Utter Failure!

I'm sorry, everyone. I stopped writing, but I also know, based on the nifty 'Stats' page that I have, that y'all stopped reading as well, so no hard feelings?

This weekend I went to Mt. Nebo, Mkawir (too many consonants!!), Madaba and the Jordan River. The most interesting part of the day was standing at the bank of the now-four-meter-wide Jordan River and looking across to the highly-developed Israeli baptismal site center, and then turning around to see the wooden, straw-roofed gazebo on the Jordanian side. Did you know that 90% of the water in the Jordan River is diverted? And people are wondering why the Dead Sea is, you know, dying. The most beautiful part of the day was climbing over the boundary of the guided path to get a phenomenal view of the entire Dead Sea at sunset.


Yesterday, I went to see Jeffrey Sachs speak at the Columbia University Middle East Research Center (aka. Epcot). It's a palace, donated by a woman who had lots and lots of money. I suppose that's all we really need to know about her. Anyway, Jeffrey Sachs talked about how dumb senators are and how we are heading toward the apocalypse and how we have to do something now and how things are weird and how he will be mad when the earth is f**ked up beyond repair (I'm paraphrasing). No surprises there. I also ran into a professor that I saw every day this summer who didn't remember me. That was only slightly awkward.

I've also lost a sock.

I've Run Out of Applicable Movie Quotes

I started this post but didn't have time to finish it all in one sitting, so here is a post from Sunday -- more to come on the rest of the trip:
_________________________
We are all now still in Rishikesh.

Yesterday, we wandered around the town, ate lunch overlooking the Ganges, relaxed, and walked about 5 km up the road to see a tremendous waterfall. The whole day was full of incredibly interesting people.

As we were trying to find an ATM earlier in the morning, we met a kid from Georgia and a woman from Toronto. Brandon, from Georgia, was just finishing up a 3-week yoga course in Rishikesh and was about to go home. The woman, whose name I don't remember, was just travelling through Asia until she got to Singapore to meet up with her boyfriend in December. No plan. No companion. Just travelling.

Later in the day, we wanted to go visit a waterfall that we had heard about. After Aaron was nearly attacked by a monkey (his fault), we reached a sort of trail/non-trail that an Italian guy had told us about at breakfast. We had asked some women earlier, on our way there, where exactly the waterfall was, but they said that they couldn't make it up because there was a guard with a gun saying there was a wild elephant. At the head of the trail sat 6 or 7 French punk-types from Tours, but no armed guard, so up we went. About five minutes up, we found some lovely evidence of an elephant which must have been there earlier -- but since it wasn't steaming, we decided to continue up the trail. Once we reached a fork in the trail, the last 'bad omen' hit us in the form of a man screaming. I turned to Jackie, Jackie looked at me, Aaron was looking at something else, as he usually is, and we decided to walk back down. When we ran into the French punk-types again, as they were heading up, and who had now been joined by two Brits, we changed our minds again, turned around, and joined the larger group back up the trail. Aaron said to one of the Brits 'Well, if we're all trampled by an elephant, it will probably be on the BBC,' to which they replied 'Oh that's funny and quite likely, seeing as we work for the BBC.'

When we reached the waterfall, it turns out that the screaming man was actually this dude having a religious experience under the waterfall. He was also partial to growling and being generally odd. The waterfall was beautiful and well worth the going up and down and back up again. The water was clean, the colors were vibrant (a far cry from the monotonous, though likewise beautiful, desert) and it was a very nice find. After the waterfall, we walked back with the Brits, Howard and Jack, and talked the whole way. It turns out that Howard has the coolest job ever and frequently reports with Jack, who has the second coolest job ever. Howard was posted in Bangladesh until quite recently and just moved to Delhi. He's reported from Japan, Bangladesh, India, Uganda, the US and, of course, Britain. Jack has filmed him in most of those places, but from what I understand travels less. If you want to see their reports, look up 'Howard Johnson and Jack Garland' or one of their names and 'couchsurfing.'

Later that evening, we went to a restaurant near our hotel for dinner. As Jackie and Aaron were sitting down at a corner table, an older gentleman with a book, long grey hair and robes was just sitting down at the same time. When I joined them, they were talking and eventually we just invited the man to join us for dinner. As it turns out, he was also an interesting character. Living in Rishikesh, he had become a Hindu monk when he was 17 and somewhere along the way, his guru had told him to study anything and to do it anywhere and everywhere. He told us about how he followed Martin Luther King Jr. around in the 60s, how he had devised a plan for peace in the Middle East (which involved moving Palestinians to the Sinai Peninsula and creating a new state) and sent it to Arafat (??), went to Thailand every year for visa purposes but has another life there, created a space-dancing computer game, studied in Germany for a number of years, knows some professor at Harvard really well....and that was only what we learned over the course of a few hours. I know it all seems a bit far-fetched and I'm not sure how much of it was true, but regardless, the conversation was phenomenally interesting. He has a website, which Jackie, Aaron and I will soon visit, where he posts his ideas and his photography.
______________________________________

More to come on Delhi and making it back to Amman.

Love,
anneke

To Infinity and Beyond

Hello all,

I'm on the clock (a whole 20 rupees per half hour...which is like 50 cents), so this is going to be quick and dirty.

Jackie, Aaron and I are now in Rishikesh. When Aaron and I arrived in New Delhi yesterday at 5:00am, I was so happy to finally see color. In the desert, there is not much color. Despite the beauty that is countless tons of sand, it has been nice to see trees, shrubs, brightly painted vehicles and goats (also brightly painted, in case you wondering). We wandered around for a bit and we learned how to ignore insistent people, that I look Indian (...with this hair?), where to hide your money and that 4am fireworks are acceptable. We spent most of the day being hassled because we didn't no any better but made it home alive, had a wonderful dinner with my friend Raman and his wife and watched a little anime in Hindi.

This morning, Jackie arrived (hamdulillah, seeing as the hostel is unmarked, two streets past one dirt road, across from a building without an address and between an Indian food restaurant and an apartment, both so clearly marked...) and we moseyed over to the bus station, found a bus to Rishikesh at 9:30am and made it here by around 7. Awesome.

Jackie and I are staying at a dank (good dank, not bad dank) place at the top of a mountain and drinking tea while overlooking the Ganges. Jealous? Thought so. Aaron is.....somewhere else and hopefully we will find him in the morning. He's the only white person in a baseball cap for miles, so I can't imagine it being too difficult....*sigh*. Good thing we have a nice vantage point?

love,
anneke

Addendum 2

things that should not happen:

Seti, the maid, should not tell me that I'm more beautiful than she is because I'm whiter than she is.

some bitch at the gym should not tell me that I shouldn't run because that's not how one loses weight.

said bitch should not touch me when explaining to me where she thinks I should lose weight.

people shouldn't confuse brown people for other brown people just because they are brown.

epithets that demean certain groups.

war.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Hellooooooo!

Well, the whole daily posting thing has (clearly) not worked out. For that I apologize. This week was actually particularly hard because of midterms. I would, however, like to thank the good people of Oregon for not electing the governor whose name was easiest to pronounce.....as I was somewhat afraid about 3 hours before all of the results were in that that was what had happened.

Internal dialogue of the Oregon voter that I fear:

- Kitz-ha-what? Ooooo Dudley. Yes, like Doright. Or the kid in Harry Potter. He's got my vote!

In other news, this week was went well. Last weekend, I stayed in Amman to do research for the professor that I work/slave/do-things-for-without-charge-for-the-sake-of-let's-be-completely-honest-here-my-future-career-and-job-prospects. Staying in town led to a terribly fortuitous outing with Ella, Jackie, Alyssa and Chris, which ended with Jackie and me deciding to go to, no, not Beirut, not Damascus, not Egypt, not even Turkey, but to India. Yes, ladies, gentlemen and intersex, by this time next week I will be in New Delhi, India. We've also managed to convince our friend Aaron to join us on this trip and he will (hopefully) be buying his ticket this week.

Most of my week, thus, was spent preparing for this trip and studying for midterms. The process began with a panic attack. I am not the most organized person and so, when I realized that my ticket had already been bought and that the visa process, for a non-resident, would take between a week and 10 days, I went through all the required phases. My denial and isolation stage consisted of mostly talking to myself (out loud and, of course, in a public place) and reassuring myself that everything was going to be ok and that awful things like spending money on a plane ticket and having that plane ticket go to waste don't happen...My anger stage should really be called 'visible nervousness,' wherein I sort of twitched a lot, called myself stupid over and over again (again, out loud and in a public place) and called one of the program administrators waaaay too many times and waaaay too late...The bargaining stage proved fruitless, since the only deity I could think to pray to was Squat, who is actually the goddess of finding parking as opposed to foolishly impulsive decisions regarding plane tickets....Depression....Finally, I reached acceptance, which meant that I started to constructively look for answers.

I started to think. I considered skipping my midterm and applying for the visa as soon as possible, which turned out to be an exceedingly bad idea. I considered attending another section in order to take the midterm and apply for the visa as soon as possible. Finally, though, I found the answer in the form of a lovely woman on our program named Alyssa -- she shared with me that, if one has residency, one can get one's Indian visa in just one day. One day!

I, thus, now have Jordanian residency until October of 2011! This apparently also means that I can get discounts at certain grocery stores like 'old-people-tuesdays' at New Seasons.

The plan now is that we will land in Delhi, leave for Rishikesh the next day (a wonderful place for Yoga), spend 2 or 3 days there, return to Delhi for the remainder of the trip but spend one day going down to see the Taj Mahal. I do not look forward to the day that I run out of luck, as I have spent most of my life being very fortunate in recovering from my ineptitude (luck being, I'm sure, a combination, of privilege, crackpot creativity and the forces of the universe).

Once this ordeal was finished, I studied for my midterms, took my midterms, went through the grief process one more time over said midterms and am now quite at peace. The weather has been getting colder (which merited, for those of you who saw my status on that-site-that-I-said-that-I-wouldn't-go-on-anymore-but-lasted-only-like-4-days-because-i-have-no-self-control-dilini-you-know-what-i'm-talking-about, my Smartwools) but the weather has stayed nice, which has given Amman a nice autumnal feeling. Coming home today at around 4 o'clock reminded me of leaving school to come home in September in Portland, when everything still felt new from the beginning of the school year and there was nothing to worry about besides waiting for my afternoon snack (preferably Graham Crackers, if anyone cares).

I will write more times this week as I prepare for the trip and, hopefully, have some insightful thoughts.

Love,
anneke

p.s. I'm not sure how all of you from Australia, Russia and Poland found my blog (welcome to the information age....creepy, huh?) but thanks for reading!

Prison Tattoos and Coke Nails

I sneaked/snuck into the house today in order to avoid being fed immediately.

Last weekend, Dana, Mara and I went down to Karak in an attempt to meet up with other friends who were already in the area and planning to go hiking. We met at the bus station at about 6:30 (I was, of course, there closer to like 6:50 -- love me as I am!) and from there boarded a small bus going to Karak. In our collective wisdom and against all odds, really, we managed to fall asleep in the exceedingly uncomfortable seats on the bus and nearly end up on our way back to Amman. Luckily, though, a good samaritan informed us that we were, indeed, already in Karak and that we should probably.....get off.

And that we did. Then, we were completely lost, having no idea where to meet our friends, where they were or how to get to any trail. Luckily, though, Karak is only a little bit of a shithole and actually has a very nice castle, which we decided to visit after a pushy cab driver tried to insist to us far too many times that he could drive us anywhere, at any time, forever. After getting his number and having him call us (read: unfortunately, me) about nine times, we decided to stay at the castle and hash out our plans so we could bypass ever seeing this cab driver again.

Inside the castle, we ambled around a bit before sitting down with my guide book, which I, only on a whim, brought with me. Despite the presence of said guide book, however, we were still a group of three completely indecisive people and our reading amounted to about just a notch above nothing. All we knew was that we wanted to hike. Luckily, though, we had the vocabulary (sort of) to express this desire to a very nice man inside the castle who chose a place for us, directed us to where we might find a van that would take us there and told us about how much it would cost, all while giving us a brief tour of the castle. He also had an excellent mustache -- one that I would grow if I had the balls....heheheeeeeeeee.

After shuffling our way down the giant hill upon which the castle was perched, we found a line of vans and hopped into the first one we saw, complete with fringe from the top of the windshield and nearly unbearable shag carpeting. (Sidenote: many things that in the states would be incontrovertible deal-breakers in the States seem to be whole-heartedly embraced here, such as shag carpeting on the bottom of vans, lots of hair product, visible chest hair, leering, tiny mustaches (particularly in Syria) and living with one's parents.) The driver, who was actually very nice, was either hard of hearing or was for some other reason completely unaware of the fact that he was always yelling. Always. Every time he turned around to talk to us, every time he got on the phone (really comforting when were racing through the precarious roads in the steep desert mountains) and even when he was talking to his friend's wife (a friend who he stopped to pick up, along with this man's groceries, on our way to our mysterious destination), he was literally bellowing. Friendly bellowing, but bellowing nonetheless.

When we reached our destination we were pleased to find that......there was no destination. The name that we had been given was actually just the name of an area -- Wadi Bin Hammad. Lovely, but hardly a way to start a hike. Mashallah, we found a sign that read 'Hot Springs -- 8km.' I'll leave it to you to translate that into Arabic for the full experience of the story. Either way, we were on our (more expensive) way, mostly thanks to Dana who encouraged both Mara and I to splurge a whole 5JDs. I'm my father's child -- what can I say? Upon reaching the hot springs, we realized that we had definitely found a gem. The man who greeted our disoriented selves welcomed us with a speech in English that he had clearly prepared many years ago but had only had the opportunity to use once or twice. He asked us how we found them, as they didn't normally get very many foreign tourists. He was only slightly disappointed when we explained to him that we literally stumbled upon the place.

The wadi was beautiful. Walking into it felt, for lack of a better description, like walking into the movie Avatar. It was lush, green and full of water. The stream running down the middle, which was a beautiful and welcome antithesis to the desert we had just driven 45 minutes through, was lukewarm and welcomed our bare feet. Soon, though, the rocks in the bed of the steam tickled our feet and were just downright uncomfortable, so we continued down in our shoes. The mosses were bright green and the rocks were vibrant reds, yellows and blues. Water dripped down from overhanging rocks like desert icicles, in a solid stream. I came to understand the Looney-Tunes-style oasis, complete with palm trees but, unfortunately, lacking the beautiful (and animated) women. Instead, we got a nasty dude who wanted to show us his dong who, even more unfortunately, was not animated. At least in that case the size would have been embellished.

The trip back was interesting. We managed to find one of the last busses heading back to Amman from Karak. It was much larger (and only 5 JDs for the three of us) than the bus on our trip down, but we did get a lovely man with a scorpion tattoo that looked like it had been etched rather than done with a machine, a pseudo-mullet, long scars and a few open wounds on his arms (indicative of knife fighting, both in the past and recently), lovely eyes, a coke nail and an impressive amount of shit in his teeth. We're talking like plaque build-up. Presumably, he could have used to coke nail to remedy the teeth problem, but I guess he just wasn't interested. Either way, as a result of these qualities, since I was terribly distracted when he was talking to me, only mildly afraid that something of him (be it a tooth or a flap of skin) might fall off and hit me, I did not fully comprehend that he was telling me that they had only /two/ seats on the bus instead of three. The first half of the ride, thus, was terribly uncomfortable for the three of us mushed together on two seats. Finally, though, some men shuffled around, people got off, we got an extra seat and, in the end, we made it all the way back to Amman. Time well spent.

Also, our cab driver told us all about how he had been in America, having visited Texas and New Mexico. When we asked him about it he told us about how the Jordanian government had sent Jordanian soldiers to the southern border of the United States to, in his words, 'round up the Mexicans and throw them back' in order that they might learn how to do the same to the Iraqis coming through the Eastern Jordanian border.....you should have seen his excitement. Yet another mindfuck in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

love,
anneke

insomnia

I can't sleep -- it's 1:30 in the morning and I'm exhausted, but for some reason I can't sleep. I have already found another idea for a tattoo, decided to build a pinhole camera to make up for the one I lost (because I really can't justify the purchase of another one) and listened to a lot of J Dilla and Neil Young.....because they are similar.

This week was something of a roller coaster. I began the week, fresh back from Wadi Rum and adorned with the henna which has now faded to an unnatural orange that makes it look like I scribbled on the inside of my hand with a marker like a second grader. Not something that is beyond me, but, for lack of a better description, this is honestly what it looks like. Anyway, that evening I came back for dinner, was very well received by everyone at home and fed....again. That night, however, was Qur'an study again, so I was relegated to the study, which was fine since I had a lot of work to do anyway. Nothing like being trapped by the discomfort of the local religious leader to really force you to get your shit done.

The one person who came in to check on me, though, was Seti. For those of you who haven't been reading, Seti is the maid. She and I get along very well as she is incredibly sweet, if somewhat young-minded, though I wouldn't expect anything more from someone who has not spent much extensive time with anyone her own age since she was 18 and came to this country with no knowledge of the local language. The second time she came to check on me, she asked me if we could look on googlemaps for her house again. The context for this request is that last week she explained to me that she knew nothing about computers, so I (in my mind now, foolishly) tried to help her find something familiar on googlemaps -- an attempt which proved fruitless because she knew neither the street name of her house nor the English spelling of her neighborhood. On our second attempt though, she told me a little bit about how much she missed her country and, as her eyes welled up with tears for just a moment, how the last time she was on the phone with her son, he asked her only once to come home. My dueling emotions were first telling me that I was so stupid to have shown this to her and that reminding her of what she's missing and has been missing for the last 12 years, that being her son's entire youth and her marriage. On the other hand, though, I can't imagine that she doesn't think of home every day already. Either way, I'm at a loss. The only conclusion I've been able to come to thus far, though, is that, young-minded or not, no one deserves that.

Over the next few days, on a completely different note seeing as life apparently goes on, it was found that it may actually be possible for Jackie and me to visit Damascus as well as Beirut during Eid, since we may be able to send our passports back to the embassy, get them back with visas, pay for a bus through Damascus to Syria and still pay less than a plane ticket. This new development was, however, still overshadowed by the stress of planning the trip logistics because I have a lot of trouble with commitment, like my dear friend Zoe who I believe still has trouble peeling an orange for this reason.

Things that made this week nice, though, include:

- lunchtime argileh at a new, super-secret cafe that is not frequented by CIEE students

- having my french tutor tell me that I do have a shot at passing the test that I need to pass when I get home

- baking cookies for my host family and, subsequently, having a long and mostly Arabic conversation with my host mother, who is now trying to convince me to stay for the year.

- sitting in on a World Affairs Council meeting, which not only consisted of about 20, nine-bajillion-year-old Jordanian men and one woman, all of whom were once MPs, ambassadors, etc., but was also conducted entirely in Arabic (read: my only contribution to the entire event was sitting there and looking pretty, rather, not horrifyingly wrinkly)

- getting to retake a test that I failed (to be fair, I'm in a class that I don't really belong in because, to be quite honest, I think that the administrators forgot about me and then used the hyper-scientific assessment of throwing darts at the fucking wall to determine my placement.)

- taking an online quiz about what shape I am at Betsy's house.

- finally getting another language partner after having been dumped by my first one, who I never even met

- getting the number of an older-than-he-looks, tattooed, bald-headed Jordanian man named Ahmad who, a) was a bouncer for a long time, b) is who I should apparently call if I ever have a problem and c) invited me over to his house, where his wife will make mansaf, and then out on the town, where he intends to help me get a tattoo.

I apologize that non-cohesive posts have now become a trend here. Bear with me while I develop, you know, basic writing skills. Also, I'm only sort of sorry that this post isn't as much fun. I just have a lot of feelings.....nothing more than feelings.

love,

anneke

Addendum:

Best quote from an asshole of a German tourist this weekend (who also requested that I call Gdansk, the town where some of my dad's side is from in Poland, 'Danzig'), as he was joining 20 Japanese tourists, a few Bedouins and Anna, Casey and I for a picture:

'Vhen ve vacation, ve are slow but vhen ve verk ve are quick....this is vhy ve are rich!'

The Human Condition

Great, great, great weekend.

My friend Anna and I joined our friend Casey on a trip to the Wadi Rum to visit the family she did work-exchange with for month during the summer. Though we didn't meet the entire family, we met three of the brothers (Khaled, Ali and Mohammed) and three beautiful Bedouin children. We spent the weekend with Khaled, who has his own adventure and trekking business in the protected area at Wadi Rum, which means that he and his brothers take people out to Bedouin camps, cook for them and take them around the desert in Toyota 4WDs. As guests, though, and with Casey, who knew her way around, we spent most of our time there scrambling barefoot up and down porous mountains (which were once under water, by the way), finding fresh water springs, lying directly beneath the stars and basically absorbing the amazing landscape. Even riding in the truck was, at the very least, exhilarating despite my fear that, at 120kph over the unexpectedly unyielding bumps in the sand, that my breasts might actually fall off and be lost forever in the Jordanian desert.

We spent the evening hours with the other tourists in the camp who were, for the most part, Japanese. Here's the first part of the mindfuck: most of them spoke Arabic as a second language instead of English. Casey and I had fairly fluid conversations with these tourists about why they were there, why they were learning Arabic, etc., filling in the holes in Japanese knowledge with Arabic knowledge. Here's the second part of the mindfuck: while they all spoke quite good Arabic, they still spoke it with Japanese accents. Words with l's, such as Laysh (= why) became words with r's, such as 'raysh.' The even stranger thing to contemplate was the idea of a foreign language book in Japanese and Arabic. Does this make me sound sheltered? Maybe. Does that stop this situation from being really fucking cool? No.

Unfortunately, though, I had to push my companions to return early in order that I might make it home before being shut out of the house for Qur'an study. We left, thus, at around 10:30 or 11 instead of at 1 or 2 as we had planned. This proved to be difficult to plan as buses usually leave from Aqaba frequently, but that was about an hour away from Wadi Rum and an additional hour and a half away from Amman. In an effort to make things easier, we figured that we would wait by the highway for a minibus going to Amman to pick us up. The first bus that passed was full to the brim, heading to the wrong place and tried to pick us up anyway. The second bus was going in the opposite direction. After only five minutes, though, a car with an older man, two teenage girls and a little boy pulled over. Upon learning that we were going to Amman, they invited us in for the ride. Having just come from tourist-filled Aqaba and Wadi Rum for the weekend, they apparently saw three obviously-non-native girls thought that we had been stranded by an evil and malicious tour group. The two girls spoke perfect English, they all were dressed as beach bums, the 7-year-old boy was phenomenally sweet and the whole three-hour ride culminated in our being taken out for Indian and Chinese food (though that makes sense because we talked about food for about half of the ride). We played card games, Casey gave the two girls Henna, we learned new words (happy coincidence = sutfeh s3eeda) and we got a direct ride back with lunch.

And that's the story of my first time hitchhiking!

love,

anneke

p.s. Mom and Dad: remember that time when you told me to tell you about things like this /after/ doing them? Well, here you go.

Face!book

Just so you know, I will not be on facebook until I return to the states. Personal messages on the site will still come to my inbox but my plan is that I will not be responding -- if you would like to contact me, send me an e-mail. I will be sending letters and postcards and things.

onnieg@gmail.com

love,

anneke

Always Stuck in Second Gear

For those of you who get the reference, good for you! You, too, may have watched Friends every day after school because, you know, it was on. For those of you who still don't get the reference because you don't even know what Friends is, congratulations! I think you may need to consider moving because you currently live under a rock.

At any rate, this post is about stagnancy and, well, friends. I've had a minute but nagging feeling over the past couple of weeks that has been something like frustration, helplessness and insecurity rolled into one. Again, it has been minute, but I have been conscious of the fact that it has been lurking in the background. Mostly, I think that it has been coming from the fact that I have not made that many Jordanian friends compared to others on the program. Seeing as most of my relationships at home depend on conversation, it has been hard for me to adjust to the fact that I have to get by with smiling and miming a lot of the time (I'll be the first to admit that I feel like I look like an idiot/creepy while doing this -- when was the last time you saw an ceaselessly grinning mime?). Moreover, it has been especially hard to just forget about especially deep conversations with anyone who does not speak very good English. At home, I don't spend very much time in large groups because they make me uncomfortable. Here, however, my ways have not served me well.

Progress, however, has been made. This evening, my friend Ella and I met up with a wonderful girl named Rawan. She approached me at the gym one day and, having apparently seen me everywhere, decided to introduce herself (not sure if you can imagine this, but I sort of stand out). She's about a foot shorter than I am (like most Jordanians) but twice as loud, is quite liberal socially and is, in a word, awesome.

A story to describe Rawan: as I was nearing the door to the gym the other day, she was coming down the hill, carrying her books and waving madly with one little hand. I waited for her so that we could walk in together, check-in and, as I thought, maybe get treadmills next to each other and talk a little bit, as one might. As we approach the desk to check-in, however, something changed in her face. 'I need some energy,' she said. Being the boring, one-track-minded, former-athlete that I am, I sensibly told her that exercise gives you endorphins and that exercising, in and of itself, would give her energy. Her response, coupled with a sigh of exasperation, was 'No, I mean like a brownie.' Though I have a one-track mind does not mean that said track cannot easily be changed, so off we went to the corner store. With 5 brownies and a Bounty bar (kind of like Mounds, but better) in hand, we returned to the foyer of the gym to prepare for our respective workouts. An hour later, I had not only /not/ exercised, but had spent the entire time talking with Rawan and eating candy instead. Time well spent. Really.

More to come as I emerge from my stupid, stupid 'hermitude.'

love,

anneke

When Life Gives You Awkward...

So my host brother is crying right now (the 15-year-old) and I'm really not sure why and I also have absolutely no clue as to how I might inquire about why he's upset or how I can help.

I figure that he would probably be embarrassed, as a 15-year-old boy generally working very hard to prove his manhood, if I were to see him crying so I'm just going to sit on this computer and write this post until he goes to bed.

Suggestions/empathy welcome,

anneke

Shouldn't half of you be used to this kind of weather?

Petra was amazing. Considering the fact that these massive caverns were carved by hand many years ago....

Ok, quick break from writing because I just realized that I don't actually know anything about the history of Petra aside from the Indiana Jones movie, so I'm going to take a quick Wikipedia break (not that anyone reading would have known, but honesty is the best policy).

....and we're back! Apparently, the carvings date back to around the 1st century BCE and, as I understand it, when it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site, none of the indigenous people (who had lived there for thousands of years) were allowed to live there anymore. Petra is now facing massive erosion problems as a result of the onslaught of tourists and their collective breaths and steps. I by no means remove myself from partial responsibility for the erosion of Petra as I definitely brought home at least a full statue's worth of dust in my hair and between my toes as evidenced by the disturbingly dark water that ran off of me during my first shower upon returning home.

Perhaps the darkness of the dust caught the afternoon sun in such a way that made me look darker. Perhaps (most likely) the boys on the donkeys thought that all brown people are approximately the same. Perhaps their use of the term 'rasta' over and over again was simply a term of endearment. I mean, I like Bob Marley -- maybe they did too. Maybe they thought I was Bob Marley. Maybe I /am/ Bob Marley. Shit, I think I'm really missing out on some sick royalties right now.

Anyway, many of the young men calling out to tourists in an attempt to get them to 'ride their donkeys' (hey, you there, stop giggling) called out to me, independent of one another, with either 'rasta' or 'rasta woman' or, la pièce de resistance, 'once you go black you never go back.' Now with this final one, I really have to wonder how the hell such a phrase made it down to Southern Jordan, no less to the mouth of a 14-year-old Bedouin who takes people for donkey rides for a living. I also have to wonder whether or not any of them realize what it is exactly that they are saying. Regardless, though, you have to give homeboy kudos for his English -- I can't even imagine trying to translate that into Arabic and definitely would not expect anyone to understand a word coming out of my mouth.

The most difficult part of this experience (and being called out to in general) is the lack of agency I possess as a woman. I am not culturally allowed to chase someone down and beat the shit out of them, as such an action is really just encouragement. Apparently, a useful resource for women (read: American women) are the Egyptian guards and police everywhere, but asking male police officers for help does nothing to replenish agency. Moreover, all of my favorite swear words are also rendered completely useless. Shitface, fucktard, asshole, pissbag, bitchballs, assmuncher, motherfucker....forgive the pun, but I can be quite colorful when I want to be. This was one of the many experiences that I have had that has taught me the power of language and the amount of power that is lost without it.

I will also mention that a number of people have commented on my skin color, commenting that I 'look Arab,' I assume meaning that I'm about the same shade, and have been very positive about it. My experience here, for better or for worse, has been that there is very little political correctness when it comes to talking about other races and cultures. I've heard about Jordanians of Palestinian heritage talking about Iraqis (often members of the poorer classes in Amman) as though they were the scum of the earth. I've heard Jordanians of Turkish descent talk about Palestinians in the same way. I've also heard of Jordanians of Jordanian descent talking about other Jordanians of Jordanian descent in ways that would make Faulkner blush. On the bright side, however narrow that side may be, this makes for much more productive discussions than with those who actively deny all of their prejudices.

love,

anneke

p.s. The title of this post is a direct quote from someone who I shall not name but who will hopefully one day understand (not through experience but through sympathy) how incredibly offensive such a comment is.

Universal Language

Three instances today fall under this category:

1. Another girl on the trip just posted about a conversation she had with her peer tutor in which she was asked whether she would ever date a black man. Upon responding in the affirmative, her peer tutor responded with something along the lines of 'nigger nigger nigger, ew gross that's disgusting.' Unfortunately, it sounds like this word has managed to transverse continents despite the complete lack of a relevant historical context (I understand that the slave trade actually began with the Arabs, but I don't think this word accompanied it). More to come on race relations in Jordan in the Middle East, particularly about how I qualify as a Jamaican....

2. Riding back from Rainbow Street in a taxi with my friends Jackie and Casey, the radio was playing Aretha Franklin and then Marvin Gaye. The three of us, in the back seat, of course were discussing the wonder that was American music from the 70s on radios the world over until the driver turned off the radio. Disappointed, we looked to each other in dismay. At the light, however, he reached into the glove compartment for a (yes) cassette tape, which he reviewed, blew on and inserted into the radio. The rest of the ride consisted of three American girls and an Arab man blasting 'The Way You Make Me Feel' and 'Smooth Criminal' while racing down the street at an abnormally high speed. We missed our stop but it was completely worth it.

3. I returned home to find that my mama, her daughter Leen and my host brother Hamoudeh were all dressed up and getting ready to leave for a wedding. A few minutes later, Leen's husband drove up to the front of the house, frustratedly and quickly recited a story to my mama and then proceeded to leave the car on and run in the opposite direction with ostensibly no idea how to run properly. I suppose he would blame his shoes, but all of this is beside the point. Five minutes later, and with two men and one 15-year-old behind the car, my baba turns on to the street in his broken-down car, on this day of all days, steering somewhat haphazardly into a parking place sort of in front of the house. At this point, everyone else rushed around and piled into Leen's husband's car and drove away. I asked Baba if he was going to the wedding and he pointed to the car and said 'clearly not.'

The two of us came inside to eat dinner and, just as we began, I mimed driving a car and a sad face and we had a very nice giggle.

Love,

anneke

p.s. I just accidentally sneezed into an ashtray and, thus, rendered the whole practice of using it in the first place completely useless.

Shark Fight

In the Red Sea there is coral. Coral is sharp. No one told me that.

I may have done more damage to the coral than it did to me. I'm sorry Earth!

Looks pretty cool, though, right?

Duh nuh nuh nuuuuh, duh nuh nuuuuuh, duh nuh nuh nuuuuuuh, dun nuh nuh nuh nuh

That's the Indiana Jones theme song. Just read the title of the post again and it will all make sense to you, I promise.

Last night, the program got back from a weekend trip to Wadi Rum, Aqaba, Wadi Musa, the Red Sea and Petra. Southern Jordan is beautiful and I'm looking forward to going back as soon as possible. I rode a camel (twice). I have a series of cuts on my thigh and shin from a run-in with some Red Sea coral that will most likely result in the coolest scar ever as the pattern vaguely resembles an old dance instruction mat, complete with little shoe prints. I hiked through Wadi Rum and down throug Little Petra, the monastary and the treasury, sometimes with my friends and sometimes on my own. I met a nice guy from San Francisco whose parents distribute USAID grants. I got to see where Indiana Jones went to look for some shit in that one movie. I saw some people acting like assholes. I saw some people acting like saints. I met the people Jack Sparrow stole his style from. I slept under the stars in a valley in a desert. I woke up with sand in my hair, my nose, my eyelashes, my belly button and a few other places I'd really care not to discuss. I have a six-inch long mystery scratch on my forearm. I was awoken by cats on the roof. I smoked some very nice (read: strong) unflavored Egyptian tobacco.

I rode out on a camel with an Egyptian man, my friend Gary and 3 Japanese tourists, drank some tea and watched the sun rise over the red rocks and peach sand of the Jordanian desert.

Forgive the 2nd grade writing techniques -- all of these stories would be way to long for anyone to have any interest in reading. You'll hear them all when I get back! Don't worry, though....piecemeal.

Peace,
anneke

Namaste

My family has a maid. Her name is Seti and she is from Bangladesh.

For the two readers who will understand this reference, Seti kind of looks like a South Asian Elise Guinee-Cooper. For the remainder of the readers who have no idea who I'm talking about, Seti is adorable. She's about five-feet tall, wears her long, black hair in a thick braid and her upper lip is a little bit too short to cover all of her front teeth, so she has a permanent sort of rabbit-like expression on her face. More importantly, she is phenomenally sweet (with me, at least). From what little I understand, she is does not hesitate to tell my two homestay brothers to get something themselves when they ask her to get something for them.

Not being used to being waited on by one person exclusively (let's face it, the rise of the service industry in the US, and in New York particularly, proves that we are all at least somewhat used to being waited on), Seti and I have become friends. As a result, I have a really hard time letting her do everything that she is 'supposed' to do for me. That said, I do my best to do my dishes, clean my room, etc. secretively lest I jeopardize her job.

Before coming to the house, I knew that Seti had been with the family for a long time. Upon moving in, I learned that she had been in Amman for 12 years and that she was thirty. Obviously, then, she was about eighteen when she left Bangladesh for Jordan. It is also pertinent to mention that she knew no Arabic when she came here and now speaks it very well as a result of immersion only. Every day, Seti and I have breakfast and muddle through a broken-Arabish conversation with occasional Bengali lessons for me.

Nam = 'my name is'

Clearly it is not yet my time to visit Bangladesh. Anyway, the other day I gave her a big hug after a delicious meal of all sorts of meat that I'm going to pretend were all identifiable pieces of identifiable animals for the sake of my own piece of mind. Since then, she has been more candid with me and tonight, after an unfortunately long and somewhat one-sided conversation about how happy she is that I'm gaining weight so quickly, I learned that she is not only married but has a 14-year-old son. Both her husband and her son live in Bangladesh and she sees them once every year or two, if that. I can only imagine how she felt as she helped raise Nabil (now 15) and Hamoudeh (now 19).

love,

anneke

Also...

I read this totally outdated blog post the other day and almost wet myself in a country where you are not supposed to discuss bodily functions -- I've decided that, in the case of such an unfortunate event, I would claim that it's how Americans say hello. Anyway, for anyone bored at work (hopefully in a place where laughing out loud would be completely inappropriate), here you go:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=quantum_of_phallus

A Far Cry from Cocoa Pebbles

So, I have been sick and blogging goes by the wayside when real life comes up. Luckily, and in my mucous-filled idiocy, my Baba is a doctor and gave me everything I needed to recover from what I think was the flu. Unfortunately, that meant antibiotics, but as it is rude to refuse help, I acquiesced and now I feel a bit better.

Anyway, one thing I wanted to share the other day was a short story about animal innards. The other morning I had something for breakfast that looked sort of like Cocoa Pebbles, and tasted something like what I imagine dog kibble and happiness would taste like. Imagine my surprise when I found out that what I had been eating was, as I had only remotely suspected, chicken liver. I have no shame -- this former vegan loves chicken liver. It was delicious. After seeing goat heads, brains, sheep's liver, hooves and hearts in the window of a shop last weekend, though, the surprise was not quite as grand as it otherwise may have been.

On a completely different note, over the last couple of days I have become curious about a couple different topics as they relate to Jordan....

Firstly, the treatment of the mentally ill. One of my host brothers is quite obviously a little different (it's difficult to fully gauge mental illness given the language barrier), and his situation apparently has something to do with the fact that he was ill when he was much younger (around 6 to 10) and was given a lot of medicine during that time. My information availability bias makes me think that it had something to do with bipolarity, but I'm really not sure. This has made me wonder about whether there is any kind of support infrastructure in place for the mentally ill (or their families) or if individuals, like all children until they are married, remain completely the responsibility of their parents indefinitely, since they are often much less likely to get jobs, buy houses and get married (which are all necessary for moving out of the house in Jordan, particularly the getting married part).

Secondly, Amman has a somewhat incomprehensible transit system. For pedestrians, there are a few (usually blocked) sidewalks, some medians in the middle of four-lane highways that pedestrians are expected to cross, awkwardly slippery streets and a handful of stoplights and traffic circles. Crossing the street is, in fact, very much like playing Frogger with your life. I actually just saw my first pedestrian signal today! Moreover, the buses don't have predetermined stops, per se, but seem to stop whenever someone waves at the bus driver or whenever someone on the bus asks the bus driver to pull over. These buses are also much smaller than US buses. Finally, forget about bikes. Just forget about them. Pretend they don't exist, as you wouldn't be able to ride on main streets without being hit, maimed or otherwise injured and you wouldn't be able to ride on side streets because the city is essentially built on 8 hills that are paved questionably. What, then, would be the solution? At present, most people take cabs or buses everywhere. Is there be a more self-propelled option?

I present both of these topics somewhat selfishly because now all of you reading this know what my homework is, so I can't bitch out -- I'm going to do some research over the next couple weeks and will report back.

Sorry for the disjointed post -- I'm still not quite 100%,

anneke

p.s. If anyone knows anything about these topics already, please do let me know

Lebneh or Death

So last night, I had to be out of the house for Mama's Qur'an Study....at least I call it that because it sounds like it was going to be a lot like Bible Study. Similarity noted! Anyway, so I left the house around 3 to meet a friend at this DANK museum near al-Weibdeh. The exhibit was by an artist named Halim Al Karim, who does work in Baghdad and the UAE. This exhibit consisted of a lot of out of focus pictures with very well defined and finished eyes, which made for a creepy, if striking, presentation. The museum itself was set up on a hill and in it were lemon, pomegranate and olive trees all around. At the bottom of the hill was a big white screen with columns leading up to it, so I can only hope that they will screen movies there.

But I digress.

I spent the rest of the day with my friends Mara and Dana, but at around 7 Dana went home and I went to meet Mara's family and have dinner. Mara is staying with two sisters, both of whom are in their sixties or seventies and who LOVE to feed people. When I got there, I was fed pizza, lebneh, tomatoes, fruit preserves, cheese, tea -- you name it. Over the course of the dinner, we also tried to engage in pleasant conversation despite my poor Ameeya. Obviously, when one sister got a phone call, she seemed somewhat relieved to return to Arabic. Whomever she was talking to on the other end, however, must have asked about her dinner guest (me), as she stared at me and said a long sentence that included the words 'lateefah' and 'negro.' Though some of you may be pleased to know that 'lateefah' means 'nice' in Arabic and that I was not being compared to Queen Latifah, you may be amused to think that this was a) a common go-to description and b) something that this old woman found tremendously funny.

After dinner, the two women also brought out some delicious date-filled cookies, which they noticed that I liked and gave me a large bag of them before I went home. At that point, I was completely stuffed and looking forward to a little bit of a walk before getting in a taxi to go home. As I was leaving, the other sister's curiosity could no longer be assuaged. As I was pulling away from my third kiss on the cheek, even though my hand was on her shoulder, she reached her hands up under my arms, put them directly into my hair and shook them back and forth with what can only be described as unbridled glee. She told me that it was because she thought my hair was beautiful, but I really just think she wanted to make sure that it was real (and, of course, to touch it). After that, I was on my way with my cookies, if a little startled.

The night did not end there. When I got home, I expected the Qur'an Study would be wrapping up. I was right. Unfortunately, however, my Mama, being the wonderful hostess that she is, did not neglect to prepare dinner for me. Of course, on that day of all days, she did not opt for the traditional (and light) hummus, lebneh, cheese, tabouleh and pita dinner that we had had almost every night this week. Last night, she chose to prepare a heavy, lukewarm dish, sort of like a ground beef and potato succotash, with an oily sauce and rice. With fear in my heart and a smile on my face, I sat down to eat this massive (and delicious) meal. Each bite I could feel filling the remainder of my stomach; I reached the point that I was working to hard to finish my plate that I was sweating. Luckily, there were still some stragglers from the Qur'an group to distract my family such that I could secretly wipe my brow and occasionally whimper in agony. Upon finally finishing the last bite, a combined feeling of triumph and unparalleled nausea washed over me. I shimmied up out of my seat, said goodnight to my lovely mother claiming that she had fed me so well that I had to go to sleep, waddled back to my room and presumed the fetal position for about 30 minutes.

May you all never be put in the position in which otherwise delicious food becomes toxic for no other reason than that it is literally killing you by sheer volume.

Everything in moderation,

anneke

Customarily....

* post from yesterday that I....didn't post. Whoops!*

The family keeps getting bigger.

Last night Mama and I had a conversation about the size of the entire family. While originally she listed 33 as the total for both hers and Baba's, I didn't realize that she hadn't even counted her first cousins. Mama comes from a family of 12 -- 6 boys and 6 girls. Each sibling has at least 2 children, except for two sisters who are apparently spinsters and live together somewhere in Amman. Altogether, her side totals somewhere in the twenties, including her children from her previous marriage. On Baba's side, though I don't know about his siblings, he has 4 children from a previous marriage, an ex-wife (who is very close with Mama), and each of his children have at least two children. All of this leaves the total immediate family somewhere in the mid to high thirties.

That being said, about a quarter of them dropped by last night.

In Jordan, as I was made aware of during orientation but only truly learned last night, it is very common for people to 'drop in.' Dropping in does not, however, consist only of a quick hello and short conversation. We brought out the sweets, the ice cream, the Turkish coffee and the tea over the course of two-and-a-half hours of, as far as I could tell from the violent giggling and gesticulations of a 200-year-old woman and her equally animated, but comparatively....smooth, daughter, very exciting gossip. Then, a neighbor, who may or may not be related to someone in my family, brought her gaggle and her maid over as well for even more gossip, gesticulation and giggling. This time, though, I got to hold a baby so I was a little less useless in the social context.

Every 40 minutes or so, the old woman would look at me, give me a giant, toothless grin and ask my host mother in Palestinian-accented Ameeya whether I had any idea what they were talking about, and each time I would grin just as widely and shake my head.

The words that I understood over the course of this three-hour conversation:

تفولتنا = Our childhoods

محمد = Mohammad

اولاد = children

There were some others, but, I assure you, not many.

'til tomorrow,

anneke

no means no and eat means eat

Over the past couple of days, aside from adjusting to being a pedestrian in an area where cars own the road, the sidewalk and the occasional limb, I've been learning to navigate the well-known difference between the US and the Middle East that is the relationship between men and women.

Everyone on the program attended an orientation session about the culture in Jordan. Apparently, if you are woman and you sit in the front seat of a cab, then you either like the cab driver, are easy, or both. If you go out with your hair wet, you are easy and probably a bit cold. If you are alone with an Arab male, then you may be easy. If you are out with many Arab males, you are definitely easy. If you show your knees or shoulders, you are easy. If you show your boobs or belly, you are easy and people will stare at you. If you are making out with a dude in the street, you are stupid and easy. Most of the tips we got from these sessions could pretty easily be deduced by anyone with an ounce of cultural competency, but I appreciate that the program would rather we be safe than sorry.**

As for the changes that I, personally, need to adjust to, the change in interpersonal touching will be most striking. As a bleeding-heart, Birkenstock-loving, tree-hugging, dreadlock-aspiring, tattoo-coveting, OCF-going, Berkeley-adoring, granola-eating, garden-growing, flannel-wearing liberal, making the transition from hugging, embracing and touching to will be the most difficult difference for me to deal with. I just have so much love to give. It seems, however, that I will find the absent embrace will be replaced by my host mother's benevolently violent fits of excitement and the consumption of food. I think that I will easily adjust to not looking men in the eye when talking to them and avoiding eye contact on the street.

I've now moved in with my family in Amman. Two parents (each on their second marriage), one 19-year-old boy and one 15-year-old boy. The extended family consists of about 35 people, all of whom visit on a regular basis. Hana's (my host mother's) daughter visited with her own adorable daughter last night for what turned out to be a delightful conversation about how old and tired Fairouz is and how Shakira is the way of the future. Perhaps it will soon be time to bring Lil Wayne to the region, but we shall see.

Later that evening was what I hope will be a more typical experience. Hana, Mohammad (my 19-year-old host brother) and I visited Majed's (my host father's) ex-wife, I think, and some of his children. I am not entirely sure what the relationship between everyone was because 'Mama' and 'Hamadee' kept telling me that everyone else is family -- myself included. I look forward to the day that I, as family, will also know how to start the argileh, engage in the gossip and help with the cooking.

I am now stuffed with lunch (I actually might pass out) and need to go out and explore the neighborhood.

More tomorrow,

anneke

**Side note: I sincerely hope that UN officials get better and longer orientation sessions than we did, not because the CIEE orientation was not good but, rather, because UN officials are, theoretically, doing much more important work. If anyone reading this happens to know that this is not the case, please don't share it with me. Or if you do, know that I will just get very, very depressed.

Marhaba, Elhamdoulilla, Inshallah, etc.

Jordan is awesome.

Today the whole group of students that opted for homestays is heading to their respective houses, so today is going to be the first day that we actually get to use Arabic, as I'm not going to count last night when I asked the waiter where the bathroom was last night, didn't understand his answer and wandered around for 15 minutes being proud of myself, though quite uncomfortable.

I have to admit, waking up on the first morning here, getting a little irked by what I thought was the bathroom light being on and then realizing that it was a) the sun and b) a spectacular panoramic view of the entire city from the 9th floor of the hotel, made for a really nice welcome. After that, a series of gloom-and-doom related safety and general knowledge orientation sessions over the course of 4 hours wore down on all of us, but ending the day at the Dead Sea, covered from head-to-toe with mud (I opted to do the hair as well and looked sort of like a comparatively out-of-shape and covered blue lady from X-Men) and floating like a buoy at the lowest point on Earth. I have seen the promised land.

Once I get a converter that works so I can charge my camera (long story), settle in with my host family and get fed (within an inch of my life, apparently), you'll hear from me again.

Love,

anneke