Activism in Amman

Merry Christmas!

Here's a photo of me at the Amman Museum of Arts in Jebel Weibdeh, posing in front of its awesome view with a statue from its gardens.

I haven’t posted for a long while! There’s been so much that’s happened in the past few weeks, and I’ve been so busy I’ve had no time to post! But now, typical of me, a bizarre short-term illness (fever, headache, and muscle aches – something termed "kreeb" in Arabic) has slowed me down so that, confined to rest, I now have the time to sit down and fully complete a post.

My mother keeps laughing at me as I tell her about all the posts I start and never finish, proof of both my creativity and my lack of consistent self-motivation. Here is one that I have started and will finish today:

Jordan is a hub for activism. Individuals, grassroots organizations, and international NGOs congregate in this country, filling it up with as much hope as there exists need. The work of these activists inspires me to learn more, to hope more, and to act.

I wonder at the phenomenon of how a culture for activism developed here, and how it happened so fast. In a candid chat over tea at one of my favorite cafés, a visiting friend from Beirut told me of how, when she lived in Amman as a child, few such organizations existed in the city besides religiously affiliated charities. As a young activist, she proudly grew up watching Amman bud into a hotbed of grassroots-based action. She laments moving to Beirut in the wake of Amman’s activism wave, but she’s proud of all the brave individuals who have built strong organizations for change and proudly stand up for human, civil, and environmental rights.

I don’t blame her. I find myself every day bumping into new forms of activism. One day last week, I found my curiosity getting the best of me as I walked by an open door headed with a modest yet prominent sign that declared, “Justice Center for Legal Aid.” Their symbol reminded me of the Human Rights Campaign symbol, and I wondered whether such an organization would be able exist in Jordan. So I carefully poked my head into the front door, and was greeted by three Jordanian women who excitedly ushered me in and sat me down before asking about why I was even there. When I explained that I was simply interested in learning more about the organization, the women happily pressed a cup of tea in to my hands as they gathered around me to explain their mission.

The Justice Center for Legal Aid (JCLA) works towards giving pro bono legal representation to Jordan’s underprivileged groups, including women, refugees, and foreign domestic workers. We had a lovely conversation. Every sentence I uttered in Arabic elicited giggles and exclamations like, “Oh, how cute.” More women gathered around and added into the conversation, until the initial teatime gathering soon resembled something like a celebratory party. I nodded and smiled as they prided themselves for their impressively high success rate of winning over 80 percent of their cases. Thanks to God, they said, funding for their work continues to grow and they are expanding their services to other cities in Jordan.

However, they constantly have difficulty in translating their documents into English for the international donors to read. Their proposals take weeks to edit, their reports are a laborious process, and they struggle in getting personal narratives from their lawyers. One woman stressed the point that lawyers usually have a dry writing style anyway, so imagine trying to get lawyers to write in a second language! They produce bland and choppy statements. Would I like to help? An hour and a half later, I left the Justice Center having eight new friends and my first volunteering opportunity. I’ve signed on to be a translator, editor, and ghostwriter for the center.

Beyond organizations, some people are taking on their own initiatives to make a difference in the country. Julia, an acquaintance of mine, has taken on the brave initiative of helping as many Palestinian refugees as possible from the Gaza Camp. She works through no organization. Yet, through donations that she gets through her blog, she strives to give as much as she can, from toys to heating appliances for the cold winter nights to life-changing operations. One by one, she encounters a problem and finds the means to solve it. Her motivation is so inspiring.

Activism can reach various channels for spreading awareness and inciting action, such as films and music. Earlier this month, I excitedly attended several documentaries during Amman’s Karama Human Rights Film Festival. The films covered a broad range of topics, from the United States’ army bases throughout the world to drug and human trafficking through Germany to Iran’s Green Revolution in 2009. I found each film moving or thought provoking, and I loved that such large groups of people, both Jordanian and foreign, attended each event.

At times, the shear depth of human rights infringements depresses me. How can we even begin to address all the sadness, need, and injustice in the world? But then, I remember Mother Theresa’s saying, “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

The devoted work from the activists that I see in Jordan embodies Mother Theresa’s mission. All around me, I see so many people moved to imagine a better world and to act towards improving the lives of those around them. The need is great, but the hope is greater. Hope is a powerful motivator. It lingers within the hearts and minds of people the way the call to prayer echoes throughout Amman’s hills, encouraging them to try harder, to work stronger, and to love more deeply.

My Rainbow

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. - Maya Angelou

Here's a herd of bicyclists that passed by my taxi one day to a lecture. I don't see too many of them around the traffic-crazed streets of Amman!

Things are changing. The night mist chills my house into a deep, damp cold until the sun rises and lifts the icy haze away, leaving only the inside of our house chilly. The rains slowly roll over Amman, signaling the beginning of winter. My roommates and I are debating how we should heat our apartment for the winter, so while we stall, we also freeze at night and early in the morning when I roll out of bed, getting ready for school. Buildings here are built of stone and concrete, so summer creates an inferno indoors while winter turns your home into an icebox. It always feels better outside than it does inside, so I take advantage of that frustrating phenomenon by going on walks around town.

The chill temperatures have chased the crowds away from Rainbow Street, the main stretch of road where my neighborhood’s social scene thrives. Now, the weekend nights feel more subdued, giving you a calm environment for a nice evening walk.

I went out last night with my friend from Jordan to walk around Rainbow. We enjoyed the slight breeze and the sights. The families slowly processing down the sidewalks, the young men congregating in the squares, the ice cream man making an upbeat percussion instrument out of his ice cream maker as he churns furiously.

Rainbow Street has become my street. I know it so well. At the beginning of the street, cars whir around al-Door al-Owel, the First Circle, from the traffic-clogged road that comes from the Second Circle. All this traffic slowly winds and honks its way into the narrow single-lane, cobblestone pavement that is Rainbow Street.

The traffic is an obvious indicator of the street’s popularity in the city. Cafés and boutique shops line both sides, indicating material wealth and prosperity, but the smaller joints highlighting local artwork and posters for alternative concerts show that this tiny thoroughfare shares a connection to the hip, underground art world that quietly thrives in Amman.

My favorite café is Turtle Green, which is quick walk to my place. Besides having addictive lemonade with mint, their calming atmosphere makes it a perfect place to relax after a stressful day. Farther down the street, I go to Café de Artistes for a quiet evening where I can have a candid conversation with someone and check out the latest happenings and concerts in the area. By the Café, Souk Jaraa opens seasonally on sunny Fridays and Saturdays as an arts-and-crafts market. I enjoyed many weekend excursions to the Souk, admiring the handiwork, tasting the vendors’ different delicacies, and watching the kids run around.

At the end of Rainbow, the street curves suddenly to avoid plunging down the hill’s steep drop-off. Stairs instead meet you at the curve and guide you, after several hundred steps, down to Downtown, the Balad, the busy hub of the city where East and West Amman converge into an action-packed center of commerce. I often take these stairs to meet friends for tea or to pick up a package from my Mom or to check out the many different stores that the Balad has to offer. You can find almost anything in the Balad.

More often, however, I’ll follow Rainbow’s curve to the Royal Film Commission, which houses a wide array of film screenings every week. Foreign films and independent documentaries throughout the world find their way to this small compound nestled on the hillside. During warmer months, the RFC will feature films outside in the perfectly quiet night air. The screen sits in front of a stunning view of East Amman, and the audience often finds it difficult to focus on the film itself with such a view, especially if fireworks go off. And then, at least once during every screening, the obligatory random cat will come strolling in front of the screen and make a shadow. But no one shews it away.

But more often, I pass the RFC to instead have brunch at Books @ Café, my preferred weekend morning hangout. Its spacious views grace the diners, who can relax on lounge couches and smoke shisha. The place has a nice, relaxed atmosphere, providing an open environment to chill with friends.

But tonight, my friend takes me to a different place. She takes me to “Wazzup Dog,” a trendy hotdog place with a creative list of condiments and splashes of graffiti covering the walls. As a former 10-year vegetarian, I’m embarrassed to admit how much I like this place. My friend smiles at my satisfaction and walks me home.

The shopkeepers whose shops line my street are gradually getting to recognize my face. They nod and smile their greetings, sometimes muttering a kind “salaam aleikum” as my friend and I pass. I feel that, slowly but surely, I am making a place for myself here, in hearts of friends and the pleasant greetings of my neighbors.

Now I’m home. I’m singing along to Disney songs with my roommates, writing this post and thinking about the heating situation. It’s all good.

Adventure

A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.
Bertrand Russell

Many apologies for not posting for so long. I’ve been on many adventures that I’ve neglected to tell you about, and it’s about time that I tell you all about them.

During my first four weekends in Jordan, I traveled outside of the city and went on adventures.

On my first weekend, I traveled with a group called the Zikra Initiative (http://www.zikrainitiative.org/), which is an organization that focuses on connecting the socio-economically advantaged people in the city to the relatively disadvantaged country people. To nurture this exchange, the organization sponsors trips out to the countryside, where city dwellers learn the artistic traditions of basket weaving and bread making from the local villagers. Though this program is mainly meant for Jordanians, the language institute where I study has a connection with Zikra. Qasid thus encourages its language students, who primarily experience city life while in Jordan, to venture out with Zikra on day trips.

I decided to go, and I was so glad that I did. Besides learning how to weave baskets and make flat bread, I had engaging conversation with my teachers, who taught me Arabic words and smiled at my curiosity. After the lessons, we went to one of the teachers’ house for an amazingly delicious lunch of the flat bread we had just made along with a traditional tomato stew. We sat on plush cushions on the floor of the living room, ladling the tasty stew into our mouths with the flat bread.

Our guide then took us on a hike, asking us, “Is anyone afraid of heights?” We all shook our heads and followed him into the mouth of a wadi, which is a whimsically winding desert valley cut deep and narrow by a river. We soon realized that his question referred to a narrow stone staircase with a drop off each side and no railing. I’m afraid of death, I thought. I refused to look down and wobbled up the stairs. We followed the water path until the wadi terminated at a cascading waterfall, where a bunch of us ran under to cool ourselves off from the intense heat.

On my next weekend, I went with Jo Hiking (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSRBNabUsvw) to another wadi, Wadi Numeirah. I tagged along with a group from Nadi al-Shabab, or the Boys’ Club, which is kind of the Amman equivalent of the Boy Scouts. The boys had a lot of shenanigans up their sleeves, and oh goodness did they like to sing. They spent most of the ride to and from the wadi dancing and singing in the aisles of the bus. We sang while we hiked, we sang while our tour guides stopped for smoking breaks, we sang while we ate lunch. When they told me that the 3 kilometer hike would take all day, I was struggling to understand exactly how the most challenging of terrain could take that long. I didn’t realize that they had planned a 5-hour break in the middle of the hike to relax along the riverside and play games. Somehow, a portable stove, teapots, and a hookah set were produced. We had ourselves an outdoor café!

During my third weekend, my next and most intense wadi hike was Wadi Hassa. They told me to bring nothing that I would want to risk getting waterlogged. Small wonder, since the first act we had to do to actually get into the ­wadi was to jump off of a 5-meter-high waterfall and into raging waters. I closed my eyes, jumped, and screamed. There were no banks along this river, no place to rest our legs. All we had to keep us afloat were the lifejackets that the tour guide handed to us. The walls of the wadi were so steep that I began to wonder how we would ever get back out. I clung to my lifejacket until I got used to the challenges of the “hike,” which was more of an all-day swim. At some points, the stony river floor off the wadi would steeply drop or rise up, causing me to scrape my knees and run into the underwater boulders that invisibly lurked beneath me. At one point, we had to squeeze ourselves through a long and narrow cave, so claustrophobic that I had to wriggle through it. Exasperated tiredness soon replaced the exhilaration that I felt whenever the currents from suddenly appearing waterfalls sucked me away from the group and forced me to swim with all my might to keep myself from getting sucked off a cliff. I kept wondering how a medical team could actually evacuate me from this place if I broke a leg. Finally, the steep walls fell away, and the wadi calmed down into a gentle river. Along the riverside, we ended the hike by soaking our shaking legs in a natural hot springs.

By my fourth weekend, I was quite tired of hiking. So my roommates and I went with another friend to Umm Qais, the ancient Roman ruins of the town known back in Biblical times as Gadara. Based on descriptions in the Bible, this place was the setting for the story of where Jesus casts demons out of people and sends them into pigs. The pigs then went mad and ran themselves into the Sea of Galilee, which is now known as Lake Tiberias. You can see the lake on the hill of Umm Qais, nestled in the countryside among the expansive Northward views. If the pigs were to have run from Umm Qais to Lake Tiberius today, they would have crossed several contested borders and probably would have been shot by border guards before the end of their run. Umm Qais is about as northwest as you can go in Jordan because it lies at the borders of Israel and the Golan Heights. We had to keep asking people, we just could not believe that the Golan Heights were right there, the next hill over, less than a five minute walk down the valley and across the Yarmouk River. This place has become a popular pilgrimage sight for Palestinian refugees because of the symbolism of this place. So close, and yet so far.

So, this is what I did for the first four weekends of my time in Jordan. The last three have been more Amman-centered, but still fun and exciting, of course. More on that later.

Explicit

He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn. – Jeremy Bentham

A lovely sunset picture of the Dead Sea and Israel (or Palestine?) in the distance, for your enjoyment. More on that later.

Wow, so Gaddafi’s dead. Movers informed me just as we got home from Arabic classes on Thursday, settling into our daily afternoon ritual of slumping into the living room sofa and losing ourselves in the Internet for a good hour. We both looked at each other in shock and then started speed-googling for any related news until I remembered that we had to pay the electric bill. So I took out nine dinars (about $13) and Movers followed me to our landlord’s house, since it would be somewhat awkward for me as a young, single, and unrelated woman to visit his place alone.

Of course, our landlord happily invited us in to watch the news on Al-Jazeera with him and his family. His wife served us bubbly orange soda on a gorgeously adorned tray, his sons shyly sat with us, and we stared in horror at the images we saw spread across the television screen. A blown up, somewhat blurry photo of Gaddafi with a gash in his left temple and a pathetic expression full of pain on his face. A video of Gaddafi’s second-in-command collapsed in the back of a pick-up, his face an eerie shade of blue, his eyes frozen in the horror of his death, a rugged gash torn deep into his neck. Would any of these images ever be publicly broadcast by a widely recognized news source in the states?

In broken Arabic, I explain to my landlord that we’d never see this kind of images on American news channels. They would be seen as too inappropriate, too gory.

My landlord raised his eyebrows in surprise and said in Arabic, “Really? Here, people need to see these images to know that what they are hearing is actually true. They need to see evidence.” Understandable.

I couldn’t help but continue to compare between cultures. I thought about all the gory violence in fictional movies that spring from Hollywood. There’s no less violence that’s publicly accessible. But, with the exception of what you can find on the internet, it’s mostly fictional. So, if America is already very violence-oriented, if any 11-year-old could youtube Saddam Hussein’s hanging and if Americans flood the movie theatres to see Saw 8, why is real violence so taboo in the news? Food for thought.

Speaking of explicit, my Arabic teachers love nothing more but to have us dissect and study the most controversial topics. My “Arabic in the Media” professor loves to give us fiery articles to translate, and then asks us to debate the topic. I squirmed when we debated whether domestic violence should be stopped, and whether the government has any right to step in. I felt even worse when I had to debate whether the hijab is wrong, especially when my teacher herself covers her head. My “Arabic in Literature” professor asked us this week about our opinions on the death penalty. All the students from Western countries were against the death penalty while all the students from so-called Eastern countries were for it. The conversation got messy fast, and ended with one student, an older man from Turkey, claiming in Arabic that, “You don’t understand because you don’t have children.” I was waiting for about half the class to start ripping open their shirts and throwing chairs. “So, next topic,” my teacher eagerly interjected.

Controversy is everywhere in this country, and people love it. From women’s rights to human rights to immigration to religion, I observe something that would incite hours of debate if I brought it up among a group of Jordanians. Or a group of expats, for that matter. Because the type of foreigners who are attracted to the Middle East love drama. I’ll probably go into the different types of expats (and Americans, specifically) that find themselves enamored by the Middle East. It’s quite a funny phenomenon. But that’s for a later post.

Little Mac

"No matter how much cats fight, there always seems to be plenty of kittens." - Abraham Lincoln

Our friends invited us to come visit a bird park near their apartment. We wandered through crowds of families, past children who were excitedly stretching out their arms as far as they could through the double bars to reach the animals that frantically scrambled for any morsel they could snatch. The kids seemed especially keen on feeding the monkeys, which were in their own section of the park. Mothers stoically watched their sons climb up the bars. The monkeys eagerly mirrored the boys’ actions, climbing up their own cage’s bars. Reaching the top of the gate, the boys would then carefully balance their weight as they tipped themselves over, leaning forward to offer their fruit roll-up or cheese curl. We enjoyed the sight, little monkeys feeding other little monkeys.

Suddenly, destiny stared us in the eye, and destiny came in the shape of an emaciated, barely-able-to-mew kitten. Mover, one of my flatmates, first spotted the kitten, shivering and looking pathetically alone, by the park’s bathrooms. A man smiled at Mover’s attention and, perhaps as a kind gesture, kicked the kitten towards her. The little guy toppled over himself and began mewing desperately. Mover gasped, took him up in her arms, and ran over to us to show us what she found.

Once little children saw us holding and petting the kitten, they shyly came over to watch. We carefully held out the little fuzz ball and asked if they’d like to pet. Some tentatively reached out their fingers and giggled when the kitten looked at them with as much curiosity for them as they had for him. Bird, my other flatmate, noticed how the way one person changes her treatment of an animal changes the way everyone treats the animal. All it takes is one person.

Mover had already introduced the idea to Bird and I of adopting a cat while we were here. We welcomed the idea, and when this tiny possibility looked up in our eyes, we couldn’t say no. We tried to logically examine the pros and cons of the decision, but within five minutes, Bird settled the debate by determinedly walking out of the park with the little one wrapped up in her scarf.

Now in our friends’ apartment, searching the Internet for instructions on how to care for a feral kitten, we watch as the small bundle of fuzz and ribs transforms into a death machine as he attacks and devours spoonfuls of wet cat food. His aquamarine eyes are frozen in an incredibly sad expression. They look like giant pools of depression, the epitome of sadness. I think I hear violins playing whenever he looks up at me. His tangerine orange fur and white belly will look nicer once we give him a bath. He’ll be a cute kitten once he starts eating. I notice that we keep using the future tense with him.

Our friends speculated on a name. One guy suggested that we name the kitten after a dinosaur. “Pterodactyl,” I suggested jokingly. For some reason, that name caught on like wildfire among the guys, and they started calling the little guy “Pterry,” complete with the silent P. Mover gave us one of her looks and sternly shook her head. Nope, we’re finding a new name.

Back at Balconyland, we watched as the kitten unsteadily walked around the living room, never straying too far away from us. Pet care stores are in short supply in Amman, so we decided to pilfer sand from one of the many adjacent construction sites as litter. We asked our landlord about the kitten, and all he said on the subject was, “I had a tenant that had a cat here once, and the cat destroyed all the furniture.” But he said it with a smile, so we’re interpreting his words as a tentative yes.

Within a week, the kitten has gotten incredibly fat. We admire his bulging belly as it almost touches the ground. Suddenly, the little guy has a growth spurt so that his body frame matches his growing stomach. He’s now a feisty ball of energy. Soon he’s teaching himself the art of pouncing. As we do homework, he cleverly disguises himself behind a leg of the dining room table as he plans his next attack on our ankles.

One day, I come up with a name. “Alain McNamara,” I offer to my flatmates. McNamara is the name of our program coordinator. We all love it. Now we’re all keen to say, “Ah, Alain bit my finger!” and “I think Alain is hiding under the table,” and we find ourselves thoroughly entertained by the complimentary imagery of our coordinator mirroring the kitten’s actions. Soon we adopt the nickname “Little Mac,” and we look forward to the day when we can introduce the Big Mac to the Little Mac.

Little Mac started attacking everything to the point where I jokingly speculated on whether he was rabid. I imagine a horror film where a little zombie kitten infects three innocent, unknowing flatmates and causes a zombie epidemic throughout Amman. But we’re all still healthy (I think) and Little Mac is now the vision of health.

He’s a daredevil, jumping off of heights that are several stories to him. He enjoys Kamikaze missions. He will jump off of my bed, land on the window curtain, and hang there until his mewing attracts someone’s attention. He finds that the shaky covers of the drain lids are fun to surf on. He’s getting better about getting lost in a dark room and mewing until someone comes to rescue him. He enjoys watching Glee. Anything and everything is interesting, and absolutely everything is a chew toy.

Like most parents, Mover, Bird, and I find that our child takes up a huge chunk of our everyday conversations. Notice that this post is about twice the size of all the other ones, and it has pretty much nothing to do with my experience in Jordan. I promise I won’t indulge in my obsession with Little Mac too much via this blog, and that I will actually tell you more about my life in Jordan. Next time. J

An Introduction

″A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.” – Moslih Eddin Saadi

The apartment slowly comes together. I’m relearning how to not live out of a suitcase. Nevertheless, my giant, red monster of a bag lays collapsed in the middle of my room, gaping open with the remnants of my unpacking spree strewn all around it.

Nicknaming our home Balconyland, my flatmates and I decided on this apartment for the view. The expansive scenery before us includes the valley that cradles Downtown Amman, also known as the Balad, the country. On the opposite side of the valley, buildings upon buildings stack the dramatically steep hills. Their sandstone walls radiate blinding whiteness under the unrelenting sun. Every morning, when I look out in quiet awe at the crystalline purity of that intense light, I don’t wonder why Amman’s own nickname is al-Medinet al-Beidha, the white city.

We’ve known our landlord for less than two weeks and he already claims that we are like his sisters. In the apartment below us live six Egyptian men. Whenever I tell someone in Amman about these particular neighbors, their facial reaction reflects either shocked concern or intrigued humor, either “Why are you living there?” or “This will make a great story some day.” I’m more concerned about the ants that have declared war on our kitchen.

The road that our apartment building opens up on must be steeper than a 15% grade. One roommate, whose room faces the street, tells me that she regularly hears cars stalling in the middle of the night as they labor their way past her window.

Some neighbor down the road likes to blast music until one in the morning. Someone else has a rooster. I almost always hear fireworks every night, celebrating a birthday or some big occasion for a couple. The morning call to prayer comes at about 4:30 am. I usually lie awake in the dark and listen to the half hour of hauntingly beautiful recitations until the gradually fading notes settle me back to sleep. Rowdy children noises, prominent among the rising buzz of a waking city, eventually rouse me awake.

The surreptitious and yet ubiquitous dust of Amman stubbornly clings to every facet of my life. No matter how many times I clean and scrub and clean again, the windowsill collects a fine film within three days. I gape wide-eyed at the jet-black color of the post-wash water that comes out of my washing machine. Do my clothes really have that much dirt on them? Yes, my roommate who has lived here before assures me that I do. The dried dishes should be put away as soon as possible. Sweeping the porch seems to be a futile effort. Being a conscientious consumer in this thirsty country, I try not to lavish in a shower for too long, but the water always feels great.

Dehydration comes swiftly to the inexperienced. The city’s atmosphere makes me forget that I’m in a desert. I can’t feel myself sweating. The sun feels so pleasantly warm. What's the harm in walking around outside for twenty minutes? In no time, I have a piercing headache and a bad temper. I'm amazed at how much drinking water I consume every day.

I could go on and on, but for now, I'll stop here.

The Movers, the Shakers, and the Birds

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu

That quote is for my uncle.

According to Lao Tzu, I am a horrible traveler. I love planning and thinking forward, into the future. Counteractive to my goal-oriented mindset, I am also both lazy and indecisive, which eventually mixes to create a peculiar concoction of relaxed apathy. As I looked for an apartment, these two aspects of my personality battled against each other.

We drove around on a mega tour of Amman apartments, seeing everything from the good and the bad to the ugly. True to the harshness of reality, my dream apartment did not exist.

Until we came upon an expansive 2-bedroom apartment nestled near Rainbow Street with balconies overlooking the city’s rolling hills. The landlord seemed kind and respectful. I wanted it immediately.

Of course, complications set in. The program coordinators insisted that we did not immediately settle and that we continue looking. Roommate pairings continued to switch and realign. Our hotel stay continued to grow more and more expensive with every night that we squatted in indecision.

We toured more apartments, finding a variety of apartments, from a bird nest in the window of one to a tousled, quirky tenant rolling out of bed in another. We still wanted the first apartment.

Then, in a matter of 24 hours, we had a home. We toured the apartment again, moved in the next day, and signed the lease agreement the day after. Shockingly, after a few days of stressful house hunting, I found myself sitting on the plush sofa of a living room, a living room that would be my living room for the next 12 months.

I am living with two other girls. One of the girls’ mothers affectionately nicknamed us “the movers, the shakers, and the birds.” One of us is studying birds, I am studying earthquakes, and the other is studying politcal movements. So there we are, appropriately named for our speedy move.

I am happy. I will write more later, when I have more direct access to internet and more free time.

Vigor

“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca

I could not find more truth in my favorite philosopher’s words, if vigor in my case primarily means overcoming sickness and dealing with several frustrations. Indeed, the relaxed smile I told you about in my previous entry quickly furrowed into a determined, thin-lipped grimace as my final days in the States drained away, as I tried to maneuver my way through dozens of packing set-backs and tearful goodbyes.

Now, finally, I am here, in Jordan. My eyes woke up to their first Amman morning, to the unfamiliar surroundings of my hotel room, to the immensely bright mid-morning sunlight and the whirring hum of traffic that insists I get up and explore.

I’m up, uncertain of time, getting dressed in the cognizant haze of jet lag. I’ve been throwing up and nauseous all night, but I won’t let a silly stomach bug keep me from exploring my new hometown. My roommate and I walk five steps out of our hotel room door before I buckle over with stomach cramps and run back to the bathroom. Perhaps I’ll rest, after all. My thoughtful roommate returns later to the room with a small, light fare of breakfast foods, which I’ve been barely able to nibble on. I’ve had the exact same type of gastroenteritis before, so I’m not concerned about the recovery so much as the dehydration. Each sip after sip of water has become a small victory during this day of bedridden misery, but at least it affords me the time I need to rest and relax, along with writing my first blog post in Jordan.

The plane ride from JFK to Queen Alia Airport ran smoothly, except for the initial hour-and-a-half delay due to torrential rain from whatever tropical storm the East Coast is experiencing now. I have left the soggy marshes of Princeton for the crisp desert that surrounds Amman.

Rami, the cheerful driver who picked me up from the airport with a handful of other Fulbrighters, instantly began quizzing us in Arabic as he sped the car onto the highway. He would declare a sentence in Arabic and then look at me, saying in English, “What did I say?”

He would also announce points of interest that we drove by. Bedouin tents, the palace of the King’s brother, the US embassy (“you know what sefara means?”), wild camels. I felt like a giddy tourist, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the sights. Rami’s ability to multi-task while driving a manual was another impressive sight. I can barely sip a coffee while driving an automatic, yet here Rami is, rolling through prayer beads or engaging us in lively conversation if he isn’t on the phone, organizing Fulbright rides with the other drivers.

The sunset highlights the city’s array of modern and traditional architecture in punch-red light. The crescent moons atop the mosques’ spires kiss the sky goodnight as the city settles into deep-ocean blue.

After forty minutes, we finally roll up to the Al-Qasr Metropole Hotel, and the heard of us gradually trickle in through the hotel’s security checkpoint. An hour later, we meet up to wander around the neighborhood, looking for dinner. We shyly engage in conversation, looking around at these new streets with travel-fatigued numbness. A party bus full of young men brakes besides us and entreats us in English to join in the fun. Despite the hypnotizing music they’re blasting, we decline in favor of continuing our search for food.

I just want to keep walking, breathing in the jasmine and watching the people almost as much as they watch me. But, eventually, we stop for dinner, and, eventually, I succumb to the tiredness by returning to Al-Qasr and collapsing in bed.

Now, this morning, I continue to lounge in bed while most of the other Fulbrighters explore. My roommate is keeping a kind, watchful eye on me as she studies Arabic. I am quietly celebrating two hours without throwing up and watching Al-Jazeera.

That Business of Relaxation

"That business of relaxation, which is so terribly modern today, is all good and well, but my work interests me so much, and is so varied, that many times it seems relaxing when I go from one aspect to another." - Arne Jacobsen

To my dear family and friends, and to the unknown visitors who may happen upon this blog,

Welcome! Thank you for your interest in following what I’m doing for the next fifteen months in Jordan. I hope to take you along on this journey by sharing my experiences and observations.

The summer blows away, calming down from the tortuously hot afternoons of August into gently sunny, breezy days of September. Tomatoes in my grandfather’s garden are at their peak, growing voluptuously tender and ripening red in the sun. I pick a tomato fresh off the vine every day, cutting it into delicately thin, translucent slices and sprinkling them with a hint of salt. One by one, I pick up each slice and slide it into my mouth. They taste devine.

Three months of doing absolutely nothing productive have treated me well. I sped through the winding roads of Tuscany, meandered around the capital monument in D.C., explored the Freedom Trail in Boston, stretched out upon the beach in Connecticut, and enjoyed Southern hospitality in Kentucky.

I leave the country with tanned legs and a relaxed smile, ready (and hoping) for Jordan to be as interesting and crazy as I expect. I am excited to show you Jordan through my eyes.