at the abundance of red and white checkered kofiyahs (head-scarves) of the men and the facial tattoos of the old women. This was al-Badia.
*****
“Over that way…boom!” My guide chuckled, pointing to the area surrounding this snaking dirt road in the desert. Maybe it was dangerous, but my Academic Advisor had said it was fine to visit the border as long as we didn’t cross it. I checked my cellphone to ensure I hadn’t received a “welcome to Syria” message as I had received a “welcome to Palestine” when passing the Dead Sea several weeks prior.
“Uh huh, land mines?” I asked skeptically, though I had heard something about livestock wandering into the no man’s land between Jordan and Syria and meeting their demise, not in the traditional mansef dish but by stepping on explosive devices. But maybe that was a rumor. The car crept to a standstill, engine rumbling. We leaned forward into the dashboard and stared through the windshield at the red, rocky landscape before us, and beyond that, the lone guard tower. The land between us and the guard tower and the land beyond that looked no different; no lines in the sand, no fences, no ominous warning signs, only the guard tower rippling in the heat. And was life so different ten, twenty kilometers beyond? From the mountain’s viewpoint earlier that day, nothing had separated the two countries; somehow I still subconsciously expected black lines as on a map to appear on the landscape. In that moment and in the days after that, I began to understand the concept of nation-states as “imagined communities”; borders signify everything and nothing. After some moments, we turned the car around and headed back to Naefa. It was not the end of my story in al-Badia or Jordan, but that chapter in al-Badia remains unfinished. The possible conclusions are endless.
“See that village, far to the left?” I’m not looking for the village, I’m clenching the dusty glass mango juice bottle in my hand, watching in my peripheral vision my backpack sitting on the rock several feet away from me, out of reach, wondering about many unrelated things like how to trim the string trailing from my abaya sleeve and the production of mango juice, yet in the back of my mind trying to remember the location of my phone inside that bag. “Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s in Jordan. See that village just beyond?” Go up this mountain. O.k., I’m on this mountain in the middle of nowhere; now how do I get out of this?
“Yes.”
“That is in Syria. That’s where we’re going.”
“Just to the border, you mean.” My guide hesitates dramatically. Does he think this is funny?
“Of course. But the border is still very dangerous.” Right. “Very dangerous”. My academic advisor said we could see the border if we wanted, that our families might even offer to take us since we live so close. My guide is trying to impress me.
“O.k., let’s go.”
*****
The front gates of the K through 12 school in Naefa, the previous day: my black abaya flaps and furls around me in the strong wind. I pull my hijab lower and invite myself inside. In the courtyard, around 20 children circle in play around two teachers, also in dark, billowing abayas, who turn in my direction. As I stride toward them, faces appear in the windows of the three, bleak, utilitarian, sun-bleached buildings, the separate buildings for girls and boys. “Hello! Hello!” Children push through doorways and open windows to see me. My disguise is worthless; they have spotted my foreignness from across the courtyard. After introducing myself to the two women, one who speaks English well shows me around the school. While many of the younger students greet me with enthusiasm and curiosity, many of the older students, perhaps weary of fasting at the end of Ramadan, greet me mechanically, reciting the Islamic welcome rehearsed for guests regarding me with a haggard, almost hostile, look. As I felt like my presence was disruptive to the school, I ducked in a seventh grade math class for a while; the girls were studying decimals with Arabic numbers (not Arabic numbers as we know them), and that old fear of being called on in math class fluttered in my stomach and rose up in my throat. Realizing some of the teachers and students thought I was a prospective teacher, I was terrified at the possibility of being asked to demonstrate my knowledge of math, even simple math, for the class, even more than I was terrified of demonstrating my lack of Arabic. Alhamduillah, my math skills were not solicited, but my interest in Jordan was. Why would anyone from America travel all the way to Jordan to study, the girls asked; everyone in Jordan wants to study in America, the teacher explained. The class seemed unconvinced by my explanation about thaqafa (culture); I suppose if I were in one of those stiff desks and uniforms in a dreary school in a bleak landscape I might be unconvinced, too, even if that (what seemed to me dreary and bleak) setting was all I ever knew. A bell rang; a girl, who I later learned was a relative of my Badia home-stay family, appeared in the doorway and reached up to my hand, intending to lead me the half mile back to my house. At all times I needed an escort; even my four year old host-brother was preferable to me walking alone. But maybe this was better, after all.
*****
The clerk puts his cigarette down beside the identification documents on the rickety table to motion “discretely” to me; his glittering eyes met those of the men huddled around him. I start to get up from my observation place on the stool, but he must think my movement is too conspicuous; he motions for me to stay. Sitting up tall to see past the crowd of Bedu at the counter, he spots the old man entering the post office; he turns to me and makes a motion like taking a photo with a camera. One of the post office employees leans in from the open office window behind me, startling me with his whisper. “You see that old man?” he asks rather slyly. The old man, with a leathery tanned face scrunched into so many wrinkles and squinting, perhaps unable to see clearly, shuffles toward the counter in dirty, wrinkled thob, assisted by several men from the crowd. “That ,” he says triumphantly, “is living history.” Truly, the man looks like a veteran of the Arab Revolt.
“Are you sure it’s o.k. if I take photographs?” I ask, knowing full well they all want me to photograph not just their respected elderly, but everything – livestock, homes, university diplomas, road signs, and each other posing with all of the above and more. One boy insisted I photograph him holding each of the family chickens in turn. With only my notebook and pen in hand, I might be an unwelcome government worker; raising my camera to my face, several in the crowd straighten up and stare confidently into the lens. I wonder how and when the residents of al-Badia came to revere the camera, the photographer, and the photograph. Perhaps the photograph is a medium they can see and discuss in an oral culture, unlike handwritten notes. Despite being a woman and a student, the camera endowed me with access and authority among the Bedu which was unparalleled (and perhaps unnecessary) in Amman.
I perched on my stool, holding my camera up long after I had finished documenting the scene only to appease the eager post office employees and visitors. It wasn’t until I was leaving that the system was explained (or attempted at least) to me as a sort of welfare program. Before stepping back into the hot wind, I lingered for a moment, inwardly delighted at the abundance of red and white checkered kofiyahs (head-scarves) of the men and the facial tattoos of the old women. This was al-Badia.
*****
“Over that way…boom!” My guide chuckled, pointing to the area surrounding this snaking dirt road in the desert. Maybe it was dangerous, but my Academic Advisor had said it was fine to visit the border as long as we didn’t cross it. I checked my cellphone to ensure I hadn’t received a “welcome to Syria” message as I had received a “welcome to Palestine” when passing the Dead Sea several weeks prior.
“Uh huh, land mines?” I asked skeptically, though I had heard something about livestock wandering into the no man’s land between Jordan and Syria and meeting their demise, not in the traditional mansef dish but by stepping on explosive devices. But maybe that was a rumor. The car crept to a standstill, engine rumbling. We leaned forward into the dashboard and stared through the windshield at the red, rocky landscape before us, and beyond that, the lone guard tower. The land between us and the guard tower and the land beyond that looked no different; no lines in the sand, no fences, no ominous warning signs, only the guard tower rippling in the heat. And was life so different ten, twenty kilometers beyond? From the mountain’s viewpoint earlier that day, nothing had separated the two countries; somehow I still subconsciously expected black lines as on a map to appear on the landscape. In that moment and in the days after that, I began to understand the concept of nation-states as “imagined communities”; borders signify everything and nothing. After some moments, we turned the car around and headed back to Naefa. It was not the end of my story in al-Badia or Jordan, but that chapter in al-Badia remains unfinished. The possible conclusions are endless.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
"It's hard to unlearn."
13 October 2008
“It’s hard to unlearn.”
“Squinting hard through my smudgy, cheap-seat window, Cairo began to emerge from the dark; a vast ocean of light spread across a milk-chocolate landscape. The desert gave way to gathering assembly of low-lying buildings and the city grew in dimension, seemingly chasing the snaking green Nile…”
– from http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelstories/article/myfirst24hourscairo_0307#
I look up from the paper in my hand as one of my teachers explains, “It’s hard to unlearn traveler’s discourse.” My academic director has passed around the above excerpt called “My First 24 Hours: Cairo” from Lonely Planet’s travel stories. Does this sort of thinking (Eurocentric-here’s what happened to me in the exotic East) creep into my blog writing? I haven’t updated my blog in a while, and I’m already overwhelmed with somehow conveying al-Badia and Mesr (Egypt) to you – especially Mesr with all its romanticized, ancient Egypt discourse.
Only travelers who cannot see past the dirty surface squint through “cheap-seat” windows and imagine that the city emerges from “the dark”; the only troublesome darkness in Cairo is our ignorance about it and the rest of Africa and the Middle East, that lingering idea of the “dark continent” in Western consciousness. No oceans of light threaten confectionary landscapes, as tasty as a chocolate desert would be. Only tourists passing through a city feel that it grows in dimension to the point of bewilderment; for those who linger, whether as traveler-wanderers or as residents, the city does not expand but implodes, reemerging, recreating Cairo again and again, full of color and light – overpopulated and polluted at 25 million people on 4% of the land, yes – but full of life. Egypt is “Umm al-Dunia”, the “Mother of Life” in the Middle East for those who will rest on her lap and listen to her teachings. Only Orientalists chase after mysterious green snakes; the wanderer and student of Umm al-Dunia drifts down the gentle river in a faluka with no destination, nothing specific to see as mandated by a travel guide book, but everything to observe. We can leave the cultural dissection to the Egyptologists and “pyramidiots” who wish to embalm “ancient Egypt” and bury with it any hope of understanding the process of modernization in Egypt. So if you were anticipating tales of a snaking green Nile, of mummies in museums, of sheesha and sufi mystics, of bartering and of belly-dancers, then you had better read some other blog. (For those interested, I recommend the ethnography Pyramids and Nightclubs about tourism in Egypt.) And yes, I finally rode a camel.
*****
After Cairo, Amman suddenly seemed small, slow and familiar; we traveled the same route from the airport to Abdoun as we had over one month ago. I recalled some of the thoughts, hopes and apprehensions of that night; the desert lay just beyond the reach of the street lamps streaming past in golden, dreamy hues. The chilly air poured in through the taxi windows on the way home; it was far too late to call anyone. As I fumbled with the key in the keyhole, I realized the family set of keys was inserted in the other side, blocking my key; no one was expecting me at 1:30am. With no one lamenting my departure in Egypt and no one to welcome me home to Jordan, I felt displaced as I rang the doorbell to my own “home”. A few minutes later, I sat on my bed in my dark bedroom in Amman listening to the silence, and I began to process it all, mentally reaching out into the darkness as I had when I first dipped my fingertips into the murky Nile…
(More about al-Badia and Egypt to come tomorrow, inshallah.)
“It’s hard to unlearn.”
“Squinting hard through my smudgy, cheap-seat window, Cairo began to emerge from the dark; a vast ocean of light spread across a milk-chocolate landscape. The desert gave way to gathering assembly of low-lying buildings and the city grew in dimension, seemingly chasing the snaking green Nile…”
– from http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelstories/article/myfirst24hourscairo_0307#
I look up from the paper in my hand as one of my teachers explains, “It’s hard to unlearn traveler’s discourse.” My academic director has passed around the above excerpt called “My First 24 Hours: Cairo” from Lonely Planet’s travel stories. Does this sort of thinking (Eurocentric-here’s what happened to me in the exotic East) creep into my blog writing? I haven’t updated my blog in a while, and I’m already overwhelmed with somehow conveying al-Badia and Mesr (Egypt) to you – especially Mesr with all its romanticized, ancient Egypt discourse.
Only travelers who cannot see past the dirty surface squint through “cheap-seat” windows and imagine that the city emerges from “the dark”; the only troublesome darkness in Cairo is our ignorance about it and the rest of Africa and the Middle East, that lingering idea of the “dark continent” in Western consciousness. No oceans of light threaten confectionary landscapes, as tasty as a chocolate desert would be. Only tourists passing through a city feel that it grows in dimension to the point of bewilderment; for those who linger, whether as traveler-wanderers or as residents, the city does not expand but implodes, reemerging, recreating Cairo again and again, full of color and light – overpopulated and polluted at 25 million people on 4% of the land, yes – but full of life. Egypt is “Umm al-Dunia”, the “Mother of Life” in the Middle East for those who will rest on her lap and listen to her teachings. Only Orientalists chase after mysterious green snakes; the wanderer and student of Umm al-Dunia drifts down the gentle river in a faluka with no destination, nothing specific to see as mandated by a travel guide book, but everything to observe. We can leave the cultural dissection to the Egyptologists and “pyramidiots” who wish to embalm “ancient Egypt” and bury with it any hope of understanding the process of modernization in Egypt. So if you were anticipating tales of a snaking green Nile, of mummies in museums, of sheesha and sufi mystics, of bartering and of belly-dancers, then you had better read some other blog. (For those interested, I recommend the ethnography Pyramids and Nightclubs about tourism in Egypt.) And yes, I finally rode a camel.
*****
After Cairo, Amman suddenly seemed small, slow and familiar; we traveled the same route from the airport to Abdoun as we had over one month ago. I recalled some of the thoughts, hopes and apprehensions of that night; the desert lay just beyond the reach of the street lamps streaming past in golden, dreamy hues. The chilly air poured in through the taxi windows on the way home; it was far too late to call anyone. As I fumbled with the key in the keyhole, I realized the family set of keys was inserted in the other side, blocking my key; no one was expecting me at 1:30am. With no one lamenting my departure in Egypt and no one to welcome me home to Jordan, I felt displaced as I rang the doorbell to my own “home”. A few minutes later, I sat on my bed in my dark bedroom in Amman listening to the silence, and I began to process it all, mentally reaching out into the darkness as I had when I first dipped my fingertips into the murky Nile…
(More about al-Badia and Egypt to come tomorrow, inshallah.)
"You are Seeta. We give you the famous Bedu name."
12 October 2008 (with excerpts from 27 September 2008):
“You are Seeta. We give you the famous Bedu name.”
Al-Badia: the northern semi-desert land of the Bedu, the traditionally nomadic pastoralists of Jordan. In the early days of Transjordan, the Bedu filled the ranks of the Desert or “Arab” Army as T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) dubbed it, and to this day, Bedu dominate the armed forces. Attempts to settle them within the emerging nation-state have been long and largely avoided, as most Bedu, even those with substantial homes, continue to pitch their tents beside the house and occasionally move them with the sheep and seasons. No land is private land; even in Amman livestock occasionally graze on the hillside next to my apartment complex. Theirs was a beautiful, windswept plain dotted with rocks, shrubs, livestock, and tents – literally “houses of hair” in Arabic; beyond a horizon extended far and blue toward Syria in the north and Iraq in the northeast. Romanticizing about the freedom and nobility of the nomadic life, with its open spaces and fresh air away from Amman, was inevitable; reconciling this beauty with the despair of poverty and the lack of development in the region proved far more difficult, especially when compounded with my sickness and harassment (subjects on which I will not elaborate here).
The following excerpt is from my field notes. In the Badia I lived for three days in a village called Naefa in a fairly "modern" home with a family of five - a husband and wife with three boys ages 2 to 6 - but even in their seemingly modernized life I saw much of the traditional Badia I was I told to expect. I have so much I could share with you, but something about these observations concerning the conservation of resources and the maintenance of the household are a good summary of the sort of activities to which I (as a woman) was confined the first two days:
“…'My wife, she clean the house today,’ began my Badia home-stay father. I was taken aback that he spoke English; he broke my awkward silence: ‘You help.’ Thus, I quite literally stepped off the bus in Naefa and onto the inch-thick coating of soapy water in Umm Hashem’s house, looking back at Rob [another SIT student placed in a home-stay in the same village] who was standing hesitantly on the landing. I looked back at him with a mixture of amusement and despair. Was this going to be my Badia experience – sick and scrubbing floors…?
Now that I reflect, I see that I had the opportunity today not only to observe the maintenance of home and family, but also to participate as a fellow cleaner. I have never seen water so deftly used…when I’ve observed my Amman home being cleaned, the work is done, about ninety percent of the time, by the family maid who uses primarily a damp wipe to quickly swipe surfaces with some mixture of cleaning products in original containers. The furniture is rarely moved...here Umm Hashem entirely unassembled the floor furniture (cushions and pillows) and systematically moved from room to room…using a recycled bucket, Umm Hashem splashed water with a flick of her wrist into the corners of the room, filling the windowsills, and splashing the doors – all with a certain precision, directing the water from one end of the room with a floor sponge, moving it into the hallway and into the next room to be cleaned.
I stood in the soapy water, the hem of my abaya soaked, struggling to follow Umm Hashem’s rapid, guttural Arabic. Is this even Arabic? When Umm Hashem pointed to my abaya, saying “helua, bas…”, I scampered into the bedroom and changed into pants and shirt…Umm Hashem placed the floor tool in my hand and gestured to the hallway. As I fumbled with the cleaning, I realized I’d had this misconception that the traditional abaya was worn at all times in a society too simple to have different clothes for cleaning, that all the women probably wore the abaya and hijab at all times. But in the freedom of her home, Umm Hashem wore rolled up sweat pants, a t-shirt and no scarf. She approved of me doing the same, and I felt somewhat scandalous without my abaya and hijab…
As I waded through the soapy mess, wearing Abu Hashem’s cumbersome house slippers, Umm Hashem directed me to a back patio…the uneven tile on the back patio allowed water to collect, making “sweeping” water off difficult. Thinking the cleanliness of this back patio to be insignificant, I gave it a few broad strokes and returned to Umm Hashem. She peered out the window in the back door, laughing and shaking her head. “Moush qweyes (not good) ?” I asked.
“La, kul mayyeh (no, all the water),” she said, returning to her work inside. So I “swept” it again, only to have her come behind me with her rapid, precise strokes, leaving me wondering why anyone would be so concerned about the cleanliness of a back patio. (As I later observed, it was the main reception area for evening iftar or coffee guests, and the indoor cushions were placed directly on this surface, as was the food. In the Badia, as is the tradition, Bedu eat on a mat or blanket on the floor from communal dishes without utensils.) All the while Umm Hashem deftly fielded her three rowdy boys aged 2 to 6 as they interrupted her work with requests and complaints; I watched her with a mixture of appreciation for the versatility of space and conversation of resources and of sadness for the way her days seemed dominated by domestic duties leaving her hands rough, especially after observing how she more or less collapsed onto a cushion after our several hours of cleaning and cooking [she later asked me if I had any lotion and sorted through my toiletries with great interest]...I was feeling feverish and dropped onto a nearby cushion.”
It wasn’t until after my sickness improved on the third day that I, in my abaya and hijab, boldly stepped out from our small doorway alone into the blinding, open space before me in a scene befitting John Ford a la Stagecoach (only in this case the cowboys were Bedu and the horses were camels, which much to my disappointment were not common in Naefa.) That was when the adventure, for better or worse, really began.
“You are Seeta. We give you the famous Bedu name.”
Al-Badia: the northern semi-desert land of the Bedu, the traditionally nomadic pastoralists of Jordan. In the early days of Transjordan, the Bedu filled the ranks of the Desert or “Arab” Army as T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) dubbed it, and to this day, Bedu dominate the armed forces. Attempts to settle them within the emerging nation-state have been long and largely avoided, as most Bedu, even those with substantial homes, continue to pitch their tents beside the house and occasionally move them with the sheep and seasons. No land is private land; even in Amman livestock occasionally graze on the hillside next to my apartment complex. Theirs was a beautiful, windswept plain dotted with rocks, shrubs, livestock, and tents – literally “houses of hair” in Arabic; beyond a horizon extended far and blue toward Syria in the north and Iraq in the northeast. Romanticizing about the freedom and nobility of the nomadic life, with its open spaces and fresh air away from Amman, was inevitable; reconciling this beauty with the despair of poverty and the lack of development in the region proved far more difficult, especially when compounded with my sickness and harassment (subjects on which I will not elaborate here).
The following excerpt is from my field notes. In the Badia I lived for three days in a village called Naefa in a fairly "modern" home with a family of five - a husband and wife with three boys ages 2 to 6 - but even in their seemingly modernized life I saw much of the traditional Badia I was I told to expect. I have so much I could share with you, but something about these observations concerning the conservation of resources and the maintenance of the household are a good summary of the sort of activities to which I (as a woman) was confined the first two days:
“…'My wife, she clean the house today,’ began my Badia home-stay father. I was taken aback that he spoke English; he broke my awkward silence: ‘You help.’ Thus, I quite literally stepped off the bus in Naefa and onto the inch-thick coating of soapy water in Umm Hashem’s house, looking back at Rob [another SIT student placed in a home-stay in the same village] who was standing hesitantly on the landing. I looked back at him with a mixture of amusement and despair. Was this going to be my Badia experience – sick and scrubbing floors…?
Now that I reflect, I see that I had the opportunity today not only to observe the maintenance of home and family, but also to participate as a fellow cleaner. I have never seen water so deftly used…when I’ve observed my Amman home being cleaned, the work is done, about ninety percent of the time, by the family maid who uses primarily a damp wipe to quickly swipe surfaces with some mixture of cleaning products in original containers. The furniture is rarely moved...here Umm Hashem entirely unassembled the floor furniture (cushions and pillows) and systematically moved from room to room…using a recycled bucket, Umm Hashem splashed water with a flick of her wrist into the corners of the room, filling the windowsills, and splashing the doors – all with a certain precision, directing the water from one end of the room with a floor sponge, moving it into the hallway and into the next room to be cleaned.
I stood in the soapy water, the hem of my abaya soaked, struggling to follow Umm Hashem’s rapid, guttural Arabic. Is this even Arabic? When Umm Hashem pointed to my abaya, saying “helua, bas…”, I scampered into the bedroom and changed into pants and shirt…Umm Hashem placed the floor tool in my hand and gestured to the hallway. As I fumbled with the cleaning, I realized I’d had this misconception that the traditional abaya was worn at all times in a society too simple to have different clothes for cleaning, that all the women probably wore the abaya and hijab at all times. But in the freedom of her home, Umm Hashem wore rolled up sweat pants, a t-shirt and no scarf. She approved of me doing the same, and I felt somewhat scandalous without my abaya and hijab…
As I waded through the soapy mess, wearing Abu Hashem’s cumbersome house slippers, Umm Hashem directed me to a back patio…the uneven tile on the back patio allowed water to collect, making “sweeping” water off difficult. Thinking the cleanliness of this back patio to be insignificant, I gave it a few broad strokes and returned to Umm Hashem. She peered out the window in the back door, laughing and shaking her head. “Moush qweyes (not good) ?” I asked.
“La, kul mayyeh (no, all the water),” she said, returning to her work inside. So I “swept” it again, only to have her come behind me with her rapid, precise strokes, leaving me wondering why anyone would be so concerned about the cleanliness of a back patio. (As I later observed, it was the main reception area for evening iftar or coffee guests, and the indoor cushions were placed directly on this surface, as was the food. In the Badia, as is the tradition, Bedu eat on a mat or blanket on the floor from communal dishes without utensils.) All the while Umm Hashem deftly fielded her three rowdy boys aged 2 to 6 as they interrupted her work with requests and complaints; I watched her with a mixture of appreciation for the versatility of space and conversation of resources and of sadness for the way her days seemed dominated by domestic duties leaving her hands rough, especially after observing how she more or less collapsed onto a cushion after our several hours of cleaning and cooking [she later asked me if I had any lotion and sorted through my toiletries with great interest]...I was feeling feverish and dropped onto a nearby cushion.”
It wasn’t until after my sickness improved on the third day that I, in my abaya and hijab, boldly stepped out from our small doorway alone into the blinding, open space before me in a scene befitting John Ford a la Stagecoach (only in this case the cowboys were Bedu and the horses were camels, which much to my disappointment were not common in Naefa.) That was when the adventure, for better or worse, really began.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Badia Bound
Just a note to apologize for being behind on blog entries. I’ve been sick and busy with school-work, but I hope to have more to offer when I return from three days in al-Badia (the northern desert where the formerly tent-dwelling, nomadic-pastoralist Bedu live). Starting today, I’ll be chilling (more like roasting) with some Bedouins for the next couple of days, and I’m sure I’ll have stories to share. After that comes Eid, the holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan (alhamdulillah), the return to Ammanand then Egypt for a week. Yalla!
"You look good in hijab."
25 September 2008
“You look good in hijab.”
“Allahu-akbar.” The imam’s voice crackled over the static-filled speakers posted in the two corner’s of the room. Like a wave rippling through the heavy silence, the ten rows of abayas swept outward and down in unison, creating a rush of cool air which met my upturned curious face framed in an awkward hijab. As they knelt, I wriggled my bare toes deeper in the thick, plush carpet of the mosque and studied Khulood, my Arabic teacher, as she prayed. A couple of younger girls in abayas wearing fluorescent yellow vests identifying them as volunteers patrolled the mosque with cups of water; one of them spotted us lingering in the back of the mosque. “Are you Muslims? No? Have these books.” The Veil is My Life and Myths about Islam.
“Shukran.” We three students accepted the pamphlets and nodded as the girls told us they would be happy to talk with us about Islam. As some of the women were finishing their prayers, they stole glances at the quiet conversation behind them. My hair was falling out of the veil; I could see their lips moving, saying “haram (forbidden)”, yet for some of the women it was endearing. Obviously I didn’t know how to wear hijab or behave in a mosque.
Khulood, refreshed and calm after her prayers and smiling as always, returned to us. “My dears,” she began in her usual way, “now I will explain the prayers to you in English.” As Khulood spoke, a stream of women passed by, some lingering with glances hostile or curious, some introducing themselves and patting our hands, some greeting Khulood; on the whole, I felt more welcomed in the mosque than I have in many a church in America. Several women inquired if we were married or might be interested in their sons. As Khulood explained the prayers, I stared at the speakers in the corners, wondering what was transpiring in the men’s section of the mosque while we women sat in a circle in the basement. I looked again to the doorway I had entered earlier. On the pavement outside were spread several prayer rugs and a few dozen women who for various reasons had chosen to stay outside or were forbidden to enter the mosque; several appeared to be domestic workers from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Yet despite my disappointment at the segregation within and without the mosque, I appreciated how the women controlled their sphere – how they interacted as boldly as men, negotiated space and time with one another (arranging visits, shopping excursions, discussing the latest developments in a Syrian soap opera), and seemed content with always being “behind the men” insofar as that refers only to physically praying behind the men; in all other domains they considered themselves equals, free in their own sphere to disregard any and all things male.
*****
“I feel like I’m being secluded in the harem,” I said, scraping the last of the rice off my plate. Julia, a fellow SIT student, laughed. Suddenly the door to my bedroom flew open; a boy stood, mouth agape, in the doorway. Another hand appeared from around the corner and quickly shut the door.
“Some water would be nice,” Julia said as she picked around the scraps of meat soaking in a hot yogurt sauce. Together we stared at the empty rice plate and the unappetizing chunk of meat in the sauce.
“So it looks like I ate the meat,” I said, grabbing some bones off Julia’s plate to put on my own.
“Hey, I earned those bones. You owe me a dessert next time I’m too full to eat it,” she retorted. We sat in silence for a minute, reflecting on the prospect of dessert tonight. “Well, that’s that,” Julia concluded, seeking closure for a most unsatisfactory meal. Suddenly the door flew open again, this time revealing a woman and several small children, with my host mother hovering behind them. Julia and I stood up hesitantly, expecting an introduction, but the strange woman lingered outside the doorway, staring at us as if we were intruders in this space.
“Uh, sor-ry,” Khatm said as she pushed past the kids and our makeshift dinner table; one boy clinging to his mother’s abaya was studying me with the mischevious, self-satisfied look of a bully. I frowned back of him, half-serious. Khatm reached her destination: the new curtains in the room. (Only today did I learn the fate of the previous curtains; the former “dumb Indonesian maid” as the kids explained to me, scorched them with a clothes iron.) The women and children also pushed past to examine them, leaving Julia and myself standing, alternately looking at the huddle by the curtains, the hunk of boney meat steeping in yogurt sauce, and each other. The family members left as quickly as they came, shutting the door firmly; the last I saw was the bully’s face. I stuck my tongue out at him as he disappeared behind the door. We were secluded in my room because of visiting male relatives who expressed abhorrence of strange females, especially foreign ones without hijab. I was having a field-day with fieldnotes, scribbling away about the situation half-amused, half-annoyed. Julia flipped a particularly offensive piece of meat over in the bowl. The twelve kids in the adjoining room screamed in unison; some glass shattered.
“Well, that’s that,” she mused as she opened Jimmy Carter’s Peace Not Apartheid.
*****
Hebb pulled the hijab snugly over my head. Umm Saed, her mother, turned my shoulders so she could see me, chattering approvingly. “My mother says you look good in hijab.” I stared at myself in the mirror. I’m wearing an oversized sock on my head…but I like it. “Aw, Elaine,” Hebb lamented. My fellow SIT student was lost somewhere in her oversized head-scarf.
“Don’t poke me with that pen,” Elaine warned. She held her hands up protectively, overly-concerned about the securing pin.
“Don’t you know, that’s why they call it hi-jab…jab…” I joked with her. She was unimpressed and undeterred in her concern. Elaine’s host mother secured the scarf and spun her to face the mirror.
An hour later as we leaned against the third-floor railing in the multi-level shopping mall, Elaine and I observed the hijabs passing us. “Look, that girl has matched her yellow and red tennis shoes to her hijab,” Elaine pointed out. Some were simple, solid two piece ones, rather sock-like, as I wore; most were scarves. In this modern shopping mall, the hijab was a fashion statement: brightly colored and textured fabrics, complexly knotted and twisted, secured with rhinestone pins – an accessory to the chic outfits most young women wore.
“I don’t feel like people stare at me any less, though,” I said to Elaine I adjusted the itchy hijab.
“I’m definitely being stared at,” said Elaine as she checked to see if anyone nearby was currently staring at her.
“Maybe because a Taiwanese girl in hijab in Jordan is pretty strange,” I suggested. Depending on the context, the hijab can mean many things: identity, a fashion statement, modesty, and in some cases oppression. Whereas I felt more oppressed without hijab and secluded in my room when male guests visit the family, I felt liberated walking around the mall in hijab. When we finally retired for bed around 2 am after a crazy night of Ramadan shopping (think of black Friday after Thanksgiving), I reached up to remove my glasses and my hand brushed against the fabric. I had forgotten I was wearing it, which I think, is how it should be.
“You look good in hijab.”
“Allahu-akbar.” The imam’s voice crackled over the static-filled speakers posted in the two corner’s of the room. Like a wave rippling through the heavy silence, the ten rows of abayas swept outward and down in unison, creating a rush of cool air which met my upturned curious face framed in an awkward hijab. As they knelt, I wriggled my bare toes deeper in the thick, plush carpet of the mosque and studied Khulood, my Arabic teacher, as she prayed. A couple of younger girls in abayas wearing fluorescent yellow vests identifying them as volunteers patrolled the mosque with cups of water; one of them spotted us lingering in the back of the mosque. “Are you Muslims? No? Have these books.” The Veil is My Life and Myths about Islam.
“Shukran.” We three students accepted the pamphlets and nodded as the girls told us they would be happy to talk with us about Islam. As some of the women were finishing their prayers, they stole glances at the quiet conversation behind them. My hair was falling out of the veil; I could see their lips moving, saying “haram (forbidden)”, yet for some of the women it was endearing. Obviously I didn’t know how to wear hijab or behave in a mosque.
Khulood, refreshed and calm after her prayers and smiling as always, returned to us. “My dears,” she began in her usual way, “now I will explain the prayers to you in English.” As Khulood spoke, a stream of women passed by, some lingering with glances hostile or curious, some introducing themselves and patting our hands, some greeting Khulood; on the whole, I felt more welcomed in the mosque than I have in many a church in America. Several women inquired if we were married or might be interested in their sons. As Khulood explained the prayers, I stared at the speakers in the corners, wondering what was transpiring in the men’s section of the mosque while we women sat in a circle in the basement. I looked again to the doorway I had entered earlier. On the pavement outside were spread several prayer rugs and a few dozen women who for various reasons had chosen to stay outside or were forbidden to enter the mosque; several appeared to be domestic workers from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Yet despite my disappointment at the segregation within and without the mosque, I appreciated how the women controlled their sphere – how they interacted as boldly as men, negotiated space and time with one another (arranging visits, shopping excursions, discussing the latest developments in a Syrian soap opera), and seemed content with always being “behind the men” insofar as that refers only to physically praying behind the men; in all other domains they considered themselves equals, free in their own sphere to disregard any and all things male.
*****
“I feel like I’m being secluded in the harem,” I said, scraping the last of the rice off my plate. Julia, a fellow SIT student, laughed. Suddenly the door to my bedroom flew open; a boy stood, mouth agape, in the doorway. Another hand appeared from around the corner and quickly shut the door.
“Some water would be nice,” Julia said as she picked around the scraps of meat soaking in a hot yogurt sauce. Together we stared at the empty rice plate and the unappetizing chunk of meat in the sauce.
“So it looks like I ate the meat,” I said, grabbing some bones off Julia’s plate to put on my own.
“Hey, I earned those bones. You owe me a dessert next time I’m too full to eat it,” she retorted. We sat in silence for a minute, reflecting on the prospect of dessert tonight. “Well, that’s that,” Julia concluded, seeking closure for a most unsatisfactory meal. Suddenly the door flew open again, this time revealing a woman and several small children, with my host mother hovering behind them. Julia and I stood up hesitantly, expecting an introduction, but the strange woman lingered outside the doorway, staring at us as if we were intruders in this space.
“Uh, sor-ry,” Khatm said as she pushed past the kids and our makeshift dinner table; one boy clinging to his mother’s abaya was studying me with the mischevious, self-satisfied look of a bully. I frowned back of him, half-serious. Khatm reached her destination: the new curtains in the room. (Only today did I learn the fate of the previous curtains; the former “dumb Indonesian maid” as the kids explained to me, scorched them with a clothes iron.) The women and children also pushed past to examine them, leaving Julia and myself standing, alternately looking at the huddle by the curtains, the hunk of boney meat steeping in yogurt sauce, and each other. The family members left as quickly as they came, shutting the door firmly; the last I saw was the bully’s face. I stuck my tongue out at him as he disappeared behind the door. We were secluded in my room because of visiting male relatives who expressed abhorrence of strange females, especially foreign ones without hijab. I was having a field-day with fieldnotes, scribbling away about the situation half-amused, half-annoyed. Julia flipped a particularly offensive piece of meat over in the bowl. The twelve kids in the adjoining room screamed in unison; some glass shattered.
“Well, that’s that,” she mused as she opened Jimmy Carter’s Peace Not Apartheid.
*****
Hebb pulled the hijab snugly over my head. Umm Saed, her mother, turned my shoulders so she could see me, chattering approvingly. “My mother says you look good in hijab.” I stared at myself in the mirror. I’m wearing an oversized sock on my head…but I like it. “Aw, Elaine,” Hebb lamented. My fellow SIT student was lost somewhere in her oversized head-scarf.
“Don’t poke me with that pen,” Elaine warned. She held her hands up protectively, overly-concerned about the securing pin.
“Don’t you know, that’s why they call it hi-jab…jab…” I joked with her. She was unimpressed and undeterred in her concern. Elaine’s host mother secured the scarf and spun her to face the mirror.
An hour later as we leaned against the third-floor railing in the multi-level shopping mall, Elaine and I observed the hijabs passing us. “Look, that girl has matched her yellow and red tennis shoes to her hijab,” Elaine pointed out. Some were simple, solid two piece ones, rather sock-like, as I wore; most were scarves. In this modern shopping mall, the hijab was a fashion statement: brightly colored and textured fabrics, complexly knotted and twisted, secured with rhinestone pins – an accessory to the chic outfits most young women wore.
“I don’t feel like people stare at me any less, though,” I said to Elaine I adjusted the itchy hijab.
“I’m definitely being stared at,” said Elaine as she checked to see if anyone nearby was currently staring at her.
“Maybe because a Taiwanese girl in hijab in Jordan is pretty strange,” I suggested. Depending on the context, the hijab can mean many things: identity, a fashion statement, modesty, and in some cases oppression. Whereas I felt more oppressed without hijab and secluded in my room when male guests visit the family, I felt liberated walking around the mall in hijab. When we finally retired for bed around 2 am after a crazy night of Ramadan shopping (think of black Friday after Thanksgiving), I reached up to remove my glasses and my hand brushed against the fabric. I had forgotten I was wearing it, which I think, is how it should be.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
"Give us this day our daily bread."
18 September 2008
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
The sun-bleached, utilitarian flats and businesses of Amman boil and bubble, sliding past like mercury on my taxi window. I’m oblivious to this urban mirage as the taxi speeds toward my home in Dahiat al-Rasheed, but the taxi isn’t getting there fast enough. All I can think of, the thought that has haunted me all day long while I’ve been plowing through Arabic classes and seminars, is that I have half a pita hidden in my clothes closet, and I can’t figure out how to dispose of it. The fate of that pita influenced my life so much in the past week that it’s tale merits the telling:
The pita originated in any of the dozens of bakeries around Amman and found its way into the family refrigerator where it became stale and slightly molded before being offered to me upon embarking for a last weekend’s trip to Madaba. I graciously accepted this offering, thinking then that I fully understood the importance of bread in Arab culture – i.e., not to be wasted within what I considered “reason”. While en route to Madba, the pita became increasingly inedible having become smashed and shattered in the bottom of my overstuffed backpack; needless to say, it was not consumed and returned home in shards in its plastic bag. Not wanting the family to think I had wasted it, but knowing that my trash is inspected as it is sorted through and disposed of, I couldn’t throw it in my garbage can; I couldn’t throw it out my window where it would land on the street directly below, incriminating me (were it still one piece, I could have tossed it, Frisbee-like, to the nearby field where the Bedu would bring their hungry goats in a day or two and eat the evidence. So I shoved it under one of my sweaters, until a couple of days later when I decided that finding some pretext to dispose of it in a public garbage bin would be too much trouble (disposing of it SIT’s building might have been o.k., but I didn’t think of that). Furtively opening my little garbage can, I buried it in a heap of facial tissues (I’ve had a cold this week) hoping it would make it to the dumpster outside undiscovered. How horrified my expression must have been when (after finding my trash can empty and assuming that my pita had found rest in its moldy grave) I casually opened the refrigerator the next day to find it shamelessly sitting on a plate. To my amazement, the family later seared the pita on the gas stove-top to clear away the mold and crumbled the cleansed bread as croutons in the fatoosh (salad).
In semitic cultures, bread or khobez is often synonymous with life (does “bread of life” sound familiar?); it represents the fundamental portion of space and food that the Creator gives each person. Wasting any of this portion of grace is a blatant disrespect for not only what one has been given, but also is considered stealing from one’s neighbor (by wasting resources that could have been used by another). No matter how mangled, the bread (or its remains) will either find its reconstituted way into some dish or will be fed to animals. Now I see that the thing to do would be to have returned the bread to the fridge. When I realized the family was no longer offering me bread, I began seeking ways to offer restitution for my cultural faux pas. Earlier this week, I had purchased some sketching supplies at the Jordan University bookstore, and I spent some time sketching one of Dunia’s (my host Mom’s daughter) four children. The family loved it, and thereafter I offered some basic drawing instruction to the two girls, followed by help with math homework. In exchange, they are giving me extra Arabic study at home by allowing me to complete the younger kids’ Arabic homework alongside them. As Yusuf played at my feet and the girls cozied up next to me on the sofa, I saw that the adults were talking quietly and watching the scene with nods of approval. Before returning to Dunia’s home, the kids begged for me to spend the night with them this weekend, and Khatm (my host mom) nodded and smiled, grasping my hands exuberantly. Although all worked together for my good, I don’t think I’ll ever waste a crumb of bread again.
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
The sun-bleached, utilitarian flats and businesses of Amman boil and bubble, sliding past like mercury on my taxi window. I’m oblivious to this urban mirage as the taxi speeds toward my home in Dahiat al-Rasheed, but the taxi isn’t getting there fast enough. All I can think of, the thought that has haunted me all day long while I’ve been plowing through Arabic classes and seminars, is that I have half a pita hidden in my clothes closet, and I can’t figure out how to dispose of it. The fate of that pita influenced my life so much in the past week that it’s tale merits the telling:
The pita originated in any of the dozens of bakeries around Amman and found its way into the family refrigerator where it became stale and slightly molded before being offered to me upon embarking for a last weekend’s trip to Madaba. I graciously accepted this offering, thinking then that I fully understood the importance of bread in Arab culture – i.e., not to be wasted within what I considered “reason”. While en route to Madba, the pita became increasingly inedible having become smashed and shattered in the bottom of my overstuffed backpack; needless to say, it was not consumed and returned home in shards in its plastic bag. Not wanting the family to think I had wasted it, but knowing that my trash is inspected as it is sorted through and disposed of, I couldn’t throw it in my garbage can; I couldn’t throw it out my window where it would land on the street directly below, incriminating me (were it still one piece, I could have tossed it, Frisbee-like, to the nearby field where the Bedu would bring their hungry goats in a day or two and eat the evidence. So I shoved it under one of my sweaters, until a couple of days later when I decided that finding some pretext to dispose of it in a public garbage bin would be too much trouble (disposing of it SIT’s building might have been o.k., but I didn’t think of that). Furtively opening my little garbage can, I buried it in a heap of facial tissues (I’ve had a cold this week) hoping it would make it to the dumpster outside undiscovered. How horrified my expression must have been when (after finding my trash can empty and assuming that my pita had found rest in its moldy grave) I casually opened the refrigerator the next day to find it shamelessly sitting on a plate. To my amazement, the family later seared the pita on the gas stove-top to clear away the mold and crumbled the cleansed bread as croutons in the fatoosh (salad).
In semitic cultures, bread or khobez is often synonymous with life (does “bread of life” sound familiar?); it represents the fundamental portion of space and food that the Creator gives each person. Wasting any of this portion of grace is a blatant disrespect for not only what one has been given, but also is considered stealing from one’s neighbor (by wasting resources that could have been used by another). No matter how mangled, the bread (or its remains) will either find its reconstituted way into some dish or will be fed to animals. Now I see that the thing to do would be to have returned the bread to the fridge. When I realized the family was no longer offering me bread, I began seeking ways to offer restitution for my cultural faux pas. Earlier this week, I had purchased some sketching supplies at the Jordan University bookstore, and I spent some time sketching one of Dunia’s (my host Mom’s daughter) four children. The family loved it, and thereafter I offered some basic drawing instruction to the two girls, followed by help with math homework. In exchange, they are giving me extra Arabic study at home by allowing me to complete the younger kids’ Arabic homework alongside them. As Yusuf played at my feet and the girls cozied up next to me on the sofa, I saw that the adults were talking quietly and watching the scene with nods of approval. Before returning to Dunia’s home, the kids begged for me to spend the night with them this weekend, and Khatm (my host mom) nodded and smiled, grasping my hands exuberantly. Although all worked together for my good, I don’t think I’ll ever waste a crumb of bread again.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
"Go up this mountain."
13 September 2008
“Go up this mountain.”
There was a strange quiet on the summit of Mount Nebo, a stillness which settled across the beautifully desolate landscape and settled over me. As much as I tried to refrain from holy-land travelogue, I couldn’t help but think of all the biblical stories set in this barren expanse of rust-colored rubble and scrubby shrubs which meet the sky in a distant hazy horizon. Stillness. Toward Palestine, the Dead Sea, like a thin, silvery film, seemed applied to the landscape like a sticker, as if I could grasp it between my thumb and index finger and peel away this shrinking sea from a dry land. In this moment, all the biblical water-desert metaphors are realized for a girl who’s grown up in a lush, deciduous landscape.
*****
The Ma’in hot springs, an hour outside Madaba: Through the roar of thousands of gallons of water pouring over the cliff onto my head, I can still sense the stillness in the land. In this gorge with savage cliffs towering above me, I’m knee-deep in a steamy, mineral-rich hot springs, with natural saunas in the caves above streaked green, blue, yellow and white from the mineral deposits. A few friends and I have hired a van driver to take us along the winding highway along the cliffs of what was once called Moab to the deserted springs (deserted because of Ramadan and the heat – only four other tourists are there). The six of us are packed in the van’s only backseat, myself facing backwards and feeling increasingly dizzy from repeatedly watching bottomless ravines suddenly appear out my window and lurching every time the driver slows for a curve. Road signs read, “Reduce speed now.” The Dead Sea reappears on the horizon. Between my legs is my backpack still dusty from Mount Nebo. As I’m struggling now to even begin to describe to you the awesome beauty of this landscape, the best comparison I can come up with is the Western United States – seemingly desolate places like Death Valley and the Grand Canyon (you just have to look closely for the sparse wildlife). As the water pours over me, I imagine what discovering the springs after traveling for days across this wasteland would be like. No wonder the springs are ordinarily packed in this country with one of the worst water shortages in the world.
*****
Those high moments make the scene in front of me bearable: an almost bare mattress doused with sand and crowned with a boulder of a pillow; a broken fan (ironically labeled “high class fan” in English); a broken toilet, sink and pretty much everything else in this sketchy hostel. Of course it’s cheap, and the service isn’t that bad: a television in the lobby plays the best (and by best I mean worst) of American programming, and moldy cheese, dehydrated pita and a decent hardboiled egg on the house for breakfast. That and a complementary can of coke with straws fished out of the manager’s greasy shirt-pocket. A woman in a ragged nightshirt appears in the doorway bearing an old skeleton key. “ You like the room?” she chuckles deviously, exposing her dentist’s nightmare of a mouth. My immune system is definitely getting a workout this weekend.
About an hour southwest of Amman, Madaba is an early Christian community whose ancient churches boast mosaics – including the oldest and largest most comprehensive map of the Middle East - worth crashing in a sketchy hostel for a night. The town’s narrow streets brimming with stalls are pleasant to stroll through, and with Madaba as a base, one can visit Mount Nebo, Ma’in hot springs, and Bethany (home of the “baptism site”). We finished off our visit devouring the only meal of the day at the reputedly best local restaurant (why do I feel like I’m writing for a travel guide?). The air is thick and sweet with sheesha, the low rumbling of voices, warm, golden lights, and live music; we’re lounging on the floor pillows teaching Leith, our guide-friend-of-a-friend-of-an SIT student’s host brother, how to play Egyptian rat screw, which is, to his bewilderment, not an Egyptian card game. That I had an Arabic test the next morning, I successfully pushed to the back of my mind; Madaba deserved my full attention.
*****
“That very day the Lord spoke to Moses, ‘Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and view the land of Cannan, which I am giving to the people of Israel for a possession. And die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people, because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel. For you shall see the land before you, but you shall not go there, into the land that I am giving to the people of Israel.’” - Deuteronomy 32: 48 – 52.
“Go up this mountain.”
There was a strange quiet on the summit of Mount Nebo, a stillness which settled across the beautifully desolate landscape and settled over me. As much as I tried to refrain from holy-land travelogue, I couldn’t help but think of all the biblical stories set in this barren expanse of rust-colored rubble and scrubby shrubs which meet the sky in a distant hazy horizon. Stillness. Toward Palestine, the Dead Sea, like a thin, silvery film, seemed applied to the landscape like a sticker, as if I could grasp it between my thumb and index finger and peel away this shrinking sea from a dry land. In this moment, all the biblical water-desert metaphors are realized for a girl who’s grown up in a lush, deciduous landscape.
*****
The Ma’in hot springs, an hour outside Madaba: Through the roar of thousands of gallons of water pouring over the cliff onto my head, I can still sense the stillness in the land. In this gorge with savage cliffs towering above me, I’m knee-deep in a steamy, mineral-rich hot springs, with natural saunas in the caves above streaked green, blue, yellow and white from the mineral deposits. A few friends and I have hired a van driver to take us along the winding highway along the cliffs of what was once called Moab to the deserted springs (deserted because of Ramadan and the heat – only four other tourists are there). The six of us are packed in the van’s only backseat, myself facing backwards and feeling increasingly dizzy from repeatedly watching bottomless ravines suddenly appear out my window and lurching every time the driver slows for a curve. Road signs read, “Reduce speed now.” The Dead Sea reappears on the horizon. Between my legs is my backpack still dusty from Mount Nebo. As I’m struggling now to even begin to describe to you the awesome beauty of this landscape, the best comparison I can come up with is the Western United States – seemingly desolate places like Death Valley and the Grand Canyon (you just have to look closely for the sparse wildlife). As the water pours over me, I imagine what discovering the springs after traveling for days across this wasteland would be like. No wonder the springs are ordinarily packed in this country with one of the worst water shortages in the world.
*****
Those high moments make the scene in front of me bearable: an almost bare mattress doused with sand and crowned with a boulder of a pillow; a broken fan (ironically labeled “high class fan” in English); a broken toilet, sink and pretty much everything else in this sketchy hostel. Of course it’s cheap, and the service isn’t that bad: a television in the lobby plays the best (and by best I mean worst) of American programming, and moldy cheese, dehydrated pita and a decent hardboiled egg on the house for breakfast. That and a complementary can of coke with straws fished out of the manager’s greasy shirt-pocket. A woman in a ragged nightshirt appears in the doorway bearing an old skeleton key. “ You like the room?” she chuckles deviously, exposing her dentist’s nightmare of a mouth. My immune system is definitely getting a workout this weekend.
About an hour southwest of Amman, Madaba is an early Christian community whose ancient churches boast mosaics – including the oldest and largest most comprehensive map of the Middle East - worth crashing in a sketchy hostel for a night. The town’s narrow streets brimming with stalls are pleasant to stroll through, and with Madaba as a base, one can visit Mount Nebo, Ma’in hot springs, and Bethany (home of the “baptism site”). We finished off our visit devouring the only meal of the day at the reputedly best local restaurant (why do I feel like I’m writing for a travel guide?). The air is thick and sweet with sheesha, the low rumbling of voices, warm, golden lights, and live music; we’re lounging on the floor pillows teaching Leith, our guide-friend-of-a-friend-of-an SIT student’s host brother, how to play Egyptian rat screw, which is, to his bewilderment, not an Egyptian card game. That I had an Arabic test the next morning, I successfully pushed to the back of my mind; Madaba deserved my full attention.
*****
“That very day the Lord spoke to Moses, ‘Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and view the land of Cannan, which I am giving to the people of Israel for a possession. And die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people, because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel. For you shall see the land before you, but you shall not go there, into the land that I am giving to the people of Israel.’” - Deuteronomy 32: 48 – 52.
"Tomato, tomahto, potato, potahto"
12 September 2008
“Tomato, tomahto, potato, potahto”
“Chu-air.” Mohammad, my homestay father, has found my stack of flash cards and holds them up triumphantly. “Itfaddali (sit down).” I just woke up, are you kidding me? Can’t I eat in peace? I know he means well – is excited, really, to have learned all these new English words on my flash cards – and wants to help me learn Arabic. I’ve realized my homestay family, maybe Arabs in general, are fast auditory-learners, perhaps because of the oral tradition in their culture(s). My family only needs to hear the word once or twice and can recall it days later; I need days of hearing the word over and over to recall it, and preferably to write it myself. Mohammad thinks the flash cards are an auditory exercise and will not let me look at the Arabic script. “Chu-air,” he repeats, pointing to the corner-chair and holding the card away from me.
“Na’am, chair. Fi ‘arabi, kursi.”
“Qwayes, qwayes...” He turns to the next card in the deck, United Nations. His lips move slightly. “United States?”
“Le, United Nations.”
“Shu (what)?”
“Uh…moush baladi (not my country)…” Frowning, he discards it and moves on.
“Ah,” he exclaims as he points to the “tomato” card.
“Na’am, fi ‘arabi, bandorah.
“To-mah-to.”
“Le, fi engleezi, toe-may-toe,” I insist on this pronunciation. He reproaches me, tsking his tongue as if to chastise me for not knowing how to pronounce a word in my own language. “Le, to-mah-to,” he says.
“Le, fi britaniyah ‘to-mah-to’…fi amreeka, ‘toe-may-toe’,” I explain. He sighs and tsks his tongue at me again. I tease, saying “Toe-may-toe, to-mah-to, poe-tay-toe, po-tah-to”.
“Ah, moush po-tay-toe,” Mohammad shakes his finger. “Po-tah-to.”
*****
The 20JD bill in my extended hand flaps a bit in the stale breeze; the shop owner opposite looks askance at me with an unshaven, sun-baked face. “Uh…change?” I point to the register; I need to learn the word for “change”. He responds with a mostly toothless smirk. No one likes large bills, which is unfortunate since SIT gives us weekly stipends comprised of large bills like 20JDs and 50JDs (the largest). From my peripheral vision I watch the equally grizzled taxi driver who has been patiently waiting for his 1JD fare. “Uh…hamzeh, hamzeh…wahad.” The shop manager removes a greasy roll of bills from his pocket and fans them for me to see, smirking again.
Suddenly a harsh voice behind me asks, “Look here, what do you mean by ‘wahad’?” I whip my head toward the harsh voice. I hadn’t noticed this whittled-walking stick of an old woman leaning on the counter beside me, and I’m ashamed at the clarity of her English. What do you mean, ‘what do I mean by ‘wahad’’? It’s your language, not mine.
“I wanted bills in small amounts,” I say, not really looking at her, almost mumbling. She rapidly explains to the store owner, whom I suspect understood but was unwilling to relinquish the more coveted small bills in his hand. Like a few other store owners and customers I’ve encountered, she gives me a quick lesson in Jordanian currency. “Shukran,” I say quietly as I duck out of this hole-in-the-wall convenience store, shoving the fare and a generous tip into the hand of the taxi-driver without making eye contact.
*****
As I wait curbside for a taxi, a truck packed with young Jordanian men careens past, and one of them leans out the passenger window to shout, “No way een hell!” Excuse me, did I make a proposition? Is standing alone on this curb in my Western clothes so brazen, or do I have Hollywood to thank for this? I think I can forgive myself now for language blunders.
“Tomato, tomahto, potato, potahto”
“Chu-air.” Mohammad, my homestay father, has found my stack of flash cards and holds them up triumphantly. “Itfaddali (sit down).” I just woke up, are you kidding me? Can’t I eat in peace? I know he means well – is excited, really, to have learned all these new English words on my flash cards – and wants to help me learn Arabic. I’ve realized my homestay family, maybe Arabs in general, are fast auditory-learners, perhaps because of the oral tradition in their culture(s). My family only needs to hear the word once or twice and can recall it days later; I need days of hearing the word over and over to recall it, and preferably to write it myself. Mohammad thinks the flash cards are an auditory exercise and will not let me look at the Arabic script. “Chu-air,” he repeats, pointing to the corner-chair and holding the card away from me.
“Na’am, chair. Fi ‘arabi, kursi.”
“Qwayes, qwayes...” He turns to the next card in the deck, United Nations. His lips move slightly. “United States?”
“Le, United Nations.”
“Shu (what)?”
“Uh…moush baladi (not my country)…” Frowning, he discards it and moves on.
“Ah,” he exclaims as he points to the “tomato” card.
“Na’am, fi ‘arabi, bandorah.
“To-mah-to.”
“Le, fi engleezi, toe-may-toe,” I insist on this pronunciation. He reproaches me, tsking his tongue as if to chastise me for not knowing how to pronounce a word in my own language. “Le, to-mah-to,” he says.
“Le, fi britaniyah ‘to-mah-to’…fi amreeka, ‘toe-may-toe’,” I explain. He sighs and tsks his tongue at me again. I tease, saying “Toe-may-toe, to-mah-to, poe-tay-toe, po-tah-to”.
“Ah, moush po-tay-toe,” Mohammad shakes his finger. “Po-tah-to.”
*****
The 20JD bill in my extended hand flaps a bit in the stale breeze; the shop owner opposite looks askance at me with an unshaven, sun-baked face. “Uh…change?” I point to the register; I need to learn the word for “change”. He responds with a mostly toothless smirk. No one likes large bills, which is unfortunate since SIT gives us weekly stipends comprised of large bills like 20JDs and 50JDs (the largest). From my peripheral vision I watch the equally grizzled taxi driver who has been patiently waiting for his 1JD fare. “Uh…hamzeh, hamzeh…wahad.” The shop manager removes a greasy roll of bills from his pocket and fans them for me to see, smirking again.
Suddenly a harsh voice behind me asks, “Look here, what do you mean by ‘wahad’?” I whip my head toward the harsh voice. I hadn’t noticed this whittled-walking stick of an old woman leaning on the counter beside me, and I’m ashamed at the clarity of her English. What do you mean, ‘what do I mean by ‘wahad’’? It’s your language, not mine.
“I wanted bills in small amounts,” I say, not really looking at her, almost mumbling. She rapidly explains to the store owner, whom I suspect understood but was unwilling to relinquish the more coveted small bills in his hand. Like a few other store owners and customers I’ve encountered, she gives me a quick lesson in Jordanian currency. “Shukran,” I say quietly as I duck out of this hole-in-the-wall convenience store, shoving the fare and a generous tip into the hand of the taxi-driver without making eye contact.
*****
As I wait curbside for a taxi, a truck packed with young Jordanian men careens past, and one of them leans out the passenger window to shout, “No way een hell!” Excuse me, did I make a proposition? Is standing alone on this curb in my Western clothes so brazen, or do I have Hollywood to thank for this? I think I can forgive myself now for language blunders.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
"We used to cook fish for them."
10 September 2008
“We used to cook fish for them.”
Thousands of yellow taxis fill Amman, swarming in and out of the “lanes” like the killer bees of traffic jams. Car models range from the latest compacts to the 1980s, first-world- reject-specials; their interiors range from plush leather to more plastic wrap on the seats than your first-grader’s lunch. The man at the wheel – only very rarely a woman – might wear a traditional thob and kuffiya and have a bird’s-nest of a beard or he might wear a polo and pants; whether he listens to the news, pop, songs about king and country, folk or religious music, he’s bound to initiate a conversation, especially if you’re a fellow male or a foreigner. “Min amreka? Welcome to Jordan.” Or “Min amreka? (makes spitting noise) I hate your Bush…your war…bad for the country.” In a Jordanian taxi you can expect twice the experience – twice the conversation, twice the price (savvy hagglers abound), and twice the speed, thrills and near-death experiences in traffic.
“You are American…you study here, no? I…I am Iraqi.” My left eyebrow shoots upward; I check my reaction, casually turning from the cityscape out the window toward the hesitant driver. “I’m here two years…I have three children, two boys and one girl.”
“Na’am.” I steal a glance at his face reflected in the rearview mirror; he focuses on the road. I wonder what he will say about my country or the war.
“I have a bro-ther…in Baghdad. He want to come, but he cannot get a visa.” I nod in the darkened backseat. We continue on for a minute or so in silence; anticipating the worst, I almost hope he has lost his nerve. I return to gazing out the window. “He used to cook fish for them.” What? It doesn’t matter whether I respond verbally or not; he continues. “My brother, he used to cook the fish for the soldiers when they come to see the house. They like my brother. They say he cook the best fish when they come to his house. And the coffee.” Rather than express the hatred I expected, perhaps rightfully so at the violation of his privacy and disruption of his life, he chooses to tell me about his brother’s hospitality to the soldiers. Food and coffee – the proper Arab way to treat any guests.
From the Northeast they pour in from war-torn Iraq; from the West Bank, come the Palestinians. They’re here in the hundreds of thousands – urban refugees, not confined by the walls of refugee camps but confined within their poverty and desperation: how to get a visa for their aunt in Mosul who needs that operation; how to pay for the food and water; how to convince the landlord to give them one more month. The Jordanian government grants the Palestinians legal citizenship status and allows Iraqis (only those who have at least 150,000 dollars in frozen assets) temporary residency, but Jordan, over-extended in resources and patience, cannot be a homeland for either. Iraqi refugees seemingly have few advocates here in Jordan; one lady from Voices for Creative Nonviolence dropped by SIT today to relate the situation: all that she shared with us might be summed up in the words of her Iraqi friend: “You [Americans] have taken Saddam’s cotton out of our mouths, and you have put it in your ears.”
*****
“And this one’s from my engagement party!” cries Dunia, waving the photo over Yusuf’s grasping, three-year old hands. My homestay extended family is gathered around the table after the iftar, sorting through a decade of photographs; the television drones in the background. I look up from my Arabic study to see that familiar image of a plane slicing through the World Trade Center and realize the date. Julia, another SIT student studying next to me, also looks up; we remember where we were on that morning. The family notices our talk and also watches the footage playing over and over; I don’t understand the Arabic reporting, but Khatm says it all when she tsks her tongue. Smoke and flames and people fleeing seem to be familiar news images for people in the Middle East. (At least, I’ve seen them almost every time I’ve watched Arab news; most often the family comments to me about Palestine.) Their attention for the reporting is brief. But I don’t want to turn away; I don’t want to accept it as a familiar image here or there. On this seventh anniversary of the attacks, what should I be thinking? Can the United States ever regain trust in this region?
As long as some still cook fish for us, I’ll eat at their table and drink their coffee and hope that benevolence without hegemony is possible.
“We used to cook fish for them.”
Thousands of yellow taxis fill Amman, swarming in and out of the “lanes” like the killer bees of traffic jams. Car models range from the latest compacts to the 1980s, first-world- reject-specials; their interiors range from plush leather to more plastic wrap on the seats than your first-grader’s lunch. The man at the wheel – only very rarely a woman – might wear a traditional thob and kuffiya and have a bird’s-nest of a beard or he might wear a polo and pants; whether he listens to the news, pop, songs about king and country, folk or religious music, he’s bound to initiate a conversation, especially if you’re a fellow male or a foreigner. “Min amreka? Welcome to Jordan.” Or “Min amreka? (makes spitting noise) I hate your Bush…your war…bad for the country.” In a Jordanian taxi you can expect twice the experience – twice the conversation, twice the price (savvy hagglers abound), and twice the speed, thrills and near-death experiences in traffic.
“You are American…you study here, no? I…I am Iraqi.” My left eyebrow shoots upward; I check my reaction, casually turning from the cityscape out the window toward the hesitant driver. “I’m here two years…I have three children, two boys and one girl.”
“Na’am.” I steal a glance at his face reflected in the rearview mirror; he focuses on the road. I wonder what he will say about my country or the war.
“I have a bro-ther…in Baghdad. He want to come, but he cannot get a visa.” I nod in the darkened backseat. We continue on for a minute or so in silence; anticipating the worst, I almost hope he has lost his nerve. I return to gazing out the window. “He used to cook fish for them.” What? It doesn’t matter whether I respond verbally or not; he continues. “My brother, he used to cook the fish for the soldiers when they come to see the house. They like my brother. They say he cook the best fish when they come to his house. And the coffee.” Rather than express the hatred I expected, perhaps rightfully so at the violation of his privacy and disruption of his life, he chooses to tell me about his brother’s hospitality to the soldiers. Food and coffee – the proper Arab way to treat any guests.
From the Northeast they pour in from war-torn Iraq; from the West Bank, come the Palestinians. They’re here in the hundreds of thousands – urban refugees, not confined by the walls of refugee camps but confined within their poverty and desperation: how to get a visa for their aunt in Mosul who needs that operation; how to pay for the food and water; how to convince the landlord to give them one more month. The Jordanian government grants the Palestinians legal citizenship status and allows Iraqis (only those who have at least 150,000 dollars in frozen assets) temporary residency, but Jordan, over-extended in resources and patience, cannot be a homeland for either. Iraqi refugees seemingly have few advocates here in Jordan; one lady from Voices for Creative Nonviolence dropped by SIT today to relate the situation: all that she shared with us might be summed up in the words of her Iraqi friend: “You [Americans] have taken Saddam’s cotton out of our mouths, and you have put it in your ears.”
*****
“And this one’s from my engagement party!” cries Dunia, waving the photo over Yusuf’s grasping, three-year old hands. My homestay extended family is gathered around the table after the iftar, sorting through a decade of photographs; the television drones in the background. I look up from my Arabic study to see that familiar image of a plane slicing through the World Trade Center and realize the date. Julia, another SIT student studying next to me, also looks up; we remember where we were on that morning. The family notices our talk and also watches the footage playing over and over; I don’t understand the Arabic reporting, but Khatm says it all when she tsks her tongue. Smoke and flames and people fleeing seem to be familiar news images for people in the Middle East. (At least, I’ve seen them almost every time I’ve watched Arab news; most often the family comments to me about Palestine.) Their attention for the reporting is brief. But I don’t want to turn away; I don’t want to accept it as a familiar image here or there. On this seventh anniversary of the attacks, what should I be thinking? Can the United States ever regain trust in this region?
As long as some still cook fish for us, I’ll eat at their table and drink their coffee and hope that benevolence without hegemony is possible.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
"All the Americans say that."
9 September 2008
“All the Americans say that.”
“What sort of culture shock have you had?” Noor’s eyes sparkle mischeviously like the flickering lanterns dimly illuminating the back garden of the SIT building. Every sound is quick, sharp and clean in the first cool breeze I’ve felt since I’ve been in Jordan (a sign of better weather to come, insh’allah): the rattling of cups and plates from the iftar we’re enjoying with Jordanian students; the trilled chirps of the parrots in the cage outside the villa next door; the laughter and chatter of students and instructors. I let my head roll back to glance up at the stars in an unusually smog-less sky and breathe in the fresh air (as fresh as it gets despite all the pollution and nearby cigarette smoke. We’ve just broken the fast so several of the SIT students are bumming cigarettes off the Jordanian students). The evening call to prayer seems soft and distant, a gentle ripple through the sea of stars above.
“Culture shock…I don’t know. We’re in Abdoun, Amman…that’s not really Jordan. It could be in any American city.” Noor tilts her head upward and concedes this might be true; I clutch the coffee mug tighter.
“Come on, every SIT student I talk to has culture shock of some kind,” Noor continues. Culture shock…where do I begin? I don’t want to admit to it in the first place. I’m an anthropology student. It’d be like a hypochondriac doctor. Noor waits patiently for my response as I swirl the remaining coffee in my mug. Though my equal in age – a junior at Yarmuk University in Irbid – Noor seems wiser than her years. She’s had more traveling experience than most Jordanian students and an obvious knack and enthusiasm for learning languages – her English is astoundingly close to that of a native speaker though she has lived in Jordan most of her life. I’ve met her through one of my Arabic instructors, Halud, who founded an intercultural and interfaith dialogue group (for exchange between local University students and study abroad students) called Yallah Talk – in English, something like “Let’s go (go with God or Godspeed) talk”.
“Well, the call to prayer before dawn woke me up everyday the first week…there’s this mosque right next to…”
“Oh,” Noor rolls her eyes and smirks. “Every American student I talk to says that. What? How do you all live next to mosques?” Every American. Every Westerner. Funny how I keep encountering this reverse Orientalism…could we call it Occidentalism, that is, the West as everything that the Islamic East is not? Granted, I really do live close to a mosque, and every morning about 4:30, the loudspeaker bursts forth across the empty valley between my house and the mosque in static and sounds of the microphone being adjusted before the prayer begins. But I know where she’s going with this protestation.
“O.k., maybe I don’t live adjoining a mosque. Maybe we all feel that the prayer is so prevalent, that we’re surrounded by it.” Noor smiles knowingly.
“When I was in Dallas two summers ago, I felt so disconnected without the call to prayer. I couldn’t live somewhere without it,” she says.
“Now that I’ve lived with it, I wonder how I will feel about hearing bells back in Sewanee. I enjoy the raw, powerful beauty of the prayer, and the continuity through the day through hearing the call to prayer five times. I treat it as a call to prayer for myself, as a Christian, I mean. I wish more people back home could have this experience, talking with you, being abroad....”. I gesture vaguely upward, not knowing how to express what I’m feeling.
As we discuss the spiritual dimension of Ramadan, attitudes toward religion among Jordanian university students, the education system in Jordan, and cross-cultural experiences in general, I find myself staring at Noor’s hijab. But my gaze is somehow different now; I slowly realize that my attention has been subconsciously directed to it for its aesthetic qualities, not some mystique or discomfort on my part. She’s not hiding anything from me, whether by choice or by force; we’ve uncovered our hearts and minds in conversation. After two weeks in Jordan, I discover that I can be around hijab without that strange sense of otherness (niqab –showing only the eyes - I still find a bit jarring, perhaps because I can’t follow speech as well without seeing some lip-reading). Conversing with Noor has been as refreshing as the early evening air filled with the scent of nectar of fresh fruits and moonlight. Truly, her name could not be better suited; it is Arabic for “light”.
“All the Americans say that.”
“What sort of culture shock have you had?” Noor’s eyes sparkle mischeviously like the flickering lanterns dimly illuminating the back garden of the SIT building. Every sound is quick, sharp and clean in the first cool breeze I’ve felt since I’ve been in Jordan (a sign of better weather to come, insh’allah): the rattling of cups and plates from the iftar we’re enjoying with Jordanian students; the trilled chirps of the parrots in the cage outside the villa next door; the laughter and chatter of students and instructors. I let my head roll back to glance up at the stars in an unusually smog-less sky and breathe in the fresh air (as fresh as it gets despite all the pollution and nearby cigarette smoke. We’ve just broken the fast so several of the SIT students are bumming cigarettes off the Jordanian students). The evening call to prayer seems soft and distant, a gentle ripple through the sea of stars above.
“Culture shock…I don’t know. We’re in Abdoun, Amman…that’s not really Jordan. It could be in any American city.” Noor tilts her head upward and concedes this might be true; I clutch the coffee mug tighter.
“Come on, every SIT student I talk to has culture shock of some kind,” Noor continues. Culture shock…where do I begin? I don’t want to admit to it in the first place. I’m an anthropology student. It’d be like a hypochondriac doctor. Noor waits patiently for my response as I swirl the remaining coffee in my mug. Though my equal in age – a junior at Yarmuk University in Irbid – Noor seems wiser than her years. She’s had more traveling experience than most Jordanian students and an obvious knack and enthusiasm for learning languages – her English is astoundingly close to that of a native speaker though she has lived in Jordan most of her life. I’ve met her through one of my Arabic instructors, Halud, who founded an intercultural and interfaith dialogue group (for exchange between local University students and study abroad students) called Yallah Talk – in English, something like “Let’s go (go with God or Godspeed) talk”.
“Well, the call to prayer before dawn woke me up everyday the first week…there’s this mosque right next to…”
“Oh,” Noor rolls her eyes and smirks. “Every American student I talk to says that. What? How do you all live next to mosques?” Every American. Every Westerner. Funny how I keep encountering this reverse Orientalism…could we call it Occidentalism, that is, the West as everything that the Islamic East is not? Granted, I really do live close to a mosque, and every morning about 4:30, the loudspeaker bursts forth across the empty valley between my house and the mosque in static and sounds of the microphone being adjusted before the prayer begins. But I know where she’s going with this protestation.
“O.k., maybe I don’t live adjoining a mosque. Maybe we all feel that the prayer is so prevalent, that we’re surrounded by it.” Noor smiles knowingly.
“When I was in Dallas two summers ago, I felt so disconnected without the call to prayer. I couldn’t live somewhere without it,” she says.
“Now that I’ve lived with it, I wonder how I will feel about hearing bells back in Sewanee. I enjoy the raw, powerful beauty of the prayer, and the continuity through the day through hearing the call to prayer five times. I treat it as a call to prayer for myself, as a Christian, I mean. I wish more people back home could have this experience, talking with you, being abroad....”. I gesture vaguely upward, not knowing how to express what I’m feeling.
As we discuss the spiritual dimension of Ramadan, attitudes toward religion among Jordanian university students, the education system in Jordan, and cross-cultural experiences in general, I find myself staring at Noor’s hijab. But my gaze is somehow different now; I slowly realize that my attention has been subconsciously directed to it for its aesthetic qualities, not some mystique or discomfort on my part. She’s not hiding anything from me, whether by choice or by force; we’ve uncovered our hearts and minds in conversation. After two weeks in Jordan, I discover that I can be around hijab without that strange sense of otherness (niqab –showing only the eyes - I still find a bit jarring, perhaps because I can’t follow speech as well without seeing some lip-reading). Conversing with Noor has been as refreshing as the early evening air filled with the scent of nectar of fresh fruits and moonlight. Truly, her name could not be better suited; it is Arabic for “light”.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
One day is honey, one day is onion."
6 September 2008
“One day is honey, one day is onion.”
I’ll forgo the awful details; it was the fast fast. While determining to join my family in fasting for the month of Ramadan endeared me to them, and while it was a meaningful experience for me, it was, alas, short-lived. Better the fast short-lived than myself. The Qur’an mandates that the sick (or those who become sick during the fast) cannot continue the fast, and when my family discovered me sprawled on my bed after a miserable night of sickness, they decided I was dehydrated (considering the general indifference regarding food preparation/storage/expiration combined with the arid 115 degrees of the other day, this was no surprise; we SIT students often comment on how much we sweat in this un-air-conditioned place: just sitting in class, lying in bed – even in the shower. The temperature in my room has hovered around 90 the last few days). Each family member rebuked me in turn for feeling sick and trying to fast, Khatm last of all, patting my hand tenderly and saying “Ya, habibi (oh my dear)”.
The Arabs have a proverb which says “one day is honey, one day is onion”. Having gotten past the onion, I spent some of the weekend recovering – doing some much needed laundry and spending time with my family, the highlight of which was teaching my host mother’s four grandchildren how to play checkers. Watching them learn and in turn teach each other was fascinating, as they are bilingual in Arabic and English and frequently code-switch (they’re unaware sometimes of which language they are speaking to me and seemingly to each other). The day was hot, the sunlight seeping in through the heavily curtained window of my bedroom warm and golden, slow and thick like honey. Ismein had spread her homework papers on my rug and was absorbed in them. Aiman, her younger brother and taekwondo fiend, marched in donning his usual camouflage pants, and demanded to know what Ismein’s younger sister and I were doing. Ismein, intrigued and now merely pretending to be studying, kept stealing glances at the checkers game as three year old Yusuf flung himself on my bed to watch. Soon all four kids were entranced by this new game; they played it for three hours until iftar (the evening fatoor when we break the fast). “I like this game,” Ismein said to me. “I forgot how hungry I was.”
*****
The Temple of Artemis, the Roman ruins, Jerash, Jordan (north of Amman): Craning my neck, I’m squinting, staggering into a fathomless blue and a sun so intensely bright I can’t locate its position in the sky. It’s somewhere behind one of the columns soaring fifteen meters above me and bowing outward like my wobbly legs. As I teeter on the top of the temple steps in the 100+ degree heat, I don’t feel hot or thirsty so much as fragile and trembling like a dry leaf. From this high place I survey the ruins of an Roman city, circa first century. In its heyday, this marvelously unearthed complex of temples and residences housed 15,000 people – until 749 when an earthquake leveled the pagan Decapolis. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”
“One day is honey, one day is onion.”
I’ll forgo the awful details; it was the fast fast. While determining to join my family in fasting for the month of Ramadan endeared me to them, and while it was a meaningful experience for me, it was, alas, short-lived. Better the fast short-lived than myself. The Qur’an mandates that the sick (or those who become sick during the fast) cannot continue the fast, and when my family discovered me sprawled on my bed after a miserable night of sickness, they decided I was dehydrated (considering the general indifference regarding food preparation/storage/expiration combined with the arid 115 degrees of the other day, this was no surprise; we SIT students often comment on how much we sweat in this un-air-conditioned place: just sitting in class, lying in bed – even in the shower. The temperature in my room has hovered around 90 the last few days). Each family member rebuked me in turn for feeling sick and trying to fast, Khatm last of all, patting my hand tenderly and saying “Ya, habibi (oh my dear)”.
The Arabs have a proverb which says “one day is honey, one day is onion”. Having gotten past the onion, I spent some of the weekend recovering – doing some much needed laundry and spending time with my family, the highlight of which was teaching my host mother’s four grandchildren how to play checkers. Watching them learn and in turn teach each other was fascinating, as they are bilingual in Arabic and English and frequently code-switch (they’re unaware sometimes of which language they are speaking to me and seemingly to each other). The day was hot, the sunlight seeping in through the heavily curtained window of my bedroom warm and golden, slow and thick like honey. Ismein had spread her homework papers on my rug and was absorbed in them. Aiman, her younger brother and taekwondo fiend, marched in donning his usual camouflage pants, and demanded to know what Ismein’s younger sister and I were doing. Ismein, intrigued and now merely pretending to be studying, kept stealing glances at the checkers game as three year old Yusuf flung himself on my bed to watch. Soon all four kids were entranced by this new game; they played it for three hours until iftar (the evening fatoor when we break the fast). “I like this game,” Ismein said to me. “I forgot how hungry I was.”
*****
The Temple of Artemis, the Roman ruins, Jerash, Jordan (north of Amman): Craning my neck, I’m squinting, staggering into a fathomless blue and a sun so intensely bright I can’t locate its position in the sky. It’s somewhere behind one of the columns soaring fifteen meters above me and bowing outward like my wobbly legs. As I teeter on the top of the temple steps in the 100+ degree heat, I don’t feel hot or thirsty so much as fragile and trembling like a dry leaf. From this high place I survey the ruins of an Roman city, circa first century. In its heyday, this marvelously unearthed complex of temples and residences housed 15,000 people – until 749 when an earthquake leveled the pagan Decapolis. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
"Now your school is the field."
2 September 2008
“Then your school was the University. Now your school is the field.”
A slight rap on my door and I sit up immediately, grab my travel alarm clock, and squint at it in the dark. 3:40A.M.? A veiled figure stands hesitantly outside my door. “Sabah el kheir, Muna”. I stumble into the living room, trying not to look at miserable as I feel. The four of us – Khatm, Mohammad, Muna and myself – slump on the couch with the plastic patio table in front of us stacked with food. I feel hopelessly full from fatoor (earlier that evening, around 7PM) to enjoy sahoor. But it’s a long time between sunrise and sunset to go without food, so I do my best to be full of food unto sickness, only trudging back to bed after convincing Khatm I’ve eaten enough by pointing to a withered apple core and empty dishes. Before collapsing on the bed, I look out my window to enjoy the lights around the city, much like Christmas lights back home. Ramadan kareem (Happy Ramadan).
***
“This year is Ismein’s first year to fast,” says Dunia, looking at me for approval for her oldest of four children; I almost feel it is a challenge. Ismein smiles up at me from her artwork on the floor; with her thick, silken black hair in a long, roped ponytail, her wide, sparkling eyes, and her toothy smile, she is a picture of innocence. We’re seated around the plastic patio table brought in the living room, the night before the first sahoor. The family sets the table and anxiously awaits the exact moment of sunset to break the fast on the first day of Ramadan. On the television, live from Mekkah, Muslims are already enjoying the spoils of the first fatoor, and the family watches restlessly; then we switch over to the local channel where an Imam leads the prayers. I wonder if the family is as tortured by the smells wafting from the kitchen as I am. Ismein, in her innocent way, comments on her own hunger. “See how the poor people feel?” Dunia asks, nodding solemnly. Ismein stills her impatience, and our eyes meet as I smile at her. She flashes back one of her winning smiles. If Ismein can do this, I can do this. 7:06 P.M. So it begins. I once mistakenly assumed that people can grow accustomed to hunger; now I am learning that one never gets used to hunger – hence Dunia’s instruction to Ismein, (yet the poor aren’t indulging in a fatoor feast like we are).
Ramadan is the holiest month of the year for Muslims – a time of fasting between sunrise and sunset, a time to suppress physical concerns and reflect on spiritual ones. Based on the lunar cycles, Ramadan occurs eleven days earlier every year; the summer months are the most difficult, as abstaining from liquids can be especially draining. Right now (9:20 P.M. local time) I’m chugging a water bottle, trying to keep from becoming dehydrated.
“You…want…do this….with Khatm, Mohammad, and me?” Muna eyes me, almost suspiciously. “You…Christian. You don’t fast.” I open my mouth to speak, but Muna turns to Khatm to confer about this. Muna turns back to me. “Maybe you fast….no chicken…no meat…Esster?”
“Easter? Lent?”
“Na’am. Christians fast…eester?”
“Uh…nous, nous (so-so).” Muna relates to Khatm what I’ve said (or not said). Khatm chatters excitably; Muna turns back to me, running prayer beads through her hands as she talks.
“Mumkin (maybe), you get hungry at school.”
“Mumkin.” Muna looks at Khatm knowingly. Mumkin? Definitely. They seem to give up on understanding me, at least temporarily. It is a subject they will return to often.
Later that day, much later, drenched with sweat from the hike from the taxi to our dead-end house, I offer a breathless as-salem alaykum upon entering. Khatm comes up to me concerned. Wa alaykum salem. She studies me a moment, and feeling uncomfortable under her gaze, I head to my room. She and Muna confront me in the doorway. “You eat...school?”
“Le.” Muna looks at Khatm who seems hopeful.
“You…fast with us?”
“Na’am. The whole month.” Exasperated, Muna wrings her hands and Khatm smiles, saying “Insha’allah (God-willing).”
“Why…why you do this? Hmm?”
What do I say? “I want to see how you see….you know?” Muna nods uncertainly. “How you live…how Muslims see things. I want to do what the family does.” Muna translates for Khatm.
“Alhamdulillah!” Khatm shouts and claps her hands. Muna stills seems unconvinced, but relieved to see her sister pleased. I’m relieved to see their enthusiasm. I hope they’ll understand that my observation of the fast is a Christian one, yet with the intention of understanding and experiencing Ramadan with them. Maybe all their receptiveness and instruction is an attempt to convert me to Islam; I can’t say I haven’t had ulterior motives either. After fatoor tonight, I shared photos from my trip to China, and Muna unexpectedly turned to me and asked directly, “Why you come here? Why Jordan?” She appeals to the photos from Spain and China, inquiring if I know these languages also.
“Muna, maybe you don’t know this word fii ‘arabi…Anthropology? Social science?”
“Ah ha, social science,” Khatm says knowingly in one of the few instances in which I’ve heard her use any of her limited English. (It turns out Dunia, Khatm’s daughter, is the only one – beside Muna – who functionally knows any English. Dunia is almost fluent, but she doesn't live with us. I had thought Khatm and Mohammad knew more than they were willing to use.)
“What’s this…Anthro…?” Muna asks.
“I learn about how other people live.” Muna seems unconvinced. “I love Arab culture…” She nods, conceding that might be true. I try again. “When I was saghir (little) I see the movie (why am I using bad grammar like they are?) Lawrence of Arabia…”
“Ah! I know this movie!” Muna seems satisfied. “Uh…hist-ry of Jordan.”
“Na’am, I like history…and culture.”
“Qweyes! (Good!)” Mohammad mumbles, shifting his position on his corner couch. “Qweyes, qweyes…”
I think back to something one of our instructors, Mokhtar, said in field study seminar yesterday: “Then your school was the University. Now your school is the field.”
“Then your school was the University. Now your school is the field.”
A slight rap on my door and I sit up immediately, grab my travel alarm clock, and squint at it in the dark. 3:40A.M.? A veiled figure stands hesitantly outside my door. “Sabah el kheir, Muna”. I stumble into the living room, trying not to look at miserable as I feel. The four of us – Khatm, Mohammad, Muna and myself – slump on the couch with the plastic patio table in front of us stacked with food. I feel hopelessly full from fatoor (earlier that evening, around 7PM) to enjoy sahoor. But it’s a long time between sunrise and sunset to go without food, so I do my best to be full of food unto sickness, only trudging back to bed after convincing Khatm I’ve eaten enough by pointing to a withered apple core and empty dishes. Before collapsing on the bed, I look out my window to enjoy the lights around the city, much like Christmas lights back home. Ramadan kareem (Happy Ramadan).
***
“This year is Ismein’s first year to fast,” says Dunia, looking at me for approval for her oldest of four children; I almost feel it is a challenge. Ismein smiles up at me from her artwork on the floor; with her thick, silken black hair in a long, roped ponytail, her wide, sparkling eyes, and her toothy smile, she is a picture of innocence. We’re seated around the plastic patio table brought in the living room, the night before the first sahoor. The family sets the table and anxiously awaits the exact moment of sunset to break the fast on the first day of Ramadan. On the television, live from Mekkah, Muslims are already enjoying the spoils of the first fatoor, and the family watches restlessly; then we switch over to the local channel where an Imam leads the prayers. I wonder if the family is as tortured by the smells wafting from the kitchen as I am. Ismein, in her innocent way, comments on her own hunger. “See how the poor people feel?” Dunia asks, nodding solemnly. Ismein stills her impatience, and our eyes meet as I smile at her. She flashes back one of her winning smiles. If Ismein can do this, I can do this. 7:06 P.M. So it begins. I once mistakenly assumed that people can grow accustomed to hunger; now I am learning that one never gets used to hunger – hence Dunia’s instruction to Ismein, (yet the poor aren’t indulging in a fatoor feast like we are).
Ramadan is the holiest month of the year for Muslims – a time of fasting between sunrise and sunset, a time to suppress physical concerns and reflect on spiritual ones. Based on the lunar cycles, Ramadan occurs eleven days earlier every year; the summer months are the most difficult, as abstaining from liquids can be especially draining. Right now (9:20 P.M. local time) I’m chugging a water bottle, trying to keep from becoming dehydrated.
“You…want…do this….with Khatm, Mohammad, and me?” Muna eyes me, almost suspiciously. “You…Christian. You don’t fast.” I open my mouth to speak, but Muna turns to Khatm to confer about this. Muna turns back to me. “Maybe you fast….no chicken…no meat…Esster?”
“Easter? Lent?”
“Na’am. Christians fast…eester?”
“Uh…nous, nous (so-so).” Muna relates to Khatm what I’ve said (or not said). Khatm chatters excitably; Muna turns back to me, running prayer beads through her hands as she talks.
“Mumkin (maybe), you get hungry at school.”
“Mumkin.” Muna looks at Khatm knowingly. Mumkin? Definitely. They seem to give up on understanding me, at least temporarily. It is a subject they will return to often.
Later that day, much later, drenched with sweat from the hike from the taxi to our dead-end house, I offer a breathless as-salem alaykum upon entering. Khatm comes up to me concerned. Wa alaykum salem. She studies me a moment, and feeling uncomfortable under her gaze, I head to my room. She and Muna confront me in the doorway. “You eat...school?”
“Le.” Muna looks at Khatm who seems hopeful.
“You…fast with us?”
“Na’am. The whole month.” Exasperated, Muna wrings her hands and Khatm smiles, saying “Insha’allah (God-willing).”
“Why…why you do this? Hmm?”
What do I say? “I want to see how you see….you know?” Muna nods uncertainly. “How you live…how Muslims see things. I want to do what the family does.” Muna translates for Khatm.
“Alhamdulillah!” Khatm shouts and claps her hands. Muna stills seems unconvinced, but relieved to see her sister pleased. I’m relieved to see their enthusiasm. I hope they’ll understand that my observation of the fast is a Christian one, yet with the intention of understanding and experiencing Ramadan with them. Maybe all their receptiveness and instruction is an attempt to convert me to Islam; I can’t say I haven’t had ulterior motives either. After fatoor tonight, I shared photos from my trip to China, and Muna unexpectedly turned to me and asked directly, “Why you come here? Why Jordan?” She appeals to the photos from Spain and China, inquiring if I know these languages also.
“Muna, maybe you don’t know this word fii ‘arabi…Anthropology? Social science?”
“Ah ha, social science,” Khatm says knowingly in one of the few instances in which I’ve heard her use any of her limited English. (It turns out Dunia, Khatm’s daughter, is the only one – beside Muna – who functionally knows any English. Dunia is almost fluent, but she doesn't live with us. I had thought Khatm and Mohammad knew more than they were willing to use.)
“What’s this…Anthro…?” Muna asks.
“I learn about how other people live.” Muna seems unconvinced. “I love Arab culture…” She nods, conceding that might be true. I try again. “When I was saghir (little) I see the movie (why am I using bad grammar like they are?) Lawrence of Arabia…”
“Ah! I know this movie!” Muna seems satisfied. “Uh…hist-ry of Jordan.”
“Na’am, I like history…and culture.”
“Qweyes! (Good!)” Mohammad mumbles, shifting his position on his corner couch. “Qweyes, qweyes…”
I think back to something one of our instructors, Mokhtar, said in field study seminar yesterday: “Then your school was the University. Now your school is the field.”
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Biddun internet
Just a short post to apologize for the delay in the last four posts. I have been without internet for a few days, but have been blogging (and will continue to blog, insha'alah) about my activities in the meanwhile. Sorry to overwhelm anyone with the sudden inundation of posts.
"You learn good."
30 August 2008
“You learn good.”
That construction noise outside my window must be from Spencer Hall…it’s always so hot in Courts. I open my eyes and stare at the billowing gold embroidered curtains and beyond them the mosque across the hill. I’m not in Sewanee. I’m in Jordan.
Aunt Muna walks in my bedroom while I’m engrossed in Bible study. I check my indignation, reminding myself that it’s not unusual for family members to do that here. She stares at the book and journal and my pen poised uncertainly above it. “What do you write?” I can hear the imam on the television in the living room preaching about Ramadan, what’s haram (forbidden) and what’s halal (permissible).
“Uh…notes….about…”
“About what…you do?”
“Shwee, shwee.”
Nothing like having an infidel in your house during the holiest month of the Muslim year. Muna returns to the living room, telling me to come eat.
There’s got to be some way I can show this family my willingness to learn and understand. Muna, Khatam, Mohammad and I sit awkwardly in the living room while the imam preaches; the volume is too loud. Khatm has several bowls on the table before her and begins rolling vine leaves with rice; I make my move. “Ana….(point to food, make a rolling motion with my hands)?” Khatm makes room for me on the couch and calls out for Muna to grab a plate for me while in the kitchen. She fills it with ingredients and shows me how to roll them. Muna tsks her tongue at me for my first attempt, a behemoth of waraq ‘aanab, saying “Kabhirr (too big)”. Before long, I’m a vine-leaf-rice assembly line, and Khatm laughs and pats me on the hand, saying “Oh, you learn good!” This isn’t so bad, despite the olive oil dripping all over my clothes. “You…do them.” Khatm returns to the kitchen. I must have made enough waraq ‘aanab for the Desert Army, but it was the breakthrough. Khatm called and told Dunia about it, returning periodically to inspect my progress and pat my hand. When Dunia’s family joined us for lunch, they all spoke approvingly of my work, soon devoured. So maybe not enough for the Desert Army, but enough to show them I want to learn and intend to contribute to the family. Mohammad began rifling through a drawer looking for scrap paper and a pen; turning toward me, he asked “Alpha-bet?”
“Na’am.” He sat next to me and began writing the letters, drilling me as we went. Since I’m self-taught from the typed Arabic in a textbook, my Arabic script looks like it came from a word-processor; I couldn’t read some of Mohammad’s messy letters. He then taught me two or three words for each letter, making me re-read them and interrupting at the slightest hesitation. He seemed a bit impatient with me for my inability to make the ‘ain (the I’m-about-to-vomit-gag sound) letter and the ‘ghain (something like the French ‘r’) letter; Dunia tells me he’s very anxious for me to learn Arabic. All the while three year old Yusuf was crawling over me and clipping clothes-pins in various places while Ismein, perched on a couch across the room, stared at me through binoculars. I definitely felt the “Other” in this situation. But I feel more like one of the family, especially since I’ve been granted access to the refrigerator.
“You learn good.”
That construction noise outside my window must be from Spencer Hall…it’s always so hot in Courts. I open my eyes and stare at the billowing gold embroidered curtains and beyond them the mosque across the hill. I’m not in Sewanee. I’m in Jordan.
Aunt Muna walks in my bedroom while I’m engrossed in Bible study. I check my indignation, reminding myself that it’s not unusual for family members to do that here. She stares at the book and journal and my pen poised uncertainly above it. “What do you write?” I can hear the imam on the television in the living room preaching about Ramadan, what’s haram (forbidden) and what’s halal (permissible).
“Uh…notes….about…”
“About what…you do?”
“Shwee, shwee.”
Nothing like having an infidel in your house during the holiest month of the Muslim year. Muna returns to the living room, telling me to come eat.
There’s got to be some way I can show this family my willingness to learn and understand. Muna, Khatam, Mohammad and I sit awkwardly in the living room while the imam preaches; the volume is too loud. Khatm has several bowls on the table before her and begins rolling vine leaves with rice; I make my move. “Ana….(point to food, make a rolling motion with my hands)?” Khatm makes room for me on the couch and calls out for Muna to grab a plate for me while in the kitchen. She fills it with ingredients and shows me how to roll them. Muna tsks her tongue at me for my first attempt, a behemoth of waraq ‘aanab, saying “Kabhirr (too big)”. Before long, I’m a vine-leaf-rice assembly line, and Khatm laughs and pats me on the hand, saying “Oh, you learn good!” This isn’t so bad, despite the olive oil dripping all over my clothes. “You…do them.” Khatm returns to the kitchen. I must have made enough waraq ‘aanab for the Desert Army, but it was the breakthrough. Khatm called and told Dunia about it, returning periodically to inspect my progress and pat my hand. When Dunia’s family joined us for lunch, they all spoke approvingly of my work, soon devoured. So maybe not enough for the Desert Army, but enough to show them I want to learn and intend to contribute to the family. Mohammad began rifling through a drawer looking for scrap paper and a pen; turning toward me, he asked “Alpha-bet?”
“Na’am.” He sat next to me and began writing the letters, drilling me as we went. Since I’m self-taught from the typed Arabic in a textbook, my Arabic script looks like it came from a word-processor; I couldn’t read some of Mohammad’s messy letters. He then taught me two or three words for each letter, making me re-read them and interrupting at the slightest hesitation. He seemed a bit impatient with me for my inability to make the ‘ain (the I’m-about-to-vomit-gag sound) letter and the ‘ghain (something like the French ‘r’) letter; Dunia tells me he’s very anxious for me to learn Arabic. All the while three year old Yusuf was crawling over me and clipping clothes-pins in various places while Ismein, perched on a couch across the room, stared at me through binoculars. I definitely felt the “Other” in this situation. But I feel more like one of the family, especially since I’ve been granted access to the refrigerator.
"All these songs are about the king."
29 August 2008 (evening)
“All these songs are about the king”
As Khatm swerved in and out of traffic on the way to Dunia’s house, pumping the brakes and lurching us passengers back and forth, I regretted every single fig I had eaten that afternoon. That awful wave of panic swept over me again as I realized she, Muna and Mohammad simultaneously were explaining to me how to get from their home to Abdoun and back – all in Arabic. No GPS, Google maps, Mapquest, what-have-you; Jordanians don’t use street names but vague names of districts, then landmarks (mostly buildings), and finally building numbers. If you ask about a location that’s far, they may point and say “Go right,” which you discover is only the first of many turns and streets.
Dunia’s home is a first floor flat, more luxurious than her mother’s. Of particular pride was the spacious living room; ushering me into the parlor, Aunt Muna looked at me for approval, saying “Ve-ry Amrican, no?” Surveying the “oriental” throws, pillows, couches and sheesha (Arab water pipe) in the corner as juxtaposed with the large plasma screen television and “antique” copies of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Dicken’s Hard Times (?), I hesitated. “Uh, na’am….”. Muna nodded in agreement. The parallel cultures were a bit overwhelming.
I’ve never watched so much television in my life, as I had little choice but to sit with the family for several hours in front of the plasma; I thought we Americans exclusively had problems with excessive television use. For a few minutes we watched a music video of the Jordanian military training with an Arabic pop soundtrack; because of the mention of Palestine, for the first few minutes I was hoping we weren’t watching the Hamas or Fateh channel. It was like one of those “Army: be all you can be” recruiting commercials, only longer and more ridiculous. “All these songs are about the king,” Dunia’s husband complained as her changed the channel. Only after enduring parts of The Terminator 3, Ace Ventura, and NCIS with Arabic subtitles (were they really enjoying all this or expected me to?), was I able to escape outside to the back patio and garden. Seated on a cool stone bench, breathing in the cool, evening breeze, and munching on fresh figs and almonds from Dunia’s meager garden and a view of the city, I was back at Mercedes’ house in San Fernando, Spain (from three summers ago).
“All these songs are about the king”
As Khatm swerved in and out of traffic on the way to Dunia’s house, pumping the brakes and lurching us passengers back and forth, I regretted every single fig I had eaten that afternoon. That awful wave of panic swept over me again as I realized she, Muna and Mohammad simultaneously were explaining to me how to get from their home to Abdoun and back – all in Arabic. No GPS, Google maps, Mapquest, what-have-you; Jordanians don’t use street names but vague names of districts, then landmarks (mostly buildings), and finally building numbers. If you ask about a location that’s far, they may point and say “Go right,” which you discover is only the first of many turns and streets.
Dunia’s home is a first floor flat, more luxurious than her mother’s. Of particular pride was the spacious living room; ushering me into the parlor, Aunt Muna looked at me for approval, saying “Ve-ry Amrican, no?” Surveying the “oriental” throws, pillows, couches and sheesha (Arab water pipe) in the corner as juxtaposed with the large plasma screen television and “antique” copies of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Dicken’s Hard Times (?), I hesitated. “Uh, na’am….”. Muna nodded in agreement. The parallel cultures were a bit overwhelming.
I’ve never watched so much television in my life, as I had little choice but to sit with the family for several hours in front of the plasma; I thought we Americans exclusively had problems with excessive television use. For a few minutes we watched a music video of the Jordanian military training with an Arabic pop soundtrack; because of the mention of Palestine, for the first few minutes I was hoping we weren’t watching the Hamas or Fateh channel. It was like one of those “Army: be all you can be” recruiting commercials, only longer and more ridiculous. “All these songs are about the king,” Dunia’s husband complained as her changed the channel. Only after enduring parts of The Terminator 3, Ace Ventura, and NCIS with Arabic subtitles (were they really enjoying all this or expected me to?), was I able to escape outside to the back patio and garden. Seated on a cool stone bench, breathing in the cool, evening breeze, and munching on fresh figs and almonds from Dunia’s meager garden and a view of the city, I was back at Mercedes’ house in San Fernando, Spain (from three summers ago).
"Shwee, shwee"
29 August 2008
“Shwee, shwee”
At some point while blogging last night, the family went out, leaving me and Aunt Muna alone for several hours. Muna is the only one willing to speak English with me, so we got along pretty well. Without her brother in law around, she removed her hijab and we chatted as much as we could in some Arab-glish (like Spanglish) over tea. Completely exhausted from jet-lag and the usual insomnia, I went to bed around nine. Around eleven, I awakened and trudged down the hall to discover the family had returned; Muna had been unable to explain meal times or what times the family sleeps. Dazed, I sat down and started munching on the unsolicited, massive falafel sandwich handed me; we watched about an hour of Noor, a Turkish soap opera which makes American soap operas seem about as dramatic as The News Hour with Jim Leher on PBS. After an hour, I couldn’t take any more Arabic weeping and shouting over Noor’s husband dying in the hospital, so I excused myself and went back to sleep, only to be awakened an hour before dawn by the muezzin in the minaret across the hill. If only the call to prayer were syndicated and synchronized across the city; I could hear the calls all across the valley below echoing for quite a while. As all the windows in the house were open, the pressure changes kept making my creaky door open and close, occasionally slamming shut and scaring me to death; it didn’t help that the family silently walked past, covered, and proceeded to chant the pre-dawn prayer. Something like culture-shock tempted me to put the pillow over my head and drown out the noise with my ipod (which I brought because I have several hours of Arabic lessons on it); instead, I lay on my back just listening until the last allahu akbar drifted off. Unbeknownst to me, the family returned to bed after prayer, and when Muna found me in the living room at eight, she was astounded I was awake so early. She gestured toward the clock: “Fi amreeka…tis’ah (nine)?” “Le, sittah.” She gaped at me. “Sittah!!” (Six a.m.?!?). I didn’t know how to say any like “I’m an insomniac,” or “I don’t get up for pre-dawn prayers”, so I just shrugged, “Shwee, shwee” (akin to “more or less”).
All the reading I completed over the summer has certainly helped, but how ridiculous some of it now seems: advice on how to dress, hide my left-handedness, what to say, etc., has been irrelevant in most cases. Across the 22 countries in the Arab world and all the different regions therein, the culture varies so much that I’d discovered the folly of dependence on any kind of standardized advice and guidebooks. With such a language barrier, I have been able to communicate very little with my family about how much of the culture I understand. They have been excited several times, saying “Oh, you know Islam!” Shwee, shwee. They seem to think I have studied Arabic in school but, the idiot that I am, cannot speak it, and insist in speaking to me only in Arabic. Mohammad’s contribution thus far has been to confirm that I do not speak Arabic (despite his suspicions), to drill me in the numbers, alphabet, phrases and vocabulary of a four year old, and to shout at me when I supplement my very limited Arabic with English, frowning and waving his hand dismissively toward me, “Le, le, le engleezi! ‘Arabi!!” Considering that he studied for eight years in the United States and knows some English (how much is hard for me to discern since he is unwilling to use it), this has been a bit frustrating. When speaking with Julia (who is living with Khatm’s daughter) and occasionally with the family, I can follow what they are saying; if they sense it, they stop and ask me if I can understand. I guess this has happened enough times that they are convinced that speaking to me only in Arabic is the way to go. Maybe so, but my head is throbbing from all this straining to understand.
The point-and-ask method has worked pretty well. “Hadha?” (“That?”). I watched about four hours of Arab television with Muna and Khatr this morning – first (some of you will find this humorous) a desert epic about the life of “Omar al’Kitab”, the fourth caliph. When I asked about Omar, Muna explained to me the sequence of caliphs and made me recite them. Insha’allah, she won’t ask me to recite them again, as I’ve already forgotten them. Then we watched about two hours of fatafeta, the food channel of the Arab world and reviewed a hodge podge of food words I know. They vociferously commented on the Chinese foods one chef prepared, laughing, frowning and turning to me saying “Le, qwayes (not good)”. I wish I knew how to say, “I’ve eaten that in China!” All the while, they were filling me with tea, coffee, and figs. I really need to learn how to politely decline. As today is Friday, we finished off the television watching with an imam (in orange tinted sunglasses and goatee, much to my amusement) from Dubai preaching about Ramadan, which, according to the phases of the moon, may come tonight or tomorrow night. As we have established that I am a Christian, I don’t know how receptive they will be to me observing the fast.
This afternoon we will lunch with Dunia’s (Khatm’s daughter) family; thankfully Julia will be there to help me out. What was I thinking coming to Jordan with only a four-year old’s spattering of Arabic?
“Shwee, shwee”
At some point while blogging last night, the family went out, leaving me and Aunt Muna alone for several hours. Muna is the only one willing to speak English with me, so we got along pretty well. Without her brother in law around, she removed her hijab and we chatted as much as we could in some Arab-glish (like Spanglish) over tea. Completely exhausted from jet-lag and the usual insomnia, I went to bed around nine. Around eleven, I awakened and trudged down the hall to discover the family had returned; Muna had been unable to explain meal times or what times the family sleeps. Dazed, I sat down and started munching on the unsolicited, massive falafel sandwich handed me; we watched about an hour of Noor, a Turkish soap opera which makes American soap operas seem about as dramatic as The News Hour with Jim Leher on PBS. After an hour, I couldn’t take any more Arabic weeping and shouting over Noor’s husband dying in the hospital, so I excused myself and went back to sleep, only to be awakened an hour before dawn by the muezzin in the minaret across the hill. If only the call to prayer were syndicated and synchronized across the city; I could hear the calls all across the valley below echoing for quite a while. As all the windows in the house were open, the pressure changes kept making my creaky door open and close, occasionally slamming shut and scaring me to death; it didn’t help that the family silently walked past, covered, and proceeded to chant the pre-dawn prayer. Something like culture-shock tempted me to put the pillow over my head and drown out the noise with my ipod (which I brought because I have several hours of Arabic lessons on it); instead, I lay on my back just listening until the last allahu akbar drifted off. Unbeknownst to me, the family returned to bed after prayer, and when Muna found me in the living room at eight, she was astounded I was awake so early. She gestured toward the clock: “Fi amreeka…tis’ah (nine)?” “Le, sittah.” She gaped at me. “Sittah!!” (Six a.m.?!?). I didn’t know how to say any like “I’m an insomniac,” or “I don’t get up for pre-dawn prayers”, so I just shrugged, “Shwee, shwee” (akin to “more or less”).
All the reading I completed over the summer has certainly helped, but how ridiculous some of it now seems: advice on how to dress, hide my left-handedness, what to say, etc., has been irrelevant in most cases. Across the 22 countries in the Arab world and all the different regions therein, the culture varies so much that I’d discovered the folly of dependence on any kind of standardized advice and guidebooks. With such a language barrier, I have been able to communicate very little with my family about how much of the culture I understand. They have been excited several times, saying “Oh, you know Islam!” Shwee, shwee. They seem to think I have studied Arabic in school but, the idiot that I am, cannot speak it, and insist in speaking to me only in Arabic. Mohammad’s contribution thus far has been to confirm that I do not speak Arabic (despite his suspicions), to drill me in the numbers, alphabet, phrases and vocabulary of a four year old, and to shout at me when I supplement my very limited Arabic with English, frowning and waving his hand dismissively toward me, “Le, le, le engleezi! ‘Arabi!!” Considering that he studied for eight years in the United States and knows some English (how much is hard for me to discern since he is unwilling to use it), this has been a bit frustrating. When speaking with Julia (who is living with Khatm’s daughter) and occasionally with the family, I can follow what they are saying; if they sense it, they stop and ask me if I can understand. I guess this has happened enough times that they are convinced that speaking to me only in Arabic is the way to go. Maybe so, but my head is throbbing from all this straining to understand.
The point-and-ask method has worked pretty well. “Hadha?” (“That?”). I watched about four hours of Arab television with Muna and Khatr this morning – first (some of you will find this humorous) a desert epic about the life of “Omar al’Kitab”, the fourth caliph. When I asked about Omar, Muna explained to me the sequence of caliphs and made me recite them. Insha’allah, she won’t ask me to recite them again, as I’ve already forgotten them. Then we watched about two hours of fatafeta, the food channel of the Arab world and reviewed a hodge podge of food words I know. They vociferously commented on the Chinese foods one chef prepared, laughing, frowning and turning to me saying “Le, qwayes (not good)”. I wish I knew how to say, “I’ve eaten that in China!” All the while, they were filling me with tea, coffee, and figs. I really need to learn how to politely decline. As today is Friday, we finished off the television watching with an imam (in orange tinted sunglasses and goatee, much to my amusement) from Dubai preaching about Ramadan, which, according to the phases of the moon, may come tonight or tomorrow night. As we have established that I am a Christian, I don’t know how receptive they will be to me observing the fast.
This afternoon we will lunch with Dunia’s (Khatm’s daughter) family; thankfully Julia will be there to help me out. What was I thinking coming to Jordan with only a four-year old’s spattering of Arabic?
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