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