When they asked if we had visas, I answered no. This is because the Syrians simply charge Americans what America charges Syrians for a travel visa, which is $150 and simply outrageous. Some of my friends had already traveled to Syria and found it much better to just show up at the border; you just wait a couple hours while they fax Damascus and the Damascus office takes their sweet time clearing you through. It differed day to day how much time the border would take (anywhere from two to eight) but to me it was worth the wait rather than paying $300.

Therefore, the taxi cab company told us we had to buy our own cab (paying for four seats instead of two) so that our taxi driver could wait for us without holding up other passengers which was fine. I was simply grateful to have one taxi take us all the way to Damascus and have it be done. Dad signed the papers, paid the 44 dinar (about 65 dollars), and we were on our way.

We got to the Jordan side of the border and went through the slow, complicated process of exiting. I have to say, I will never again criticize the efficiency of American bureaucracy. Or at least not for a very long time. Everything took forever, especially if you are an American and have this silly notion about ‘lines’. They don’t exist; you need to push and watch all sides. Above all costs, don’t let a bus driver with 25 passports ahead of you! Also, it turns out my visa was expired and I had to go see this guy and then that guy and then finally pay this man at that office in order to simply get out of Jordan. This made me apprehensive. If the Jordan exit border is so hard, how hard will the Syrian entrance border be?

My nervousness was proven unfounded. After Dad and I went and got our passports photocopied and filled out forms asking if we had swine flu, we just hunkered down in the corner that seemed to be unofficially deemed “America land’ because all the other Americans were hanging out together waiting for their go ahead. Well, to be fair there was also a Canadian who had the misfortune to be married to an American. Eventually everybody started getting to know each other (who knew how long we would be here? Might as well) and Dad found out the Canadian was also an architect doing urban design for Amman, Jordan. Now Dad seems to think he might come to Jordan to work; I’ll believe it when I see it. However, everyone was very cordial and it was interesting to hear how and for what reason everyone had somehow ended up here; not one story was even remotely the same.  Meanwhile I studied my Arabic. I thought it would be a worthwhile effort considering Syria is not Jordan in that not as many people know English and can’t come to rescue me when my Arabic inevitably fails. After all, while the British colonized Jordan, the French colonized Syria. And I don’t know French.

Finally they ushered us over and $16 dollars a person later we had the proper stamps. We got back in the taxi and went through the baggage/car inspection area. Our taxi driver was anxious to get through quickly so he could get a second trip in that day and asked Dad for two thousand Syrian pounds to ‘get us through quicker’. He put a thousand pounds in each of our passports as he handed it to the inspection cop, who then opened and shut the car trunk without looking, ushering us ahead. Dad commented, “Jesus! That’s the first time I’ve ever bribed somebody!’ I laughed, thinking that was so funny, and then quickly shut up because that was actually true for me as well. I am still a naïve little American.

And we were on our way! Except for one more little obstacle. Supposedly our driver had been talking to the other drivers while we were all waiting for our visas. I guess one of the other drivers had mentioned that he had gotten 30 more dinar out of his passengers by threatening to leave them at the border because ‘it was taking too long’. While on our way to Damascus our driver tried to do the same to us, only for forty more dinar. I blew a gasket. I would have nothing to do with it, so the guy put me on the phone with his supervisor who tried to tell me that I should because it had taken so long at the border. I interrupted him, totally abandoning all Arabic and speaking in rapid English, yelled at him for being a thief because we both knew three hours is actually very good and the whole reason we bought the whole car was so that the guy would wait as long as was needed. Eventually the supervisor just let me go and said in Arabic, “As you like”. Damn straight.

I gave the phone back to the driver, who listened to the supervisor and whatever he was saying. The driver hung up the phone and sullenly drove the rest of the way without saying another word. The car filled with bitter tension and silence. I didn’t care; leaving Dad to watch where we were going I fell asleep. The victory was mine.

Eventually Dad and I finally made it to Damascus at about three in the afternoon. We were here! Watch your back Dad, we’re in the Axis of Evil now.

Mistake number one: instead of hiring a taxi driver to drive us for the day through Karak to Petra, I thought it would be better to rent our own car and drive ourselves. I thought it would be cheaper in the end, I didn’t think we would be able to find a car to take us from Petra to Wadi Rum, and I thought it would be more fun for Dad and me because we do really well on road trips. We couldn’t get lost, there are only like two major roadways in Jordan!

No. NO no NONONO. In the end it was way more expensive to get our own car. Also, we got lost. Constantly. We were lost literally in the first five minutes, even before we got outside of Amman. Luckily we asked a random man on the street how to get to the highway, and he and his friend got in their car and drove, with us following, clear across town to show us the way. I was so grateful both because it was incredibly helpful and because my Dad got to see what I have talking about when I speak about Jordanians being so unbelievably generous and charitable. However, that was not the only time. We got lost going to Karak. We got lost getting out of Karak. We ended up on the wrong highway and accidentally ended up going south along the Jordanian/Israeli border! All of a sudden there was no one on the road and a lot of military checkpoints where people were surprised to see us and asked to see our passports again and again: I feel dumb now for not picking up on all the signs. However, we finally figured out our mistake and had to turn around. A soldier we asked drew an imaginary road on the map and told us this was the road we had to take. We didn’t know the condition of the road, or even if it was really there. If it didn’t work, we would have to drive all the way back to Karak and maybe not make it to Petra by nightfall. But off we went.

The road ended up being fine, a military road that some Bedouin also used. It was actually amazingly beautiful; you get to drive up, down, and all around the canyons and valleys in the desert with the sun showing off the amazing color contrasts of the rock. The soldiers could not believe their eyes when Dad and I pulled up to get through the checkpoints; this little blond white chick speaking Arabic and an older white guy traveling on a road that they SO should not be on. I’m fairly sure at least some of the soldiers radioed the Jordanian secret police that terrible CIA agents were running around the country. Anyway, I had an amazing time trying to take pictures out the car window of the sunset while Dad put the car and its sub-par transmission through its paces, trying to get through the desert and little villages to Petra before the sun set and we got really screwed. As we came out the other side finally on the right road to Petra, we stopped to ask a guy on the road just to double check (lesson learned) that we were going the right way. He asked, “You came this way to go to Petra?” I answered yes. He said in English, “Oh my, you went the hard way!” Too true. Later, this became a running joke and fitting motto for the entire trip. We have since renamed the Jordan Valley (the one we crossed) Wadi Baba, wadi meaning valley and baba meaning dad, since Dad truly did seem to conquer the desert. 

However, we were not quite out of the woods yet. I’m not quite sure what even happened or how we did it but we got lost for another hour trying to find our hotel. By this time it was legitimately dark. There were tiny little roads that ended abruptly and became excruciatingly difficult to back out of. As always, there were no street signs. Everyone we asked sent us a different direction with different landmarks, “Go this way” “Who told you that? No! The opposite way!” “Go to the triangle, turn right, after 3 kilos turn soft left at the circle, find this restaurant and ask the chef”.  Crazy! Dad and I by this point were tired, frustrated, and nervous. I also had to pee. I was thrilled when we finally pulled into the parking lot. The concierge greeted us with, “Oh it’s you! You’ve finally made it!” Yeah, and your directions sucked. 

After we got settled Dad and I walked close by and had a lovely dinner outside in Petra, just talking and relishing our newfound comfort and satisfaction that we had finally made it to our destination for the night. 

Which transitioned about three hours later into mistake number two: I didn’t give enough time to let Dad’s body adjust, to deal with the numerous new environments, foods, germs, etc. Instead I threw him full tilt into the Middle East by the seat of his pants. Even SIT gave us four days in a hotel to let our bodies deal with the changeover and cautioned us to eat easy foods. Anyway, Dad was attacked by a sudden bout of the dreaded Tourista and had a rough night. Stupidly we still got up very early the next morning to see the Petra ruins at dawn; he threw up before we got to the treasury. He kept going. He can say he made it; he saw Petra. Then we got him a bench, a soda, and waited. When he was ready we turned around and made the slow return trip, with numerous rest stops. We crashed back at the hotel for several hours.

Therefore, revisions to the plan had to be made. We decided not to go Wadi Rum but instead return to Amman (and to add to mistake number one, it would have been super easy to get a car from Petra to Wadi Rum- you can even do it by jeep and make it an adventure along the way). I drove, and actually we had a lot of fun on the return trip. While we did get on the wrong highway, thankfully all roads lead to Amman and so we were fine. We chatted, joked, and commented continually on the Jordanian, ermm, style (?) of driving. We also drove through several rather large dust storms, which was fun. 

We arrived back in Amman and took the rest of the day easy; napping and water, primarily. We decided to go to Jerash the next day which was a success. That should have been my plan all along considering the whole thing is an architect’s/urban designer’s (my Dad’s occupation) playground. We walked around, took a ton of photos, sat in the amphitheaters, and had a lovely time. Further, we got back to Amman with ease!

The next day we toured/ shopped around Amman and got ready to go to Syria. That night we went to my host family’s for dinner. Knowing Khalid, my host dad, didn’t come home from work until around 10 we went around eight; I thought it might be best to take Dad through Jordanian hospitality in stages. 

God, I loved that night. It was perfect. Dad met Zaina and Abeer first, Hussein arriving shortly thereafter. Dad fit in exactly as I had hoped he would; he and Hussein got into a spirited conversation about engineering/architecture/city planning in Amman while I was busy making tea and Abeer was finishing preparing dinner. When I came out with the tea and tray with glasses, my Dad got a kick out of it and laughed, saying that they had made me so domestic. I don’t think that made any sense as a joke because me making tea is just normal in my Amman house.

There was only one point where I held my breath a little bit. When Dad found out that Zaina wanted to become a doctor he mentioned that she should come to America for school This is a little bit of a delicate topic because Zaina desperately wants to go and has uncles and aunts that have offered invitations to have her come and live with them. However, Abeer is anxious and currently against it. Hussein came back from simply two weeks in Sweden and was ruined in terms of premarital sex and drinking; she isn’t about to let that happen to Zaina. Thankfully, it was expertly managed and Abeer took it in stride. 

When Khalid arrived home, I smiled to see the two men meet, greet, and have Khalid welcome my real Dad into his house. Introductions (articulated in English) done, the house filled with layers of conversations, Khalid speaking Arabic, Dad speaking English, Hussein and Abeer switching between the two depending on to whom they were speaking, and me translating the easy stuff while Zaina took over for the more difficult. When dinner was ready we moved into the garden to enjoy to the (finally) cool air and to sit under the grapevines. 

Of course the food was delicious- the hospitality was better. The night was spent telling my Dad all the stories of my time at the house that had accumulated. Khalid told the one where I had taken some of Abeer’s leftover Diwali (grape leaves stuffed around rice, meat, and other good things) to school for lunch and managed to persuade my academic director, who is a friend of Khalid’s, to let us out of school several hours early by getting him to eat my diwali while I talked to him. Abeer told the story of the night that Islam snuck out of the house to go hang out with his friends. Abeer locked the door, undid the doorbell, and went to bed. Islam tried to climb up into the balcony that has a door directly into his bedroom, but Abeer was too smart for him and had put a chair under the door handle. So he called me, thinking the American would understand/collaborate with rebellion and let him in; miscalculation. I didn’t even answer my phone because I know better than to mess with Abeer. So he spent the night sleeping in the garden which Abeer still finds funny. Little running jokes were told, and when Islam finally arrived home after work at eleven Dad got to see the teasing/ joking between Islam and I that had been described beforehand. 

At midnight we finally tore ourselves away because we had to get up early to hit the Syrian border; the Bteibets encouraged us to stay just a few hours longer. At the final goodbye to Abeer Dad thanked her for taking such good care of his daughter with a sincerity that couldn’t have been mistaken even with all the language barriers. For some reason it surprised me and made me think. Yes, it must be incredibly nerve wracking to send your daughter off to a country incredibly far off and distant, into the hands of a family you’ve never met and cannot assess the character of. That had never before really struck me with the emotional force it did at that point. Then the entire family (except for Abeer, who had to put Farah to bed) walked Dad and I down the street and made sure we got into a taxi safely.  

In the taxi back to my apartment Dad seemed genuinely amazed at one my luck at finding such an amazing family and two how quickly I had fallen into such a deep part of the dynamic. He commented on how much Abeer loves me and how Zaina and I have a silent language just for us, which I suppose is true. I was glad my Dad had gotten to finally meet them, and them him. 

And so Dad traveled and traversed through Jordan. He conquered the vast desert, but was brought low by invisible germs. He won over my Arab family. With that, it was time to go have more adventures in Syria.

I’ve been so anxious for him to arrive; I had a lot of questions about how this would go. I’ve never really been alone for this long with just my Dad; It’s always been family vacations with my mom and brother. I wasn’t sure how the dynamics would change with just us. It’s also the first time I’ve seen him since my parents announced their divorce.  How has he really been doing? What has he really been thinking about? How is this new father/daughter relationship going to be now that Mom’s no longer in the mix?  There is going to be a LOT of bonding time on buses and trains, etc.

Also, I have to play leader in a country where I am still very much a beginner in Arabic and completely helpless in Turkish. What if something goes wrong?

He arrived yesterday and we are spending five days in Jordan, five in Syria, four in Turkey, and four in Egypt. He didn’t mean to spend this much time in the Middle East, but it’s what the airlines gave him and now it’s still not enough because we had to nix going to Lebanon.  Too bad!

Yesterday and tonight we are just touring Amman and I am introducing him to everyone here. Last night my fathers (Arab and American) met; Dad tried his Arabic greetings that I had taught him half an hour earlier on Khalid, who took his atrocious accent with a smile.  We of course are going to dinner at their house on Thursday. I’m so glad my Dad gets to meet the people I have been living with for three months and finally put a face to the people I talk constantly about. I also have to take him to SIT to have tea with all of my teachers and have lunch at my work to all my co workers can meet him as well; I hope he’s okay with being on parade. 

It’s also funny to see how drastically people’s attitudes change when I am with my Dad rather than being on my own. I am simply DYING to know what my neighbors are thinking now that he’s here. While walking along the street, Dad keeps talking about how the men stare and check me out, which amuses me because I hardly notice anymore and kind of forgot. Also, it’s really much less with him around; at least they are only looking rather than trying to touch me or get me to talk with them. However, on the other hand I have found that whatever haggling prowess I had previously has disappeared. With Dad around (not to mention the two huge Nikons we’re carrying) they know that

a)     While I might still be the poor student I now have my rich Dad around

b)    Since he’s my Dad coming to visit me he will supposedly buy me anything I want at whatever price.

I just had to simply walk out of several stores because people would simply not negotiate.  Boo.

Tomorrow we are off to rent a car and skedattle to Karak and Petra! We will stay the night in Petra and go tour at dawn like I did before. The next day we will tour Wadi Rum, which I hope will be as fun for my Dad as it was for me. Then we come back to Amman for one more day before we head to Syria. From the looks of things, we are going to be very busy.

Andrew writes:

I have a lot of trepidation about sharing this story; it was told to me as part of a series of interviews I conducted in English, but ‘Abu Hamad’ has assured me that this story can be released in this way. There are a number of things in it that concern me–namely cultural elements that require explanation, but I feel that presenting those explanations here damages the narrative itself. I intend to add them in a later post.

His name was Abu Hamad–the father of Hamad–but he hadn’t seen his son in six years. Yet he insisted upon being addressed as “Abu Hamad”–as opposed to his given name that I’ve since forgotten.

Abu Hamad didn’t drink, but he said that I could; in fact he said he’d pay for it. I declined, and he commented that it was rare for an American to refuse alcohol under any circumstances. I said maybe another time.

Until that day, I had met Abu Hamad only once in passing–he was the friend of a friend–and he had spoken to me then only briefly. He had told me that he wanted to meet with me over drinks sometime and talk to an American, and that he had a story I might like to hear. I had asked him then if he wouldn’t like to tell the story then, but he declined. “Now isn’t the time,” he had said.

Presumably now–as he took a long sip of his lemon juice–was the time. He wiped his brow as though the coldness of the juice had made him sweat, and stared blankly at the glass.

I don’t think either of us knew precisely what to say, so we took a long while trading small talk and comments about religion or politics. In the Middle East, these topics are small talk.

After a time, he seemed ready to talk about whatever it was that he had called me here to discuss, whatever it was he thought I’d need a drink to hear, and that he himself had needed two tall glasses of lemon juice to talk about.

“I’m going to tell you a story that hasn’t been told many times,” he said. “I’m telling you not because I have any real reason to trust you, but because you’re an American and I think you’d be better able to hear it than most people I know here.” He sipped his juice again. “It seems to be relevant to what my friend says you’ve been studying–Islam and modernization or whatever–so I think it’ll help you out. I want someone to know–indeed I’d like everyone to know–but I can’t tell anyone and so few know.”

“I’d love to hear whatever story you care to tell me,” I told Abu Hamad. “I can tell others if you want me to.”

He paused a moment, and then said, “I’m trying to decide where to start. The story itself was about seven years ago, but to tell it right, I’d have to back up still further.”

“Please do,” I said.

“No,” he responded emphatically after a moment of thought. “All you need to know started seven years ago.” He ordered another juice–this time pineapple–before he continued, “I loved my wife, let that stand clear. We had our ups and downs just like any married couples, but that wasn’t why I did what I did. I loved her, and the whole way through it I still loved her.

“But it wasn’t perfect; perhaps no marriage is perfect. I discovered that the internet was the only place that I could go to try and make it right, so I went there. I don’t know what I was looking for or what I was hoping to find, but something told me that it was there.

“I had a few girlfriends there for a while, but they never really went anywhere. It wasn’t what I needed, and I realized very quickly that I could never hope for a better woman in my life. Somehow–I don’t exactly remember the process–I started to realize that what I needed was companionship in general–not a replacement for my wife. So I started to develop friendships with people all throughout the world. My English got a lot better that way, and I made a few friends that I still have.

“In time though, I began to look a bit closer to home. I don’t know how I got there, but I began to talk to some of the guys around Amman. I got to be friends with some of them–online only– but there was one that was unique. His name was Mahmoud.

“To be honest I don’t remember the first time I talked to Mahmoud. I started conversations with hundreds of people that never really went anywhere. I probably started talking to Mahmoud in the same way, but for whatever reason we just kept talking.

“He began to tell me all sorts of things, and I began to talk to him. We became close–very close–as close friends on the internet can be. And then we became closer.”

Abu Hamad stopped talking for a moment and awkwardly sucked the lees of his pineapple juice through his straw. Clearly he was looking for my reaction to see if he should continue. I told him that he should. He told me then that they had begun to trade pictures so that they would at least know what each other looked like–but that was as far as Abu Hamad and Mahmoud ever wanted to take it.

“Then it changed again,” Abu Hamad continued. “I realized I had broken a barrier that I had never known had been there. I realized everything all at once, and I built everything into one person–Mahmoud.

“We never wanted to see each other–let me make that clear. I suppose I was concerned about what people would think, but more than that I was concerned about what I would feel. If we remained friends over the internet then our friendship could go on forever. If we met then we would have to decide if we were going to risk the impossible.” Abu Hamad paused and then added, “And I never wanted to risk that.

“We got closer and closer and then one day–I remember the day and the place–I saw him. It was strange because I saw him from behind, and I thought to myself ‘That looks like Mahmoud might from behind,’ but I had never seen a picture like that so I didn’t really know what he would look like. But then he turned around–as though he knew he were being watched–and we sort of stared at each other.” Mahmoud took a long sip of fresh pineapple juice.

“I don’t know what the expression on my face looked like, but his was surprisingly cool. It was sad in a way, but it wasn’t surprised. In fact for a minute I thought that perhaps it wasn’t him. I thought to myself many times what I would say if I ever met him, but when that time came I didn’t have the slightest idea. Perhaps because the staring was so awkward he began to walk toward me, and I toward him.”

Mahmoud coughed and thoughtfully continued, “I know it sounds hokey, but you have to trust me on this. We walked towards each other, but I knew and he knew that we weren’t going to acknowledge each other. We just walked by each other like two strangers might, glanced briefly and walked away. We couldn’t say anything to each other, but were at least able to communicate that was what we wanted.”

Abu Hamad had finished his pineapple juice and was playing with the straw. “I still care for him, I want you to know that. But I also want you to know that I’ve never talked to him since.”

It’s not just the children who lack motivation to interact with me- they are simply taking note from their parents. The adults in my stairwell will respond to my hellos and how are yous. However, the greetings are remarkably brief and unemotional in comparison what they usually are and what I was used to receiving in my old neighborhood when I lived with my host family. The most striking experience was one time I said hello to a little boy (three, four maybe) on the stairs by himself. When he started answering me and I asked him his name, his older sister came outside, picked him up, and took him back inside the house. This was very shocking to me as the society is usually so open and trusting- I mean, you left the child out in public by himself for god’s sake.

The reason: They think I am a prostitute. Seriously. Here’s why:

1) I am a foreigner. Already my morals are in question.

2) Girls don’t live by themselves here. You live in your parents’ house until you are married, and possibly still after that. A woman of a good reputation would never live alone.

3) We have male friends that come and stay with us a while; Mike was here for a week, Wes was here for two, Lawrence was in and out to get his stuff, etc. We’ve also had a lot of different girls visit as well. In conclusion, there is a lot of traffic in and out of our house and this looks bad. I don’t really know what the girls are supposed to be though; guest appearance prostitutes maybe? 

4) I come home from the bar anywhere from 12:00 to 2:00 in the morning. No respectable woman would be out alone that late, even in the summer.  

So, yes, I’m a whore living in a house of sin. Rachel, our British neighbor, carefully came up to us in the first few weeks and very nicely tried to explain that our house was being talked about; she thought we were brand new to the country and so were ignorant. We explained we knew but couldn’t do anything about it; the guys had to live with us until they found a place to stay and I wasn’t willing to quit my job. Also I was not going to fly my parents over here in order to have my reputation protected.

We did other things, though. Namely, I tried in the first few weeks to drink my tea outside and ask my neighbors as they came outside to join me. That failed; no one accepted. However, the guys are gone now so that’s better. Also, I found out one of my neighbors comes to La Calle somewhat regularly and has seen me there. This is bad considering now everyone knows I serve alcohol, but at least thats a better job than having sex for money. 

However, at the end of the day it’s something that I am just going to have to deal with. It’s just too bad because the kids seem really nice and I would love to play with them.

Every time he is out and I have to walk down the stairs towards downtown, I greet him saying, “Marhaba (hi/hey there) Spiderman!”. He just nods in response; he has never spoken to me. Then he kind of escorts me down the stairs by running ahead, waiting until I get close, and then continuing down again.  He waits at the bottom until I have reached the last step, then turns around and hightails it back up the stairs to his friends.

I don’t really get it, and frankly don’t really care. I just think it’s the cutest thing I have ever seen.

1)    The day always starts with the call to prayer at around 4 am. My apartment is literally a block away from a mosque and three blocks from two others so it’s not exactly a soft, optional wake-up call. It’s incredibly beautiful, which I try to remember on the days that I went to bed about two hours earlier. Sometimes when I stay awake afterward I can hear men trudging up the steps to pray and I admire the fortitude of their faith. This is repeated four more times during the course of the day.

2)    Starting at around nine but could be at any point in the day, veggie sellers walk around the neighborhood yelling, “Yalla batata, yalla bendora, yalla mish mish, yalla batikch” Which translates, “Let’s go potatoes, let’s go tomatoes, let’s go apricots, let’s go watermelon”. The actual food changes depending on the day, but you get the idea.

3)    Again, the gas trucks with the strange variations on ice cream truck songs. If the seller is really proactive, he will stop the truck at the top of the stairs and walk down them banging a stick against an empty propane tank. Like I didn’t hear you the first time,

4)    Now that it’s summer there are numerous kids running around all day, playing soccer, carrying the babies around, flying kites, or just sitting by my door and gossiping about Barcelona vs. Milan. Today was a special treat: the boys I suppose are extra bored right now so they are just sitting around making fart noises with their hands and giggling.

5)    The British woman across the stairs from me owns two dogs. Therefore, an obvious activity for the young and old alike is to taunt the dogs by barking at them, meowing like a cat, or any other way you can think of to rile the dogs up and get them to bark back at you and then laugh.  The kids, teenage girls walking by, fully grown men, doesn’t matter. A couple days ago Diana had had enough. She quietly slid open the living room window and then barked ferociously at the kids who had been going at it for at least fifteen minutes straight. She scared the living bejesus out of all of them and they scattered back home. We had peace for about a day.

6)    Jordanians consider Amman the gossip capital of the world, which I can totally see because everybody knows everybody else and everybody else’s business. It’s not hard; I can hear every argument going on around me. Currently, my landlord is fighting with the Australian who lives above us about the rent and the woman a couple houses down was having one dozey of a screamfest at her husband last weekend. Considering she was shrieking, crying, and screaming at her husband at a really fast pace for a good hour, Diana and I couldn’t understand the Arabic and have no idea what it was about. We’ve supposed the husband is cheating and spent all the money on the mistress, but really it’s anyone’s guess.

7)    Of course, honking is ever-present. I have figured out some of the patterns that are kind of like morse code. My favorite one is a wedding, which is two long beeps and then three short ones, to be repeated at will all around the city.

8)    Every couple days one of the creepy cotton candy sellers come by. I suppose they are not creepy unto themselves, but they walk around with these little harmonica type whistles that they blow to attract customers. Every time I see them, I can’t help but think of that kidnapper in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang who dresses up like a candy seller in order to steal kids, and then I get weirded out.

9)    You can hear the jets flying incredibly low and fast every couple days. Not sure what they are doing or where they are going, but supposedly Jordan has no regulations about how high those things need to be. I always imagine it’s King Abdullah going out for a joyride, cuz he could really do that if he wanted.

I know I should write ten but I am all out. I will probably remember a tenth later.

I am a summer intern for the Jordan River Foundation here in the Amman offices. The Jordan River Foundation is an NGO set up in 1995 by Her Majesty Queen Rania to empower Jordanian communities, specifically women and children. Now, the organization is kind of split into two groups, the community empowerment side and the child protection side. I work for the community empowerment sector, which tries to alleviate ‘poverty pockets’ by economically empowering women in these areas and developing infrastructures to take care of the community in general. Basically, this can mean anything you want it to. We set up micro finance programs targeting women, we get ultrasound machines to villages and make sure a doctor comes once a week to use it, we set up computers and give training sessions on how to use them, and a hodgepodge of other things.

For more info, here’s the website:  http://www.jordanriver.jo/

Specifically, my job is to take the rough English sent to me by other workers and edit it to be more professional and fluid before the document is posted on the internet, sent to potential donors, or e-mailed to existing benefactors. Kind of a silly job, but whatever. It’s super nice because most of the time I don’t even have to go into the office because they just e-mail it to me and then I send it back with the corrections. 

Hopefully soon I will be able to tag along to some of the field trips my supervisors go on to check on the projects. I would really like to see a micro finance program at work firsthand, considering I’ve done some work trying to promote them back home in America. 

Anyway, that’s that! That’s what I’m doing- trying to make Jordan better one grammatical mistake at a time.

Queen Rania

aka the most beautiful woman in the world. Lucky.

In Italy after graduating high school in 2006, hands down my favorite night was our last night there; I remember distinctly it was the Forth of July and Italy had just won the semi finals of the World Cup. We were in Rome and I have never seen an entire city literally erupt as it did before or since. During the game everything was dead quiet. All you could hear was the game broadcast from every piazza where the game was shown on projection screens and everyone just sat on the ground, watching. Thousands of people, in public, just sitting together. When they won, everyone was in the streets, driving up and down honking, screaming, bodies half in the car and half out, waving Italian flags. I saw one pair of men on a motorcycle- one driving and one standing on the back smoking a cigar with one hand and holding a giant Italian flag with the other. Now of course had he fallen he certainly would have died, but not the point. It was the coolest way to celebrate victory I had ever seen. Eventually the city wisely chose simply to turn off all the traffic signals; no one was paying attention to them anyway. They simply blinked yellow as we walked down the sidewalk, watching the spontaneous citywide celebration. I had never seen such an outpouring. I couldn’t help smiling and deeply regretting not being able to party all night alongside the Italians because of our flight the next morning. Watching Italy win the finals a couple days later back in Seattle doing chores at my house it was distressing to watch Rome again go completely insane, this time on television. Not only because I wasn’t there in person but also because I knew something like that would never happen in America. At least not ever in Seattle.

In Spain last summer the event was strikingly similar but my experience was a little deeper. Spain was playing for the Euro Cup. I went to the neighborhood bar with Oliver, the older brother of the two little girls I was nannying for. Everyone knew him and was therefore willing to let me in on the experience; they were all tickled to have me rooting for their country. The game itself was boring but I loved watching all the foul language poor forth out of all the old men’s mouths during the game and the celebration when they won afterwards. Similar car driving/honking, similar screaming, everyone looking so damn happy. We stayed up all night. The old men got on the tables and started dancing Flamenco, Oliver broke out the guitar and played until his hands bled, some other guys reenacted a bullfight, and everyone sang Spanish national anthem over and over again. Of course drinks were on the house. Oliver and I watched the sun rise as we walked home. I had to wake up three hours later and that was the absolute worst hangover I have ever had.

Now I am in Jordan. Last night USA played Brazil for the last game of the FIFA Confederates Cup in South Africa. In this, the country was solidly for Brasil. When I asked why no one was rooting for the underdog, they answered, “Because Brasil has earned their rank. They are that good, and they deserve to win”. Good point but I’m sensing some bitterness. I guess America wins too much in other areas and they would be unhappy if America won this one too. Everyone knows Americans don’t even care about soccer anyway.  

Anyway, a couple of my friends and I went to my bar to watch the game. It’s an odd group of people I hang out with now. There is Yasmin who is Palestinian but goes to college in America. Students from SIT who knew her from college introduced me to her, and we have remained friends even though the people who introduced us are gone. There is Diana, my roommate, a past SIT student from who is now back on a research grant. She’s from Alabama, thoroughly Christian, and a huge kick. There’s Josh, an American who we literally met when he walked up to us on the street and we ended up hanging out for the next five hours. There’s Luay, a Jordanian who Yasmin introduced us to; His escapades with girls are hilarious. There are also the Jordanians I work with. I made a bet, as has now become tradition, with my owner Hythem who was rooting for Brazil. I chided all my coworkers and the regulars who now know me for not being on my side. With every goal the US scored everyone would pat me on the back, give me high fives, and laugh as I would turn around to smile at Hythem from my table. As the tide turned for my Americans during the second half, my co-workers fake consoled me and gave me my drinks for free ‘to ease the pain’. When Brazil won, I paid Hythem the five dinar I owed him; my first loss. He tried to refuse my money but I told him that he had to let me lose with honor, which everyone found funny for some reason. Islam, my host brother, called me to offer his condolences. At midnight, my friends and I walked out and went our separate ways home.

With their victory, the country didn’t erupt; not their people. No one stayed out all night because you simply don’t do that in Amman. However, I have to say that this experience is still on par if not higher than the others. Why? Yes, my team lost but this is not important. What is important is that I got to watch the game with my friends, not as a tourist just observing and not as a tag-along. These were not friends of friends. These are my people, who know me for me. I realized last night I have made my own little community and I love that the most. More than soccer.