From 21 June to 25 June
I like to think that it’s all part of the experience. A story in five-parts:
The Exposition
I hope I’m not using all the water in the apartment, I think as I flush the toilet for…I don’t want to think about how many times.
“Did you clean the house today?”
“Yes madam,” I’m cowering beneath my employer’s temper and fierce accusatory eye. Something’s not right here…
“Then why does it look so dirty?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t know why I’m here, and why I’m watching myself, except that’s not me, is it, this is just a dream, right?, I can’t believe I’m dreaming about my research like this…
What’s that noise? My hand is reaching, scrambling in the darkness for my mobile phone. My bedroom in this cavernous apartment allows very little natural light. “Hello?”
“Oh, did I wake you up?” I look at the time on the travel clock on my desk. 1:13 P.M.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Sorry. This is Cathy. I want you to come and have a meal. You come now?”
I have met four Filipinas named Cathy. I have no idea which Cathy this is…Cathy with a ‘K’, or with an ‘ie’ or with a ‘y’ or…
“I’m sorry, Cathy but I can’t. I’m sick.”
“Oh, maybe I call back later, you come for dinner, yes?”
“No…look, do you know the word ‘vomit’? Yes? O.k., that’s why I don’t come.”
“Oh, ok, maybe later,” Cathy says, her cheerful ramble unabated by the prospect of a sick guest.
“Look, I’ll call you when I’m better,” I say as cheerfully as possible.
I flop back on the mattress. The fan purrs on the nightstand and I give into the spinning…vibrating…ringing of my phone. Ugh! “Yes?”
“Hi, this is Mariz. You remember me?” Of course I remember her, I met her two days ago.
“Oh yes, how are you, Mariz?”
And on it goes, calls or texts all afternoon, people I promised I would see. Maybe I overextended my schedule for today…what is today?
The Rising Action
Into the black garbage bag I’m shoving all the Filipino food in the apartment refrigerator, holding my nose and trying to think of other things like cool meadows with ponies and rainbows. It took all my energy to shower and dress and then venture out into the hottest part of the day, to do my bit of research so I don’t feel totally unproductive these past three days. Then back to the apartment to collapse on the mattress in the cool, cavernous haven that is my bedroom, now turned sickroom. And all those hours spent on my back staring up I am consumed by the burning – literally, burning – question: was it the funky Filipino dumplings, the spicy Sri Lankan curry, or the greasy fast-food chicken sandwich – or just a flu bug? Gasp, what if it’s the flu-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken? I drag myself to the computer and search the CDC website, and once I’m convinced it’s not the flu-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken, I go back to bed.
The Climax
“Oh god, there are so many Americans here,” says the nasally female British voice in the seat behind me. “What are they doing here?”
“Probably learning Arabic, study abroad programs, that sort of thing,” replies her male counterpart.
“Actually,” I imagined myself spinning around to face them, “we’re here to infiltrate your post-mandate expatriate niche, invade your indie film showings, your good-intention NGOs and your precious afternoon teatime.” But I’m not that bold.
This is the part of the story where I think I am well enough to see a documentary about the Sudanese Lost Boys at the Film Institute conveniently located a few blocks from my apartment. I love the area where I live in Amman. Unfortunately I realize halfway through “God Grew Tired of Us”, which I highly recommend, that I am covered with an itching, burning rash. Eeww.
The Falling Action
“What do you want me to say? Don’t do anything and here’s some pills?” the Iraqi-Jordanian doctor sitting opposite me smirked, his arms crossed smugly. “You’re not vomiting, your fever is gone, the rash, well, take the antihistamines if you must – really Yasmine, you bring them to me at their last breath,” he said turning to my Palestinian-Jordanian friend who has brought me to this trusted family doctor. She threw her hands up in mock frustration. Turning back to me he continued, “Do what you feel like doing and drink mint tea, it’s good for the stomach – we’ve been doing that for thousands of years! I don’t know why you Americans insist on antibiotics – you have more cancer than us, that’s for sure!”
Had I not given some previous thought to the contrasts between biomedicine and other medical systems in a medical anthropology class, and had I not reminded myself that I should be open to such views, I might have taken this berating of biomedicine to heart. As it was, I was relieved to escape the usual biomedical diagnostics like being poked with needles and solutions like being prescribed a cocktail of drugs.
The Dénouement
Mint tea is delicious, and I am well on the way to recovery. Alhamdulillah, really.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
All things to all people
From 19 June 2009
The young Jordanian woman lies on her back, and her dark eyes flutter upward toward the midwife who massages her belly and smoothes wet strands of hair strewn across a pale face. Sunlight washes out the delivery room, and all is white and still. After the struggle, this strange quiet has settled over the maternity ward of the Italian Hospital in downtown Amman. Scrubbed in, I’m standing awkwardly in my sterile booties and gown next to a Filipina nurse named Evelyn. She has proudly shown me around her ward and the delivery records, detailing her daily duties, proudly introducing me to all the staff, Arab and Filipina. Evelyn is one of three Filipina nurses I met a couple days ago at a Pentecostal church serving Filipino migrant workers, and I have answered her invitation to see the facilities at this hospital serving lower and lower-middle class patients from East Amman.
For six days a week, sometimes working night and morning shifts back to back, Evelyn and her two Filipina co-workers use years of nursing training they received in the Philippines. “The Arab nurses are our practical helpers, but their training isn’t as good as ours,” Evelyn explains. “Here we do all the hands on work, the midwives and nurses together. Here we work as doctors in other hospitals. It is good work.”
“These are the delivery records,” Evelyn is saying, flipping through a green binder. “This month we have already delivered 152, so we’ll have twice that.” I’m scanning the mother’s age column: 17, 24, 18, 22, 19, 21, 17…so many young mothers. The most recent entry reads “24”, and I look back at the midwife and her patient. Maybe she already has a couple of children between those frowning wrinkles on her pale, sweaty forehead.
***
The Sri Lankan mass was scheduled for 3:30, but I was early. Walking up the steps to the chapel, I heard faint chanting, not from inside but from somewhere nearby. Slowly I walked down the steps and around the corner where around twenty Sri Lankan women, two Salvadorian sisters and a priest stood before a statue of Mary. Stepping as quietly as possible across the stone-paved courtyard, I came behind Sister Concy, who turned after a few seconds and greeted me warmly. “We’re saying the rosary,” she explained. “You are a Christian, no?” I nodded, realizing that in Jordan, indeed in many parts of the world, "Christian" and "Catholic" are tantamount. Of course I don’t know the prayers in English, so I stood beside them, hands clasped in front of me, wavering in the hottest part of the day. I stole a glance at the Sri Lankan priest, beads of sweat standing out in droplets on his dark face, made darker by the bleached whiteness of his vestments; he stole a glance back at me, and startled, I turned my attention to the Mary shrine.
Suddenly it all came together: Mary, her doe eyes cast heavenward in perfect appeal, eternally preparing herself for the sacrifice of her son; Mary, draped in a pale blue veil reminiscent of Arab covering but more relaxed; Mary, paler and fairer than any woman present in this chanting mass asking Mary to have mercy on them; these poor workers appealing to Mary, fairer than any employer they might have on earth; Mary, strength and weakness embodied before them, candles flickering and blood-red lilies trumpeting at her smooth, white feet which were not dirtied despite their catholic (universal) travel. Again, in the back of my mind, I heard Emily, transferred to Syria against her will by her multi-national company contract, saying, “I don’t want to go to Syria, but I will sacrifice for my family.” And I heard Marisol, an abused runaway maid living for 22 months in the Philippine Embassy shelter saying “I want to give my son a future”. Marisol seated beneath the shelter's altar with a figure of fairest Mary, Mary, the exemplary mother sacrificing for her son and the exemplary employer, the saint of migrant mothers laboring abroad for their sons.
When I clasp hands with Filipinos and Sri Lankans in mass, I am not Catholic, but I pray with Father O’Connell that God have mercy on these migrant workers far from home. When I clap to the beat of ribboned tambourines and shouting Filipinos, I am not Pentecostal, but I nod along with the pastor imploring workers to be careful when they are on the streets, to be obedient to their employers but to know their rights, too. Tagalog, Sinhala, Arabic – I don’t know these languages, yet I know intuitively what they are saying, what they are praying. To the younger workers I am a sister; the older, a daughter; but to most, I hope to be a friend. Although my skin and my hair and my youth betray my foreignness and the seriousness, the earnest desire with which I labor, I hope that as Cathie, one of the Filipina workers commented, my love for my work and purpose “shows on my face”.
"To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some." - 1 Corinthians 9:22
The young Jordanian woman lies on her back, and her dark eyes flutter upward toward the midwife who massages her belly and smoothes wet strands of hair strewn across a pale face. Sunlight washes out the delivery room, and all is white and still. After the struggle, this strange quiet has settled over the maternity ward of the Italian Hospital in downtown Amman. Scrubbed in, I’m standing awkwardly in my sterile booties and gown next to a Filipina nurse named Evelyn. She has proudly shown me around her ward and the delivery records, detailing her daily duties, proudly introducing me to all the staff, Arab and Filipina. Evelyn is one of three Filipina nurses I met a couple days ago at a Pentecostal church serving Filipino migrant workers, and I have answered her invitation to see the facilities at this hospital serving lower and lower-middle class patients from East Amman.
For six days a week, sometimes working night and morning shifts back to back, Evelyn and her two Filipina co-workers use years of nursing training they received in the Philippines. “The Arab nurses are our practical helpers, but their training isn’t as good as ours,” Evelyn explains. “Here we do all the hands on work, the midwives and nurses together. Here we work as doctors in other hospitals. It is good work.”
“These are the delivery records,” Evelyn is saying, flipping through a green binder. “This month we have already delivered 152, so we’ll have twice that.” I’m scanning the mother’s age column: 17, 24, 18, 22, 19, 21, 17…so many young mothers. The most recent entry reads “24”, and I look back at the midwife and her patient. Maybe she already has a couple of children between those frowning wrinkles on her pale, sweaty forehead.
***
The Sri Lankan mass was scheduled for 3:30, but I was early. Walking up the steps to the chapel, I heard faint chanting, not from inside but from somewhere nearby. Slowly I walked down the steps and around the corner where around twenty Sri Lankan women, two Salvadorian sisters and a priest stood before a statue of Mary. Stepping as quietly as possible across the stone-paved courtyard, I came behind Sister Concy, who turned after a few seconds and greeted me warmly. “We’re saying the rosary,” she explained. “You are a Christian, no?” I nodded, realizing that in Jordan, indeed in many parts of the world, "Christian" and "Catholic" are tantamount. Of course I don’t know the prayers in English, so I stood beside them, hands clasped in front of me, wavering in the hottest part of the day. I stole a glance at the Sri Lankan priest, beads of sweat standing out in droplets on his dark face, made darker by the bleached whiteness of his vestments; he stole a glance back at me, and startled, I turned my attention to the Mary shrine.
Suddenly it all came together: Mary, her doe eyes cast heavenward in perfect appeal, eternally preparing herself for the sacrifice of her son; Mary, draped in a pale blue veil reminiscent of Arab covering but more relaxed; Mary, paler and fairer than any woman present in this chanting mass asking Mary to have mercy on them; these poor workers appealing to Mary, fairer than any employer they might have on earth; Mary, strength and weakness embodied before them, candles flickering and blood-red lilies trumpeting at her smooth, white feet which were not dirtied despite their catholic (universal) travel. Again, in the back of my mind, I heard Emily, transferred to Syria against her will by her multi-national company contract, saying, “I don’t want to go to Syria, but I will sacrifice for my family.” And I heard Marisol, an abused runaway maid living for 22 months in the Philippine Embassy shelter saying “I want to give my son a future”. Marisol seated beneath the shelter's altar with a figure of fairest Mary, Mary, the exemplary mother sacrificing for her son and the exemplary employer, the saint of migrant mothers laboring abroad for their sons.
When I clasp hands with Filipinos and Sri Lankans in mass, I am not Catholic, but I pray with Father O’Connell that God have mercy on these migrant workers far from home. When I clap to the beat of ribboned tambourines and shouting Filipinos, I am not Pentecostal, but I nod along with the pastor imploring workers to be careful when they are on the streets, to be obedient to their employers but to know their rights, too. Tagalog, Sinhala, Arabic – I don’t know these languages, yet I know intuitively what they are saying, what they are praying. To the younger workers I am a sister; the older, a daughter; but to most, I hope to be a friend. Although my skin and my hair and my youth betray my foreignness and the seriousness, the earnest desire with which I labor, I hope that as Cathie, one of the Filipina workers commented, my love for my work and purpose “shows on my face”.
"To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some." - 1 Corinthians 9:22
The hand that guides them
From 18 June 2009
It’s summer in Amman and kites dot the skyline and dart across it as bright, billowing jellyfish, their tales-tentacles dragging over rooftops.
On 16 June the State Department released its Ninth Annual Report Trafficking in Persons Report. Upon its release, Ambassador Cdebaca and Secretary Clinton called for “partnership with foreign governments, NGOs, international organizations, and international development agencies”, and they cited several “heroes” for their efforts in stopping TIP:
"Indonesian hero, Elly Anita, a trafficking survivor herself, advocates fiercely to liberate Indonesian contract laborers in the Middle East…
Hero Aida Abu Ras, a Jordanian anti-trafficking activist, is a fierce advocate for the rights of foreign domestic workers, often so vulnerable as they labor behind closed doors.”
The extensive report covering 175 countries includes what are called, interestingly, “Country Narratives”, and I’ve included excerpts from Jordan’s summary below (countries are ranked in three tiers, the best tier 1):
JORDAN (Tier 2)
The Government of Jordan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. During the year, the government amended its labor law to cover agriculture and domestic workers, passed comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation, initiated a joint labor inspector and police anti-trafficking investigation unit, started a Human Trafficking Office within the Public Security Directorate’s (PSD) Criminal Investigation Unit, and improved efforts to identify victims of trafficking and related exploitation among foreign domestic workers, foreign laborers in the QIZs, and foreign women in prostitution. Nevertheless, anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts were nascent and the identification of labor trafficking offenses and related victims was inadequate, with some victims treated as offenders and penalized for acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked.”
I applaud the report for an accurate summary or “country narrative” of Jordan. I can attest to the runaways: in November 2008 I visited some 200 women in the Indonesian embassy shelter and two days ago, some 130 women in the Philippine embassy, and I believe the Ministry of Labor has attempted some recent legal reform. Yet what this study lacks as a trafficking in persons and hence a victims report – not a study of the spectrum of workers from abused workers to those workers enjoying fair employment opportunities – I hope to supplement with fieldwork.
As they flutter across the Amman skyline, the kites appear as free to wander as the light evening breeze. But kites, like migrant workers, no matter how long the string and how far they travel, remain tied to their origin and the gentle, familiar hand guiding them.
It’s summer in Amman and kites dot the skyline and dart across it as bright, billowing jellyfish, their tales-tentacles dragging over rooftops.
On 16 June the State Department released its Ninth Annual Report Trafficking in Persons Report. Upon its release, Ambassador Cdebaca and Secretary Clinton called for “partnership with foreign governments, NGOs, international organizations, and international development agencies”, and they cited several “heroes” for their efforts in stopping TIP:
"Indonesian hero, Elly Anita, a trafficking survivor herself, advocates fiercely to liberate Indonesian contract laborers in the Middle East…
Hero Aida Abu Ras, a Jordanian anti-trafficking activist, is a fierce advocate for the rights of foreign domestic workers, often so vulnerable as they labor behind closed doors.”
The extensive report covering 175 countries includes what are called, interestingly, “Country Narratives”, and I’ve included excerpts from Jordan’s summary below (countries are ranked in three tiers, the best tier 1):
JORDAN (Tier 2)
"Jordan is a destination and transit country for women and men from South and Southeast Asia for the purpose of forced labor. There were some reports of women from Morocco and Tunisia being subjected to forced prostitution after arriving in Jordan to work in restaurants and night clubs. Women from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines migrate willingly to work as domestic servants, but some are subjected to conditions of forced labor, including unlawful withholding of passports, restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, threats, and physical or sexual abuse. During the reporting period, the Government of the Philippines continued to enforce a ban on new Filipina workers migrating to Jordan for domestic work because of a high rate of abuse of Filipina domestic workers by employers in Jordan. At the end of the reporting period, an estimated 600 Filipina, Indonesian, and Sri Lankan foreign domestic workers were sheltered at their respective embassies in Amman; most of whom fled some form of forced labor…
The Government of Jordan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. During the year, the government amended its labor law to cover agriculture and domestic workers, passed comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation, initiated a joint labor inspector and police anti-trafficking investigation unit, started a Human Trafficking Office within the Public Security Directorate’s (PSD) Criminal Investigation Unit, and improved efforts to identify victims of trafficking and related exploitation among foreign domestic workers, foreign laborers in the QIZs, and foreign women in prostitution. Nevertheless, anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts were nascent and the identification of labor trafficking offenses and related victims was inadequate, with some victims treated as offenders and penalized for acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked.”
Visit http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2009/123136.htm for the complete Country Narratives.
I applaud the report for an accurate summary or “country narrative” of Jordan. I can attest to the runaways: in November 2008 I visited some 200 women in the Indonesian embassy shelter and two days ago, some 130 women in the Philippine embassy, and I believe the Ministry of Labor has attempted some recent legal reform. Yet what this study lacks as a trafficking in persons and hence a victims report – not a study of the spectrum of workers from abused workers to those workers enjoying fair employment opportunities – I hope to supplement with fieldwork.
As they flutter across the Amman skyline, the kites appear as free to wander as the light evening breeze. But kites, like migrant workers, no matter how long the string and how far they travel, remain tied to their origin and the gentle, familiar hand guiding them.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Fanning the flame
When she answered the phone my Filipina friend must have been crying. “I can’t go with you today,” Emily said quietly. She sniffled.
“Isn’t today your day off?”
“Yes, but I’m packing for Syria.”
“Syria! You said you might go next month…” I began.
“I know, but the supervisor wants me to go today. They have a new restaurant with all new waitresses, and they need someone to manage them.” I didn’t know what to say. Emily had signed a two year contract with a multinational company which moves its employees almost without notice. Only two months before she had been uprooted from Beirut and placed in the sushi restaurant in an upscale Amman mall where I had met her two days ago. She had talked to me longer and more openly than the other three waitresses, and she had served me sushi without letting me pay. We had agreed to spend together her one day off during a week of thirteen-hour working days.
“I’m sorry, Emily.”
“I know, but I will sacrifice for my family. Yeah, I will sacrifice for them.” I heard the sound of her moving things, probably packing. “I don’t want to leave my friends here,” she said, her voice breaking. After a pause, she recovered and said flatly, “Look, I will call you back, o.k.?”
I don’t expect her to call me back, I thought as I checked and rechecked the mobile phone in my pocket. From First Circle to Third Circle I stumbled over the blocks of breaking pavement and dodged litter, construction, pedestrians and cat-calls from Arab men leering at me from open doorways of dukkans (shops). The sun beat down on me from above and from below in the bright reflection on the beige stone used in buildings and sidewalks in Amman; the hot, sooty air burned my nostrils; taxis honked incessantly, either to attract business or as commentary on my pale skin, now pink, and my blonde hair. Just as my Arabic returns slowly and with it confidence, so grows my resentment for the general treatment of a foreign woman walking alone. While it was safe to walk all those city blocks in the daylight by myself, I was more than a little relieved when I finally arrived at the Zahran police station.
“How did you come into Jordan?” The woman in uniform and hijab held up my passport and flipped through the pages as if to show me she could not find something.
“I flew into Queen Alia Airport on June 2nd,” I said pointing to the initial entry visa. She turned and spoke to the man at the adjoining desk, who listened, looked up at me suddenly and stood up.
“Follow me,” he said, leading me into the adjacent room which was dominated by a large wooden desk with an outdated computer model; he sat behind this and studied my passport. There was no chair for me, so I stood at attention, steeling myself for an interrogation.
“Where is your visa?”
“Here,” I said firmly, pointing again to the 2 June 2009 stamp.
“This is your most recent visa?” His accent was too thick; I shook my head in that confused way which Jordanians shake theirs at me when they cannot understand my Arabic.
“Yes,” I said. He gestured rapidly, and again I followed him out of the room, back to the female officer with better English.
“You’ve been to Palestine?”
“Yes, last week.”
“And how you came to Jordan, from which crossing?”“King Hussein Bridge.”“Did they not give you a paper?” Oh, this is what they want, I thought as I flipped through my field notebook, retrieving a crumpled slip of paper handed to me at the border crossing; I laid it on the counter.
“You must go to the Borders Department,” the woman promptly replied. After a trek across town, an hour of processing from bored Jordanian officer at one window to another bored Jordanian officer to another ad infinitum, I returned to the same station, where the culmination of those three trying hours was a simple stamp and customary “Welcome to Jordan.” I could have punched someone - for Emily’s deportation, for the cat-calls, for the taxi driver who tried to cheat me, for the five banks which refused to cash my traveler’s checks, even for the weather.
I needed to cool off, literally, and I remembered I had decided to buy a fan. When I stepped inside a tiny appliance shop humming with the noise of display fans, I was ready to give in and pay whatever the owner requested. No matter how hard I haggled and explained in my limited Arabic that I am a student on a research budget without funds to pay for an overpriced fan, the shop owners felt little or no sympathy. I looked back at Manila street as it is called, and studied the littered gutters, the empty shops, their owners leaning in doorways, haggard and hungry for a sale. Maybe I expect too much in this country, I thought.
“Can I help you?” asked a kind voice behind me. I began my spiel in Arabic, but the man interrupted with me interest, asking more details. Astonished, I told him more about what I study (anthropology), how I had come to be in Amman, my research and the hard day I was having. After a pause he said, “You know, these are hard times for everyone. These people,” he said gesturing to the surrounding shops, “they don’t have the money either. But I will let you have this fan, and you can give me whatever you think best, because you need it, and you are a polite girl.” I felt almost ashamed, because I could pay the asking price, though it is overpriced, and because he probably needed the money.
But we both understood the principle of the matter, I think. “I’ll give you 10 JD (about 17 dollars) now, and before I leave Amman to return home, I’ll bring the fan back and you can keep it or resell it.” He agreed and introduced himself as Imad.
Stepping out of Imad’s shop and into the brilliant sunshine, I bore my happy blue fan through Manila street, smiling inwardly if not outwardly. It was one of those contented moments when faith in the power of compassion and of sacrifice is restored.
(my happy electric blue fan)
“Isn’t today your day off?”
“Yes, but I’m packing for Syria.”
“Syria! You said you might go next month…” I began.
“I know, but the supervisor wants me to go today. They have a new restaurant with all new waitresses, and they need someone to manage them.” I didn’t know what to say. Emily had signed a two year contract with a multinational company which moves its employees almost without notice. Only two months before she had been uprooted from Beirut and placed in the sushi restaurant in an upscale Amman mall where I had met her two days ago. She had talked to me longer and more openly than the other three waitresses, and she had served me sushi without letting me pay. We had agreed to spend together her one day off during a week of thirteen-hour working days.
“I’m sorry, Emily.”
“I know, but I will sacrifice for my family. Yeah, I will sacrifice for them.” I heard the sound of her moving things, probably packing. “I don’t want to leave my friends here,” she said, her voice breaking. After a pause, she recovered and said flatly, “Look, I will call you back, o.k.?”
I don’t expect her to call me back, I thought as I checked and rechecked the mobile phone in my pocket. From First Circle to Third Circle I stumbled over the blocks of breaking pavement and dodged litter, construction, pedestrians and cat-calls from Arab men leering at me from open doorways of dukkans (shops). The sun beat down on me from above and from below in the bright reflection on the beige stone used in buildings and sidewalks in Amman; the hot, sooty air burned my nostrils; taxis honked incessantly, either to attract business or as commentary on my pale skin, now pink, and my blonde hair. Just as my Arabic returns slowly and with it confidence, so grows my resentment for the general treatment of a foreign woman walking alone. While it was safe to walk all those city blocks in the daylight by myself, I was more than a little relieved when I finally arrived at the Zahran police station.
“How did you come into Jordan?” The woman in uniform and hijab held up my passport and flipped through the pages as if to show me she could not find something.
“I flew into Queen Alia Airport on June 2nd,” I said pointing to the initial entry visa. She turned and spoke to the man at the adjoining desk, who listened, looked up at me suddenly and stood up.
“Follow me,” he said, leading me into the adjacent room which was dominated by a large wooden desk with an outdated computer model; he sat behind this and studied my passport. There was no chair for me, so I stood at attention, steeling myself for an interrogation.
“Where is your visa?”
“Here,” I said firmly, pointing again to the 2 June 2009 stamp.
“This is your most recent visa?” His accent was too thick; I shook my head in that confused way which Jordanians shake theirs at me when they cannot understand my Arabic.
“Yes,” I said. He gestured rapidly, and again I followed him out of the room, back to the female officer with better English.
“You’ve been to Palestine?”
“Yes, last week.”
“And how you came to Jordan, from which crossing?”“King Hussein Bridge.”“Did they not give you a paper?” Oh, this is what they want, I thought as I flipped through my field notebook, retrieving a crumpled slip of paper handed to me at the border crossing; I laid it on the counter.
“You must go to the Borders Department,” the woman promptly replied. After a trek across town, an hour of processing from bored Jordanian officer at one window to another bored Jordanian officer to another ad infinitum, I returned to the same station, where the culmination of those three trying hours was a simple stamp and customary “Welcome to Jordan.” I could have punched someone - for Emily’s deportation, for the cat-calls, for the taxi driver who tried to cheat me, for the five banks which refused to cash my traveler’s checks, even for the weather.
I needed to cool off, literally, and I remembered I had decided to buy a fan. When I stepped inside a tiny appliance shop humming with the noise of display fans, I was ready to give in and pay whatever the owner requested. No matter how hard I haggled and explained in my limited Arabic that I am a student on a research budget without funds to pay for an overpriced fan, the shop owners felt little or no sympathy. I looked back at Manila street as it is called, and studied the littered gutters, the empty shops, their owners leaning in doorways, haggard and hungry for a sale. Maybe I expect too much in this country, I thought.
“Can I help you?” asked a kind voice behind me. I began my spiel in Arabic, but the man interrupted with me interest, asking more details. Astonished, I told him more about what I study (anthropology), how I had come to be in Amman, my research and the hard day I was having. After a pause he said, “You know, these are hard times for everyone. These people,” he said gesturing to the surrounding shops, “they don’t have the money either. But I will let you have this fan, and you can give me whatever you think best, because you need it, and you are a polite girl.” I felt almost ashamed, because I could pay the asking price, though it is overpriced, and because he probably needed the money.
But we both understood the principle of the matter, I think. “I’ll give you 10 JD (about 17 dollars) now, and before I leave Amman to return home, I’ll bring the fan back and you can keep it or resell it.” He agreed and introduced himself as Imad.
Stepping out of Imad’s shop and into the brilliant sunshine, I bore my happy blue fan through Manila street, smiling inwardly if not outwardly. It was one of those contented moments when faith in the power of compassion and of sacrifice is restored.
(my happy electric blue fan)
Sunday, June 14, 2009
"I have wasta in high places."
13 June 2009
Lacing my gym shoes as slowly as possible, I kept watch on the janitorial closet across the locker room. I could see her flip-flopped feet under the doorway. A Jordanian woman came puffing around the corner from the exercise room, and I quickly turned back to my temporary locker and fumbled with my belongings, stalling for time. She gathered her things and headed for the showers, and I moved to the changing station across from the closet. I felt a little odd for essentially stalking this woman, and I was ready to leave, except that I had paid too much for a one-day pass in this gym in upscale Abdoun as a means to contact the migrant women I heard were working here. The latch turned and I jumped to meet her as she emerged from the closet.
It registered a few seconds after I began speaking rapidly in English to this woman that she didn’t understand me, and that she was not, as I had been misinformed, Asian. After a few minutes of charades and a spattering of poorly spoken Levantine Arabic (I don’t know any Egyptian colloquial), I remembered I had an Arabic cartoon about maids (similar to the one from the May 31st post) in my field notebook. I watched her face as she ran her eyes over the cartoon and the captions. Meanwhile, I wrote my mobile number on a scrap of paper and offered it to her. Unexpectedly she shoved the papers in her cleaning uniform pocket, propped her mop against the wall, and led me upstairs to – not other cleaning staff as I hoped – her employer. He looked at it, laughed ominously, and said, “She knows about this, yes, but she cannot read!” Relieved, I reached out to take the cartoon back, but he held onto it, and continued: “What do you want with her? We treat her good here, not like this [cartoon]. Are you investigating?”
“No, I’m just a student. I’m sorry, I don’t want anything from her [Egyptian worker]. I’m sorry, it was a mistake.” Faye walked past the front desk, her blue eyes widened in concern.
“You’re gonna get me kicked out of this gym,” she whispered as she walked behind me and into the machine room. I excused myself and pedaled my frustration away on a stationary bike. “You’re the worst researcher ever,” said a half-joking Faye jogging on the treadmill behind me. In that moment of frustration, I believed her. Later as we packed up our things in the locker room, I looked up to see the Egyptian woman shuffling toward me in her lavender flip flops. I grimaced, thinking of all the better ways I could have managed that situation, but then she slipped a scrap of paper in my hand.
“Afaafa,” she slowly pronounced her name. “Wa hada mobili (and this is my mobile number)”. Then she smiled a wide, toothy smile.
A rocky start to the research, perhaps, but I had rediscover the value of wasta (not what you know who you know) in Jordan. When I stopped trying to do it on my own, I saw the resources all around me; a Palestinian Christian friend of mine connected me with some international congregations, particularly Filipino ones, and I’m optimistic about what’s to come because I have wasta in high places.
Lacing my gym shoes as slowly as possible, I kept watch on the janitorial closet across the locker room. I could see her flip-flopped feet under the doorway. A Jordanian woman came puffing around the corner from the exercise room, and I quickly turned back to my temporary locker and fumbled with my belongings, stalling for time. She gathered her things and headed for the showers, and I moved to the changing station across from the closet. I felt a little odd for essentially stalking this woman, and I was ready to leave, except that I had paid too much for a one-day pass in this gym in upscale Abdoun as a means to contact the migrant women I heard were working here. The latch turned and I jumped to meet her as she emerged from the closet.
It registered a few seconds after I began speaking rapidly in English to this woman that she didn’t understand me, and that she was not, as I had been misinformed, Asian. After a few minutes of charades and a spattering of poorly spoken Levantine Arabic (I don’t know any Egyptian colloquial), I remembered I had an Arabic cartoon about maids (similar to the one from the May 31st post) in my field notebook. I watched her face as she ran her eyes over the cartoon and the captions. Meanwhile, I wrote my mobile number on a scrap of paper and offered it to her. Unexpectedly she shoved the papers in her cleaning uniform pocket, propped her mop against the wall, and led me upstairs to – not other cleaning staff as I hoped – her employer. He looked at it, laughed ominously, and said, “She knows about this, yes, but she cannot read!” Relieved, I reached out to take the cartoon back, but he held onto it, and continued: “What do you want with her? We treat her good here, not like this [cartoon]. Are you investigating?”
“No, I’m just a student. I’m sorry, I don’t want anything from her [Egyptian worker]. I’m sorry, it was a mistake.” Faye walked past the front desk, her blue eyes widened in concern.
“You’re gonna get me kicked out of this gym,” she whispered as she walked behind me and into the machine room. I excused myself and pedaled my frustration away on a stationary bike. “You’re the worst researcher ever,” said a half-joking Faye jogging on the treadmill behind me. In that moment of frustration, I believed her. Later as we packed up our things in the locker room, I looked up to see the Egyptian woman shuffling toward me in her lavender flip flops. I grimaced, thinking of all the better ways I could have managed that situation, but then she slipped a scrap of paper in my hand.
“Afaafa,” she slowly pronounced her name. “Wa hada mobili (and this is my mobile number)”. Then she smiled a wide, toothy smile.
A rocky start to the research, perhaps, but I had rediscover the value of wasta (not what you know who you know) in Jordan. When I stopped trying to do it on my own, I saw the resources all around me; a Palestinian Christian friend of mine connected me with some international congregations, particularly Filipino ones, and I’m optimistic about what’s to come because I have wasta in high places.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
"Please don't stop the music."
7th June 2009
“Please don’t stop the music!”
My time in Jerusalem was not the Holy Land expedition I always anticipated. Perhaps, had I been traveling alone, I could have walked the various historical sites in deep introspection; as it was, I was in Palestine not on my own terms, tagging along after two Americans I had just met and their Palestinian friends. Speeding around Jerusalem while blasting “Please Don’t Stop the Music” with intermittent Palestinian commentary was not conducive to pilgrimage. That said, just being in Jerusalem was still moving. I was glad to be with these new friends and grateful to hear so many opinions and histories, and I was glad to be seeing the city from many sides.
The Old City with its maze of markets descending from the Jaffa Gate reminded me of Khan-al-Khalili in old Cairo, and was decidedly Arabesque, brimming with a mish-mash of Arab and Israeli tourist kitsch: from yarmulkes custom embroidered with one’s name to t-shirts which read everything from “Israel: Uzi does it” to the superman emblem labeled “Super Jew”, to tributes to Arafat and Palestine. We sifted through racks of postcards circa 1960 and laughed over their dated peculiarities; ran our fingers over exquisite textiles; discovered a new smell every few feet wafting from barrels overflowing with a rainbow of candy, nuts, raw meat, beautiful fabrics, spices, chemicals – sweet and foul all at once.
(The Church of the Holy Sepulchre)
“Please don’t stop the music!”
My time in Jerusalem was not the Holy Land expedition I always anticipated. Perhaps, had I been traveling alone, I could have walked the various historical sites in deep introspection; as it was, I was in Palestine not on my own terms, tagging along after two Americans I had just met and their Palestinian friends. Speeding around Jerusalem while blasting “Please Don’t Stop the Music” with intermittent Palestinian commentary was not conducive to pilgrimage. That said, just being in Jerusalem was still moving. I was glad to be with these new friends and grateful to hear so many opinions and histories, and I was glad to be seeing the city from many sides.
The Old City with its maze of markets descending from the Jaffa Gate reminded me of Khan-al-Khalili in old Cairo, and was decidedly Arabesque, brimming with a mish-mash of Arab and Israeli tourist kitsch: from yarmulkes custom embroidered with one’s name to t-shirts which read everything from “Israel: Uzi does it” to the superman emblem labeled “Super Jew”, to tributes to Arafat and Palestine. We sifted through racks of postcards circa 1960 and laughed over their dated peculiarities; ran our fingers over exquisite textiles; discovered a new smell every few feet wafting from barrels overflowing with a rainbow of candy, nuts, raw meat, beautiful fabrics, spices, chemicals – sweet and foul all at once.
(The Church of the Holy Sepulchre)From this bazaar, we emerged at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, considered to be Calvary, or the site of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. The church viewed from the outside is not an impressive structure, especially as it is shrouded in the Old City. But inside, it is a cavernous and cool, bedecked in precious metals glittering in candlelight, flames flickering in a motion like lips moving in whispers and prayers, fingertips wiping moist eyes, heads nodding, figures pausing in reflection in dim corners, kneeling. Orthodox men in full regalia kept a weary eye on those snap happy tourists quickly passing through and passing their hands over artifacts like grave robbers. “Here’s where the earthquake cracked the foundations, here’s where they found the crosses, here’s where they found the tomb, here’s where they…”
Nidal, a Palestinian who attended Catholic school in Jerusalem, led us through this unceasing tour of artifacts. My head was dizzied by the ever ascending architecture, the stone steps worn down in the middle from tour groups crowding up and down them and into dim corners, straining to hear tour guides speaking in so many languages. Bump into something in that place and it was sure to be holy.
(Shrine)
Shabbat had begun while we were in the Church, and so we would not be visiting the Dome of the Rock (Temple Mount) or the Western Wall; maybe I’ll return one day to visit those sites. We emerged from the Church and back into the blinding heat. Nidal persuaded us to try the fresh squeezed orange juice at a small kiosk outside the bazaar, saying quietly that these oranges were from the area where his grandparents once lived; we sipped it beneath the Tower of David. As we surveyed the Old City and sipped the juice, there was a tinge of sadness: the battle in Jerusalem is fought everyday through such small tragedies: the best hamburgers in town are made (supposedly) by extremist Israelis; the Palestinians we were with constantly made wisecracks about Jews and admitted as to not having a single Israeli friend, refusing to get to know any Israelis; the best oranges, hommus and Taybeh beer brewed in Ramallah are popular with (if not claimed by) Israelis while Palestinians must purchase Israeli products almost exclusively. These small, daily tragedies foment the hatred, the sadness, the regret on both sides.
At night, the wind swept across the Mount of Olives and over hundreds of graves. I stood at the brink, staring down at the Dome of the Rock and across the sleeping city, wondering what the sunrise will be like.
(The Dome of the Rock, as seen from the Mount of Olives)
Nidal, a Palestinian who attended Catholic school in Jerusalem, led us through this unceasing tour of artifacts. My head was dizzied by the ever ascending architecture, the stone steps worn down in the middle from tour groups crowding up and down them and into dim corners, straining to hear tour guides speaking in so many languages. Bump into something in that place and it was sure to be holy.
(Shrine)Shabbat had begun while we were in the Church, and so we would not be visiting the Dome of the Rock (Temple Mount) or the Western Wall; maybe I’ll return one day to visit those sites. We emerged from the Church and back into the blinding heat. Nidal persuaded us to try the fresh squeezed orange juice at a small kiosk outside the bazaar, saying quietly that these oranges were from the area where his grandparents once lived; we sipped it beneath the Tower of David. As we surveyed the Old City and sipped the juice, there was a tinge of sadness: the battle in Jerusalem is fought everyday through such small tragedies: the best hamburgers in town are made (supposedly) by extremist Israelis; the Palestinians we were with constantly made wisecracks about Jews and admitted as to not having a single Israeli friend, refusing to get to know any Israelis; the best oranges, hommus and Taybeh beer brewed in Ramallah are popular with (if not claimed by) Israelis while Palestinians must purchase Israeli products almost exclusively. These small, daily tragedies foment the hatred, the sadness, the regret on both sides.
At night, the wind swept across the Mount of Olives and over hundreds of graves. I stood at the brink, staring down at the Dome of the Rock and across the sleeping city, wondering what the sunrise will be like.
(The Dome of the Rock, as seen from the Mount of Olives)
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” Matthew 24: 37
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Isaiah 40: 1-2
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Isaiah 40: 1-2
"They wear their astonishment."
6 June 2009
The sunlight pushed through the slit in my left eye, and I rolled onto my side on the bare mattress. The bleating and tinkling of a goat herd pushing through the brush on the terraced hillside below my window tricked me into thinking that I was back in my homestay from SIT Fall 2008; there, in Dahiat al-Rasheed, goats or sheep wandering through the scrubby valley had awakened me most mornings. I sat up and pushed off the blanket, which surprisingly was necessary in this cooler mountainous region 900 meters above sea level. I was in Omar’s house in Ramallah, and it was late afternoon.
Maybe it’s the heat that makes the night-life here so vibrant. Our hosts regularly awakened mid-afternoon and stayed up until 4am, and I soon found myself in this reverse schedule, one night on a rooftop of an old evangelical boys school in Ramallah with a motley crew watching the distant lights of Tel Aviv twinkle on the horizon. The rooftop had the air of an expatriate gathering, despite the Palestinian majority, as most of the Palestinians present had spent much of their lives abroad: Omar and his brother were born in England and lived in the States; Sara, our Palestinian-British host spending her gap year in Ramallah, was English through and through; I’m fairly certain there was a quiet Jewish kid on the fringe. Muslim, Christian, Jew, agnostic, devout, skeptical, optimistic, discouraged – here was a real interfaith dialogue, a roundtable, a panel:
“But you Americans,” Sara was saying in her English drawl, “are such imperialists!”
“And who do you think we learned it from?” Wes contested.
“But what do you think about Obama’s speech in Cairo?” Sharook, puffing on the hookah, leaned in and asked. She had this sophisticated way of brushing her loose curls of rich, dark hair away from her heavily made-up face, her metallic jewelry glinting in the darkness. She continued, saying, “Obama said something about America breaking away from an empire…”
“It’s just words…” began another Palestinian.
“But to have him, to have an American president acknowledge the record in the Middle East, now that’s promising,” began Sharif. Nidal took the hookah from Sharook, shaking his head. Wes, Faye and I had watched Obama’s speech at Rami’s house in Jerusalem, and I suspect Nidal had felt ambivalent about Obama’s allusions to the “clash of cultures” – especially the conflation of Arab and Muslim. As Palestinian Christians, Nidal and Rami shook their heads and clicked their tongues at phrases like “the Muslim world”.
“The best part was when he said our women wear the ‘haajib’, and the people in the audience were like what did he say?” said Sharif, laughing.
“The haajib?” asked Wes. “You mean the hijab, the veil, right?”
“Yeah, haajib means ‘astonishment’, so rather than saying that the women cover themselves with the veil, Obama said women cover themselves with astonishment!”
“Yeah, but when he said as-salemu alaykum at the beginning, that was pretty intense,” Faye contested. “He got that right!”
The rooftop discussion went back and forth like this, until the lights twinkling toward Tel Aviv quieted themselves and the pink ribbon of dawn unfurled across the horizon.
(From a rooftop in Ramallah, Tel Aviv in the distance)
The sunlight pushed through the slit in my left eye, and I rolled onto my side on the bare mattress. The bleating and tinkling of a goat herd pushing through the brush on the terraced hillside below my window tricked me into thinking that I was back in my homestay from SIT Fall 2008; there, in Dahiat al-Rasheed, goats or sheep wandering through the scrubby valley had awakened me most mornings. I sat up and pushed off the blanket, which surprisingly was necessary in this cooler mountainous region 900 meters above sea level. I was in Omar’s house in Ramallah, and it was late afternoon.
Maybe it’s the heat that makes the night-life here so vibrant. Our hosts regularly awakened mid-afternoon and stayed up until 4am, and I soon found myself in this reverse schedule, one night on a rooftop of an old evangelical boys school in Ramallah with a motley crew watching the distant lights of Tel Aviv twinkle on the horizon. The rooftop had the air of an expatriate gathering, despite the Palestinian majority, as most of the Palestinians present had spent much of their lives abroad: Omar and his brother were born in England and lived in the States; Sara, our Palestinian-British host spending her gap year in Ramallah, was English through and through; I’m fairly certain there was a quiet Jewish kid on the fringe. Muslim, Christian, Jew, agnostic, devout, skeptical, optimistic, discouraged – here was a real interfaith dialogue, a roundtable, a panel:
“But you Americans,” Sara was saying in her English drawl, “are such imperialists!”
“And who do you think we learned it from?” Wes contested.
“But what do you think about Obama’s speech in Cairo?” Sharook, puffing on the hookah, leaned in and asked. She had this sophisticated way of brushing her loose curls of rich, dark hair away from her heavily made-up face, her metallic jewelry glinting in the darkness. She continued, saying, “Obama said something about America breaking away from an empire…”
“It’s just words…” began another Palestinian.
“But to have him, to have an American president acknowledge the record in the Middle East, now that’s promising,” began Sharif. Nidal took the hookah from Sharook, shaking his head. Wes, Faye and I had watched Obama’s speech at Rami’s house in Jerusalem, and I suspect Nidal had felt ambivalent about Obama’s allusions to the “clash of cultures” – especially the conflation of Arab and Muslim. As Palestinian Christians, Nidal and Rami shook their heads and clicked their tongues at phrases like “the Muslim world”.
“The best part was when he said our women wear the ‘haajib’, and the people in the audience were like what did he say?” said Sharif, laughing.
“The haajib?” asked Wes. “You mean the hijab, the veil, right?”
“Yeah, haajib means ‘astonishment’, so rather than saying that the women cover themselves with the veil, Obama said women cover themselves with astonishment!”
“Yeah, but when he said as-salemu alaykum at the beginning, that was pretty intense,” Faye contested. “He got that right!”
The rooftop discussion went back and forth like this, until the lights twinkling toward Tel Aviv quieted themselves and the pink ribbon of dawn unfurled across the horizon.
(From a rooftop in Ramallah, Tel Aviv in the distance)
"We're kidnapping you!"
5th June 2009
(The wall, behind it are the rooftops of an Israeli settlement)
“We’re kidnapping you!” The Palestinian man pulled me and the two Americans into the backseat of a dark car and we sped away…to a trendy Ramallah restaurant.
(Did that opener send up any red flags?)
The wall separating Palestine from Israel flew past Sharif’s car, the graffiti melting into a continuous stream of colors of pain and hope. Sharif’s music rattled his tiny Asian-make car, and we Americans settled into the backseat; I let my eyes roam over the streaming wall, rising and falling with the roadway speeding beneath. It was one of those timeless moments I sought to internalize, until Sharif interrupted our reverie by pointing out an architecturally unusual section of the wall: “Look, the Israelis are trying to get all creative with building the wall!"
(Graffiti on the wall - "free Palestine, from Palestine with love", etc.)
Later, at Rami’s house in Jerusalem, he and his friend Nidal showed us mock terrorist videos they made in high school: young Nidal and Rami stood defiantly in front of a Palestinian flag draped in the background, hattas (koffiyas) and flags wrapped around their faces to disguise their identity. Holding a shaking piece of paper to the camera, Nidal read his last testament as a soon-to-be martyr, and Rami offered an occasional rousing “Allahu akbar!” In the dozens of outtakes, they doubled over in laughter or broke into dance moves. In one spoof, Rami huddled behind Nidal’s desk, pressing a yarmulke to his scalp, speaking to the camera as if he were an Israeli reporter while Nidal, off-camera, pelted him with various bedroom objects – pillows, crumpled pieces of paper, school textbooks.
I could not begin to recall and relate all the wisecracks and parodies my new Palestinian friends related to me, with a bewildering mixture of good humor and melancholy. As Omar, our host in Ramallah, ran his finger along the trench cut by a stray Israeli bullet through the stone framing his bedroom window (his house adjoins a military service road), or where a car bomb had exploded across the valley, or related events of the second Intifada as we drove through the city, it was with this strange mixture of enthusiasm and sadness.
There was no laughter, however, at Arafat’s tomb. Noisy Ramallah disappeared behind us through the gates as we stepped onto the eerily silent tile platform. A quote by Darwish, the late Palestinian poet, was engraved on a granite slab near the entrance. A solitary building, modeled after the Kaabah, but in the smoothest white stone rather than gleaming obsidian, rose before a reflection pool. Inside, we stood before the tomb guarded by two Palestinian soldiers, and we were silent, our various political beliefs put to rest. The only sound was the gentle flapping of three Palestinian flags billowing in the breeze, pressing outward like soldiers’ chests thrust forward and collapsing back into one another, inhaling, exhaling.
To learn more about the Separation Wall, check out NPR's four-part series "Israel's Barrier" at http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/israelbarrier/part4.html
(The wall, behind it are the rooftops of an Israeli settlement)
“We’re kidnapping you!” The Palestinian man pulled me and the two Americans into the backseat of a dark car and we sped away…to a trendy Ramallah restaurant.
(Did that opener send up any red flags?)
The wall separating Palestine from Israel flew past Sharif’s car, the graffiti melting into a continuous stream of colors of pain and hope. Sharif’s music rattled his tiny Asian-make car, and we Americans settled into the backseat; I let my eyes roam over the streaming wall, rising and falling with the roadway speeding beneath. It was one of those timeless moments I sought to internalize, until Sharif interrupted our reverie by pointing out an architecturally unusual section of the wall: “Look, the Israelis are trying to get all creative with building the wall!"
(Graffiti on the wall - "free Palestine, from Palestine with love", etc.)
Later, at Rami’s house in Jerusalem, he and his friend Nidal showed us mock terrorist videos they made in high school: young Nidal and Rami stood defiantly in front of a Palestinian flag draped in the background, hattas (koffiyas) and flags wrapped around their faces to disguise their identity. Holding a shaking piece of paper to the camera, Nidal read his last testament as a soon-to-be martyr, and Rami offered an occasional rousing “Allahu akbar!” In the dozens of outtakes, they doubled over in laughter or broke into dance moves. In one spoof, Rami huddled behind Nidal’s desk, pressing a yarmulke to his scalp, speaking to the camera as if he were an Israeli reporter while Nidal, off-camera, pelted him with various bedroom objects – pillows, crumpled pieces of paper, school textbooks.
I could not begin to recall and relate all the wisecracks and parodies my new Palestinian friends related to me, with a bewildering mixture of good humor and melancholy. As Omar, our host in Ramallah, ran his finger along the trench cut by a stray Israeli bullet through the stone framing his bedroom window (his house adjoins a military service road), or where a car bomb had exploded across the valley, or related events of the second Intifada as we drove through the city, it was with this strange mixture of enthusiasm and sadness.
There was no laughter, however, at Arafat’s tomb. Noisy Ramallah disappeared behind us through the gates as we stepped onto the eerily silent tile platform. A quote by Darwish, the late Palestinian poet, was engraved on a granite slab near the entrance. A solitary building, modeled after the Kaabah, but in the smoothest white stone rather than gleaming obsidian, rose before a reflection pool. Inside, we stood before the tomb guarded by two Palestinian soldiers, and we were silent, our various political beliefs put to rest. The only sound was the gentle flapping of three Palestinian flags billowing in the breeze, pressing outward like soldiers’ chests thrust forward and collapsing back into one another, inhaling, exhaling.
To learn more about the Separation Wall, check out NPR's four-part series "Israel's Barrier" at http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/israelbarrier/part4.html
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Checkpoint. Checkmate.
4th June 2009
Checkpoint. Checkmate.
“What are you doing in Israel?” Wiping the sweat from the back of my neck, I strained to understand the heavily accented Israeli woman with her thinly penciled, arched eyebrows staring at me with some mix of boredom and hostility. I am pressed against the passport control counter, the crest of a wave of tired, angry travellers poised to break out of the narrow queue line at the border crossing from Jordan to Israel.
“I’m a tourist.”
“Are you here alone?”'
“No, with two other students.”
“Students? Where do you study?”
“In Amman.”
“Where are you going?”
I hesitate. I’m with two American students I just met, going to Ramallah, the de facto capital of Palestine, to carouse with some Palestinians for a few days. I’m not going to tell her this. I glance at Faye, one of the two American students who are my ticket to the West Bank, and say, “We’re going to Jerusalem”. At the time, we didn’t know if we would make it to Al-Quds (Jerusalem); we did, but that’s a story for a later entry. It was safer to say Jerusalem.
“And where are you staying in Jerusalem?”
“We haven’t made reservations.” I study the insignia on her uniform and glance over at the next window where Wes is flirting with a considerably more attractive guard; she quickly stamps his passport, half-smiles, and Wes grins smugly as he passes through the checkpoint. Faye and I groan.
“No reservations? And how long will you stay?”
“Three of four days.”
“Three or four days. And have you booked a flight out of Israel?”
“No, I’ve booked a flight out of Amman in August. That’s where I’m living, Amman.” I told her this already. I push closer to the hole in the glass. My voice is rising, my tone strained, rising to join the other heated voices in the crowded checkpoint. She calmly holds my passport up as if to compare my present appearance with the 2006 passport photo, and stares blankly, unimpressed, stalling as she surveys the crowded checkpoint; then a quick stamp and shove under the window. “Next.”
“Can you stamp this piece of paper, not in the passport?” asks Faye. Countries like Lebanon and Syria deny entry to persons with an Israeli visa in their passport.
“I have to stamp the passport,” says the guard. Faye and I share a knowing look. Refusing to stamp a separate piece of paper is arbitrary on the part of this testy guard, not a uniform policy.
“But I have a piece of paper, just stamp that,” Faye protests.
The Israeli woman looks up at Faye pressed against the checkpoint glass, theatrically raises the stamp above the passport, and says pointedly as she snaps it downward, “I am stamping your passport now”.
When the checkpoint was behind us and our frustration subsided (although Faye will need to apply for a new passport to gain entry to Lebanon or Syria), we could laugh. We imitated the guard’s curt “I’m stamping your passport now,” over and over. Granted, it’s a serious conflict, and sure, several months of being on the Palestinian-Jordanian sides of things does skew one’s view. I fully acknowledge that. But it was something about my initial impression of unrelenting Israeli seriousness juxtaposed with having the time of my life with new-found Palestinian friends, a contrast which by degrees would convince me of the power of laughter in the face of oppression.
Checkpoint. Checkmate.
“What are you doing in Israel?” Wiping the sweat from the back of my neck, I strained to understand the heavily accented Israeli woman with her thinly penciled, arched eyebrows staring at me with some mix of boredom and hostility. I am pressed against the passport control counter, the crest of a wave of tired, angry travellers poised to break out of the narrow queue line at the border crossing from Jordan to Israel.
“I’m a tourist.”
“Are you here alone?”'
“No, with two other students.”
“Students? Where do you study?”
“In Amman.”
“Where are you going?”
I hesitate. I’m with two American students I just met, going to Ramallah, the de facto capital of Palestine, to carouse with some Palestinians for a few days. I’m not going to tell her this. I glance at Faye, one of the two American students who are my ticket to the West Bank, and say, “We’re going to Jerusalem”. At the time, we didn’t know if we would make it to Al-Quds (Jerusalem); we did, but that’s a story for a later entry. It was safer to say Jerusalem.
“And where are you staying in Jerusalem?”
“We haven’t made reservations.” I study the insignia on her uniform and glance over at the next window where Wes is flirting with a considerably more attractive guard; she quickly stamps his passport, half-smiles, and Wes grins smugly as he passes through the checkpoint. Faye and I groan.
“No reservations? And how long will you stay?”
“Three of four days.”
“Three or four days. And have you booked a flight out of Israel?”
“No, I’ve booked a flight out of Amman in August. That’s where I’m living, Amman.” I told her this already. I push closer to the hole in the glass. My voice is rising, my tone strained, rising to join the other heated voices in the crowded checkpoint. She calmly holds my passport up as if to compare my present appearance with the 2006 passport photo, and stares blankly, unimpressed, stalling as she surveys the crowded checkpoint; then a quick stamp and shove under the window. “Next.”
“Can you stamp this piece of paper, not in the passport?” asks Faye. Countries like Lebanon and Syria deny entry to persons with an Israeli visa in their passport.
“I have to stamp the passport,” says the guard. Faye and I share a knowing look. Refusing to stamp a separate piece of paper is arbitrary on the part of this testy guard, not a uniform policy.
“But I have a piece of paper, just stamp that,” Faye protests.
The Israeli woman looks up at Faye pressed against the checkpoint glass, theatrically raises the stamp above the passport, and says pointedly as she snaps it downward, “I am stamping your passport now”.
When the checkpoint was behind us and our frustration subsided (although Faye will need to apply for a new passport to gain entry to Lebanon or Syria), we could laugh. We imitated the guard’s curt “I’m stamping your passport now,” over and over. Granted, it’s a serious conflict, and sure, several months of being on the Palestinian-Jordanian sides of things does skew one’s view. I fully acknowledge that. But it was something about my initial impression of unrelenting Israeli seriousness juxtaposed with having the time of my life with new-found Palestinian friends, a contrast which by degrees would convince me of the power of laughter in the face of oppression.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
West Bank Bound
Headed to Ramallah for the weekend with two other American students. Expect some posts next week about Palestine/Israel!
No w(h)ining allowed
3 June 2009
No w(h)ining allowed
Like sentinels guarding my plane seat, the two matronly Jordanian women looked up at me quizzically if not rather hostilely as I stood there in the aisle, studying my boarding pass, hoping that my seat was not 22E. One woman bounced a screaming, red-faced infant spewing saliva while the other rummaged through a diaper bag, clicking her tongue disapprovingly. Yes, it definitely says 22E. Three children ran in circles around the center aisle seats and around me, while an older girl, presumably their relative and appointed to keep watch over this zoo, shooed them away and laughed loudly into her trendy mobile phone while she covered her free ear to dampen the chaos:
“Oh, but Lila, do you know how we got the sleeping pills so Ahmed could sleep on the flight? We put those in with the shampoo in our bag, and they made us put it in the other bag that’s in the plane. So now Ahmed is not going to sleep – he can’t sleep on planes! Funny, right?”
At the mention of his name, the ringleader of the chaos paused his chase and leaned into the girl’s phone, triumphantly proclaiming, “I’m going to stay up all night!”
“La! Halas. Go away, Ahmad!” the girl protested, transferring her phone to the other ear. Meanwhile, the sentinels were using my seat as a diaper changing station, while I continued standing dejectedly in the aisle, kicking myself for choosing 22E on a 12 hour non-stop flight from JFK to Amman.
I turned toward the front of the plane; in both aisles as far as I could see, flight attendants frantically crammed overflowing carry-on luggage into the overhead bins, checked the bags which wouldn’t fit, and warded off protesting passengers refusing to be separated from their American souvenirs.
Accepting that 22E was indeed my seat, I was crushed – literally. I quickly regretted relinquishing my aisle seat so that one of the sentinels could stretch her legs in the aisle. This can’t be too bad once the plane takes off and everyone falls asleep; it is almost 10:30 P.M.. And then the two kids behind me began pounding their balled fists into my seat, shouting, “Yallah! Yallah!” (Let’s go! Let’s go!), and I wondered what sort of crime against humanity deserved this exceptional punishment that is 22E.
It was in this state that I gladly accepted a complementary mini-bottle of red wine when offered to me by the flight attendant. Anticipating the warmth in my arms and legs and welcome drowsiness, I poured a full cup for myself and placed it on the edge of my tray table, brushing away the thought that it was a precarious spot. A minute later, the infant arm shot out, and I saw myself in slow motion reaching for the cup, too late, as red wine spilled onto my legs, feet, pillow and book. The sentinels merely looked on, unphased (and perhaps unfamiliar with the smell of alcohol). Across the aisle a woman surveyed the mess and asked, “What it all that?”
“It’s wine,” I said.
Raising an eyebrow, she replied, “I thought I smelled something. You know why that happened to you, don’t you?”
I knew what she was going to say. “Yeah,” I said, “it’s haram (forbidden).” She smiled and nodded, satisfied by my answer, and I half-believed it myself. Finally, the flight attendant appeared. I sheepishly handed my purplish pillow over and apologized for the mess.
“Unfortunately we don’t have replacement pillows,” he said and I accepted grimly, knowing I wouldn’t need one anyhow since Ahmed and his tribe wouldn’t be sleeping.
“I’m awfully sorry for the mess,” I began again, but he smiled and disappeared into the flight attendant nook adjacent to my aisle, reemerging with a new bottle and cup. “Here, you can drink away your shame,” he said good-naturedly.
I didn’t drink away my shame, but I did drink away this flying island of Jordanians and too much Arabic too fast, the screaming infant and Ahmed and his posse – until an hour later a strong shaking of my shoulder awakened me and startled, I found myself accepting a request to switch seats with one of the sentinels. “Her legs are hurting,” explained the woman whose suspicions I earlier had confirmed about the dangers of alcohol (namely, falling fast asleep). Squeezing into 22D, I reclined my chair only to have the kids behind me renew their fist-pounding. I looked enviously at the sleeping baby next to me, now wrapped around her relative’s shoulder like one of those neck-pillows. The saying slept like a baby never seemed truer than in the following ten hours of bleary-eyed reading and dozing.
What happened after those some 24 hours of traveling until now, sitting in this café, is a bit foggy. In a zombie-state I staggered off the plane, procured my visa and my baggage, and searched in vain for an open mobile phone kiosk where I could purchase minutes for my Jordanian mobile phone. Realizing I wasn’t going to be able to use my phone, I borrowed one from a private-taxi driver, allowing him to think I would shortly thereafter be using his taxi. I called Lawrence, a fellow Sewanee student who is traveling through the Middle East this summer, to meet up near the apartment, and as soon as the driver heard the word bus, he grabbed his phone. I quickly headed for the yellow bus to Amman, the taxi driver harassing me all through the terminal and down the sidewalk. At the bus station I bought minutes, and called Lawrence back (only to find out he had called the taxi driver back thinking it was my phone; apparently the rejected driver answered in a devilish tone with a “Hello, Lawrence”). We met, I got a whirlwind tour of the rather spartan apartment, the friends and family. We headed to Hashem resturaunt and a spread of typical Jordanian food, especially some excellent falafel. It was their nostalgic last night of touring Amman; it was my starkly real first night of two months of research, not play. I felt displaced among sightseers. I lagged behind them through familiar streets until once again we were at the apartment, where I rolled onto, or rather into, a collapsing mattress and slept, almost as well as a baby.
No w(h)ining allowed
Like sentinels guarding my plane seat, the two matronly Jordanian women looked up at me quizzically if not rather hostilely as I stood there in the aisle, studying my boarding pass, hoping that my seat was not 22E. One woman bounced a screaming, red-faced infant spewing saliva while the other rummaged through a diaper bag, clicking her tongue disapprovingly. Yes, it definitely says 22E. Three children ran in circles around the center aisle seats and around me, while an older girl, presumably their relative and appointed to keep watch over this zoo, shooed them away and laughed loudly into her trendy mobile phone while she covered her free ear to dampen the chaos:
“Oh, but Lila, do you know how we got the sleeping pills so Ahmed could sleep on the flight? We put those in with the shampoo in our bag, and they made us put it in the other bag that’s in the plane. So now Ahmed is not going to sleep – he can’t sleep on planes! Funny, right?”
At the mention of his name, the ringleader of the chaos paused his chase and leaned into the girl’s phone, triumphantly proclaiming, “I’m going to stay up all night!”
“La! Halas. Go away, Ahmad!” the girl protested, transferring her phone to the other ear. Meanwhile, the sentinels were using my seat as a diaper changing station, while I continued standing dejectedly in the aisle, kicking myself for choosing 22E on a 12 hour non-stop flight from JFK to Amman.
I turned toward the front of the plane; in both aisles as far as I could see, flight attendants frantically crammed overflowing carry-on luggage into the overhead bins, checked the bags which wouldn’t fit, and warded off protesting passengers refusing to be separated from their American souvenirs.
Accepting that 22E was indeed my seat, I was crushed – literally. I quickly regretted relinquishing my aisle seat so that one of the sentinels could stretch her legs in the aisle. This can’t be too bad once the plane takes off and everyone falls asleep; it is almost 10:30 P.M.. And then the two kids behind me began pounding their balled fists into my seat, shouting, “Yallah! Yallah!” (Let’s go! Let’s go!), and I wondered what sort of crime against humanity deserved this exceptional punishment that is 22E.
It was in this state that I gladly accepted a complementary mini-bottle of red wine when offered to me by the flight attendant. Anticipating the warmth in my arms and legs and welcome drowsiness, I poured a full cup for myself and placed it on the edge of my tray table, brushing away the thought that it was a precarious spot. A minute later, the infant arm shot out, and I saw myself in slow motion reaching for the cup, too late, as red wine spilled onto my legs, feet, pillow and book. The sentinels merely looked on, unphased (and perhaps unfamiliar with the smell of alcohol). Across the aisle a woman surveyed the mess and asked, “What it all that?”
“It’s wine,” I said.
Raising an eyebrow, she replied, “I thought I smelled something. You know why that happened to you, don’t you?”
I knew what she was going to say. “Yeah,” I said, “it’s haram (forbidden).” She smiled and nodded, satisfied by my answer, and I half-believed it myself. Finally, the flight attendant appeared. I sheepishly handed my purplish pillow over and apologized for the mess.
“Unfortunately we don’t have replacement pillows,” he said and I accepted grimly, knowing I wouldn’t need one anyhow since Ahmed and his tribe wouldn’t be sleeping.
“I’m awfully sorry for the mess,” I began again, but he smiled and disappeared into the flight attendant nook adjacent to my aisle, reemerging with a new bottle and cup. “Here, you can drink away your shame,” he said good-naturedly.
I didn’t drink away my shame, but I did drink away this flying island of Jordanians and too much Arabic too fast, the screaming infant and Ahmed and his posse – until an hour later a strong shaking of my shoulder awakened me and startled, I found myself accepting a request to switch seats with one of the sentinels. “Her legs are hurting,” explained the woman whose suspicions I earlier had confirmed about the dangers of alcohol (namely, falling fast asleep). Squeezing into 22D, I reclined my chair only to have the kids behind me renew their fist-pounding. I looked enviously at the sleeping baby next to me, now wrapped around her relative’s shoulder like one of those neck-pillows. The saying slept like a baby never seemed truer than in the following ten hours of bleary-eyed reading and dozing.
What happened after those some 24 hours of traveling until now, sitting in this café, is a bit foggy. In a zombie-state I staggered off the plane, procured my visa and my baggage, and searched in vain for an open mobile phone kiosk where I could purchase minutes for my Jordanian mobile phone. Realizing I wasn’t going to be able to use my phone, I borrowed one from a private-taxi driver, allowing him to think I would shortly thereafter be using his taxi. I called Lawrence, a fellow Sewanee student who is traveling through the Middle East this summer, to meet up near the apartment, and as soon as the driver heard the word bus, he grabbed his phone. I quickly headed for the yellow bus to Amman, the taxi driver harassing me all through the terminal and down the sidewalk. At the bus station I bought minutes, and called Lawrence back (only to find out he had called the taxi driver back thinking it was my phone; apparently the rejected driver answered in a devilish tone with a “Hello, Lawrence”). We met, I got a whirlwind tour of the rather spartan apartment, the friends and family. We headed to Hashem resturaunt and a spread of typical Jordanian food, especially some excellent falafel. It was their nostalgic last night of touring Amman; it was my starkly real first night of two months of research, not play. I felt displaced among sightseers. I lagged behind them through familiar streets until once again we were at the apartment, where I rolled onto, or rather into, a collapsing mattress and slept, almost as well as a baby.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Back so soon?
Why am I going back to Amman, Jordan this summer? Didn't I get my fill of dust, falafel and strange looks?
Supported by my University, I'm continuing a research project I began last semester while studying in Amman about women migrant workers, popularly known as "maids" or "housekeepers". Jordanians employ some estimated (legal) 70,000 women mainly from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, as domestic workers (cleaning, food preparation, caring for family members, etc.), typically on two year contracts settled through private labor recruitment agencies. For a good summary of issues concerning women migrant workers, I've added a link (on the right margin of this blog) to UNIFEM's website. The brief explanation on that link, which I would encourage those interested to spend five minutes reading, summarizes the issues well, at least from the humanitarian perspective.
I suppose Jordan "maid" a good first impression (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun), or a bad one considering popular Jordanian cartoonist Abu Mahjoob's critique (below):
Roughly translated, the Jordanian employer chastises his Indonesian housekeeper over the abundance of expensive phone calls home...regarding the (then) recent Tsunami. Ouch.
Even after having witnessed abuse of domestic workers last semester, I can still smile at Mahjoob's biting humor, if not a little bitterly, because I know the situation of women migrant workers in Jordan is not one of hopeless, vulnerable victims - abroad, alone and abused as news media and some humanitarian discourse stereotype them. (Even UNIFEM in a recent forum concerning migrant workers commissioned Mahjoob to produce a series of cartoons to raise awareness about housekeepers in Jordan .) As an anthropology student, I did a lot of observation and a good deal of thinking about what I saw, and what I saw was potential for improvement. The conclusion I reached in my 50 page report included incorporating women migrant workers into the Jordanian labor legislation, and I'm optimistic about the Ministry of Labor's recent revisions of the Labor Law - especially the inclusion of unions representing women migrant workers.
But I've had my fill of bureaucracy - of ministries, embassies and labor recruitment agencies. While these organizations and their representatives informed my initial report, I hope to get past the official discourse about women migrant workers (maids) and into the lived experiences of these women. What exactly that entails...we'll both have to wait and see.
Feel free to send your questions or comments throughout the summer - the more critical thinking/discussion the better. Well, I'm off to bed, or at least to lie awake thinking about all this for a few hours before my early morning flight.
Supported by my University, I'm continuing a research project I began last semester while studying in Amman about women migrant workers, popularly known as "maids" or "housekeepers". Jordanians employ some estimated (legal) 70,000 women mainly from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, as domestic workers (cleaning, food preparation, caring for family members, etc.), typically on two year contracts settled through private labor recruitment agencies. For a good summary of issues concerning women migrant workers, I've added a link (on the right margin of this blog) to UNIFEM's website. The brief explanation on that link, which I would encourage those interested to spend five minutes reading, summarizes the issues well, at least from the humanitarian perspective.
I suppose Jordan "maid" a good first impression (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun), or a bad one considering popular Jordanian cartoonist Abu Mahjoob's critique (below):
Roughly translated, the Jordanian employer chastises his Indonesian housekeeper over the abundance of expensive phone calls home...regarding the (then) recent Tsunami. Ouch.
Even after having witnessed abuse of domestic workers last semester, I can still smile at Mahjoob's biting humor, if not a little bitterly, because I know the situation of women migrant workers in Jordan is not one of hopeless, vulnerable victims - abroad, alone and abused as news media and some humanitarian discourse stereotype them. (Even UNIFEM in a recent forum concerning migrant workers commissioned Mahjoob to produce a series of cartoons to raise awareness about housekeepers in Jordan .) As an anthropology student, I did a lot of observation and a good deal of thinking about what I saw, and what I saw was potential for improvement. The conclusion I reached in my 50 page report included incorporating women migrant workers into the Jordanian labor legislation, and I'm optimistic about the Ministry of Labor's recent revisions of the Labor Law - especially the inclusion of unions representing women migrant workers.
But I've had my fill of bureaucracy - of ministries, embassies and labor recruitment agencies. While these organizations and their representatives informed my initial report, I hope to get past the official discourse about women migrant workers (maids) and into the lived experiences of these women. What exactly that entails...we'll both have to wait and see.
Feel free to send your questions or comments throughout the summer - the more critical thinking/discussion the better. Well, I'm off to bed, or at least to lie awake thinking about all this for a few hours before my early morning flight.
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