Midterms and Neil!

What a past couple of weeks! My Mom and Sister came in town for two weeks to visit family.  And a bit more than a week ago my good friend from Seattle, Neil Baunsgard, sent me a Facebook message saying that he found a round trip ticket from Seattle to Amman for 700 bucks! what a deal. I told him I'd never seen a deal that good so come on over if he can! He booked the ticket, took his last finals, and hopped on a plane to Amman all within a matter of two or three days.  He was here for his spring break and just left yesterday! He squeezed quite the trip into just over a week in the middle east.  In about 10 days, he went to the dead sea, spent time getting to know Amman, went to Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv for 3 days while I took some mid-terms, we went to Jerash and spent an afternoon climbing at a sport crag nearby the roman ruins, and we spent last weekend in Petra and Wadi Rum.  Right before he left we visited the al-abdullah mosque walked through the downtown fruit market at night and took some awesome pictures.

Mother day in Jordan is March 21st, the first day of spring, and it's a big deal here. Maybe because there's no father's day so twice the festivities are squeezed into one day haha. I was lucky enough to be here with my Mom and both my grandma's for mothers day this year...so we all ate a lot of food =)

Here are some of Neil's pictures from the past week's adventures:

On the way down to the dead sea:

Roman theatre in Jerash:

Main Road of the ancient city.  It's so easy to imagine a bunch of traders shops lining the street! I can just hear the bargaining =)

Climbing near Jerash:

The shepherd who told us he was going to call the cops on us for climbing haha:

The spectacular wall inside a carved out room in the ancient city of Petra:

The Monastery in Petra:

The cutest little rock salesman...note his mom in the background. She knows his smile could sell more rocks than she ever could haha.  Also, what a genius little entrepreneur! "you should buy these rocks"

Our camp in Wadi Rum that night:

Khazali canyon:

"I'm not very good at sideways sports"--Neil Baunsgard

Hutta Salesman in Downtown Amman:

The coolest part of downtown Amman--the fruit market:

"Hey! that girl has red hair! let's go take a picture with her."

The only food I ever need: Falafel:

As most of you know I am studying abroad this semester...and (un)fortunately CIEE takes the studying part fairly seriously.  I have had midterms for the past two weeks, and it's been quite a learning experience since I'm taking poli sci and language classes, instead of my typical Economics and science-y classes.  Both my poli sci midterms are in-class essays! what are those again? well they sure make my fingers hurt after an hour of writing straight under pressure.  I think the last time I took an in class essay exam was on my AP exams in high school! It's taken me a bit of time to re-figure out how to study for exams where there's not one correct answer next to a bubble that you just fill in.  It's also been cool for me to take classes in a subject that I've had no formal educational experience in yet.  It's shown me that there's always so much more to everything than meets the eye.  No wonder politicians have tons of aids who specialize in one thing.  So many interests in everything, so little time. Economic, Diplomatic, Corporate, Environmental, Humanitarian, Military, just about enough to make your head spin.

Next week is spring break and friends and I are traveling to Beirut, Cairo, and finishing off by some beach time/scuba diving in Dahab! can't wait =)

Rockets, Articles, and Thoughts

As you may or may not know, the Palestinians and the Israeli's have reached a cease fire agreement to their 4 day long rocket battle.  Here are different articles I've compiled about the same clash.  This has been a fairly straightforward clash--rockets fired, a couple of Palestinian civilians killed, couple of Israeli civilians injured, Palestinians threw a couple of mortars after the cease fire--so it's been interesting to see which sources reported which facts. In my opinion the gold medal for reporting goes to BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17348403

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/world/middleeast/in-gaza-new-conditions-shape-old-fight.html?_r=1&ref=global-home&fb_source=message

http://jordantimes.com/israel-gaza-violence-rages-into-fourth-day

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/some-200-rockets-hit-israel-since-start-of-latest-gaza-escalation-1.418173

http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Video/Article.aspx?id=261674

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=261676

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/03/201231215055832181.html

Some Thoughts:

Hamas and Israel don't talk directly to each other. I think one of the greatest things about politics is how people need to sit down across a table from somebody else who they would rather not ever talk to and who they don't agree with on any one thing, and those two sides will need to come to a civil agreement (or disagreement) and shake hands afterwards with a fake smile (but smile nonetheless) for the cameras.  How is anything productive supposed to get done when the two sides start by saying "I won't even look at him, let alone hear the words he has to say directly from his own mouth". I guess at least there's a cease fire and people aren't dying any more. Band-aid in place. How many more band-aids will this region be able to handle? This would be a fascinating arena to analyze the job of the translators!

One of my favorite quotes of all time is by Desmond Tutu: "My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together."  Do these two sides even see each other as human anymore?  Well a whole generation of Gazans haven't been allowed into Israel, and therefore have never seen an Israeli in the flesh. I'm not sure if any Israeli's go into Gaza, I'm sure most haven't.  When I was little I used to think that the Rugrats were real people, and people in whatever country they were from actually looked like that and babies actually talked and organized crazy adventures.  Crazy, I know, but I was a kid, and I did think that. How are the Palestinian and Israeli kids viewing each other when all they have for context is rockets flying back and forth over their separation wall and this conflict that is injuring/killing their friends and family.

Maybe a kids soccer league needs to be organized--Palestinian teams versus Israeli teams.  Baby steps, eventually...hopefully, they'll be able to play on the same team together.  Would their parents let them play? Would the kids want to play? 

Concert

Last week sometime my Peer Tutor, Nimr, called me saying that there was a concert happening on campus that day around lunchtime.  My friends and I met up with him and walked over to the largest concert hall, about half the size of Macky Auditorium.  On the way in we saw a bunch of security guards with guns and the like, it turns out that the concert was because one of the princesses was visiting campus that day.  We find some seats in the auditorium and watch a guy at a podium in front of the stage talking about something...we asked around and it turns out that the queen was at campus that day promoting a new drug prevention program she's launched in Jordan.  And afterwards the choir sang.  It was cool to see Arabic music performed by students.  The band consisted of 8 men and 8 women singers, a keyboard, upright bass, violin, viola, squeaky arab flute thing, a santur looking thing, 2 oud arabic guitars, 1 regular guitar, cello, floor tabla, two lap tabla's, and a tambourine.  Picture below.  Walking out Nimr told me that the music was pretty mellow today because of the formality of the event since a princess was there.  He said next time we'll go to a "louder and crazier" concert.  Can't wait. 

Roman Ruins

Last weekend CIEE took us to two sites of roman ruins in Jordan: Umm Qais and Jerash. Umm Qais is in the way north of Jordan right by the Golan Heights and the border of Jordan Israel Syria.  Jerash has the best preserved roman ruins outside of Italy.  I think it's the only place other than Pompeii where I really feel that people used to live here! And as a matter of fact, people still live here! on our way out of Jerash we stopped to hang out with a herd of goats that were grazing the grass right by the smaller theater of Jerash.  It's always fun to run around old roman streets and scramble on top of buildings and explore caves and basements of old temples.  I especially love to run around smaller passageways then pop up out of another entrance to basement and see where I end up haha.

In Umm Qais there were two Asian men flying a large balloon kite type thing.  One guy was controlling it with a remote control that looks like it was used for an RC Car, and the other guy was holding a fishing rod which the balloon was attached to.  For the life of me I could not figure out what they were doing. the remote control guy would say "haaa" then play with the nobs but nothing would happen to the balloon.  occasionally the fishing rod guy would reel in or let out more string so the balloon went up or down.  My best guess is that they were getting weather data because there was a small black box hanging off the balloon.  They were flying the balloon over a new excavation that was taking place so they were constantly on the verge of falling onto the holes since they were looking up the balloons.  The Arabs who were excavating the holes just kept looking at each other, looking up the balloons, shrugging their shoulders, and continuing on digging.  It was a funny scene.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.  Also if you're friends with me on facebook a bunch of my friends uploaded pictures just recently.

Some classmates all trying to squeeze on top of a column in Umm Qais:

A lizard at the base of a column.

the new excavation:

the mysterious balloon:

Jerash:

Conversation 2 / Snowball Fight Between Rival Tribes

One thing I've been thinking about quite a bit here is how people relate to one another and the culture behind conversations.

Last week my friend and I were studying on a quad on campus and as I walked back from a trash can, two guys just bein lazy on the grass called me over.  I guess I sparked their interest because I was actually throwing something in a trashcan, a practice still not learned in Amman. (but really, the litter here is so abundant it has just become part of the landscape.  It's almost not ugly, the joke exists that the national bird of Jordan is a plastic bag).  I walked over, we exchanged pleasantries, I gave them the quick explanation of why I look Arabic but don't speak Arabic (I think this is my most fluent sentence so far) and then said I had some studying to do so I excused myself.  Would that have happened in the States?? I'm sure it DOES happen in the US at least a bit, and I'm sure there are also people in Jordan who don't spark conversations with everyone they meet, but I'm talking generalizations here.  When was the last time that you were sitting with a friend and just called some random person over to chat?  Somebody random engages me in conversation at least once a day here in Amman.

Maybe in the US the attitude towards relationships is "I'm doin my thing, you're doin your thing, sure, let's meet, but let's not get in each others way."  Whereas here in the Middle East the attitude is more "I'm livin life, you're livin life, let's live life together!"  Thoughts?  My initial thoughts were "how cool! why can't this be more accepted everywhere!?"  but...

Later on in that same day last week I was reading the second to last chapter of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I was into it, all I wanted to do was find out where Lisbeth Salander was moving all this money around to screw over the robber baron businessman who sent Blomkvist to Jail! I was captivated, I was concentrated, I was completely absorbed by the mystery...and some guy on a couch nearby leaned over and said "I'm Ahmad, what's your name" He startled/kinda annoyed me! How ironic was this immediate contradiction to my original conclusion about 2 hours beforehand.  It would have been kinda rude for me to just say "hey look, I'm much more interested in the words on this paper right now, so sorry..."  So I had to say Hey. What's up. How's it goin. What's your news. You study here? I study here too. How's it goin. Yes, you guessed it--I am Arabic but I don't speak Arabic, I'm just learning, etc etc.  Soon one of his friends passed by and he left with him. phew! I could get back to my mystery.

I also think that this occurs more so to me than most american students. I must spark people's interest here, dark skinned, dark hair, lots of hair, but looking so American in my Patagonia jacket and Chaco Sandals. But I also think that this is how I operate in the states as well--wanting to meet everybody.  But never in the US am I interrupted by someone else wanting to meet me!  Where could I operate better, in a place where more people are outgoing and wear their heart on their sleeve, or in a place where I stand out as outgoing? I also just realized that when I say people--I really mean mostly men. (is that word spelled "mean" or "meen"? maybe I'm thinking of the arabic letter "meem" or maybe I'm just being confused by the internet's recent resurgence of "meems", or maybe I'm just going crazy haha) I was just talking to a CIEE staffer who graduated just recently from the University of Jordan and she was telling me that women are super gossipy and when they meet each other, they're already a bit skeptical, thinking "why does this girl want to be my best friend all of a sudden?" But with the guys, you can run into some guy who you've met just that morning through some mutual friend, eat lunch together, get some coffee and hookah, and be close acquaintances by the end of it.  It's like men aren't ever skeptical of meeting and befriending other men. This CIEE staffer was telling me that the culture here is social built around being able to maintain friendships with a ridiculous number of people.  Everybody here is good at remembering people's names, everybody here know at least a bunch of people, it's near impossible to graduate from the University of Jordan without at least 200 friends.  This staffer was telling me that every weekend she's at a wedding, and she sees everyone she knows, they see her, she meets new people, they'll hang out, they'll go to each others weddings, etc, etc, etc.  Sure people do have their close friends, but I think acquaintances are also considered friendships. I think this also leads to a culture that knows how to carry conversations with one another.

Ok now the big story: there was a snowball fight on campus that turned into quite the brawl...
I was getting lunch at the Milk Bar on campus and I ran into some guy who I had met just that morning at the conversation club.  He helped me push my way through the crowd to get my sandwich after being given quite the run around by the sandwich men.  All I wanted was a Turkey and Cheese!  We chatted for a bit then another friend called who I had met on a bus just once more than two weeks ago.  We went to meet her for some coffee and we ended up just chatting in the entrance of one of the cafeterias.  We heard a commotion outside so we stepped out into the plaza on campus and saw a bunch of men wrapping their Huttas around their face like they mean business.  Then we heard a bunch of yelling and saw some 2x4's get whipped out from nowhere and two of the men just walked up the entrance to the nearest building and smashed in the windows! Holy cow! I couldn't believe what I was seeing! my two friends were also surprised, but they were much more nonchalant about it.  They chatted with some of the surrounding spectators and it turns out that a guy from a large tribe threw a snowball at the wrong guy from one of their rival tribes.  He happened to have a gun and shot the first guy in the leg. yes. that simple. So the injured guy was thrown into a van and rushed off to the hospital, and all of his cousins, second cousins, third cousins, step cousins, cousin-in laws, starting calling their tribal homies and saying to come to campus cause they were going to have a fight.  Next thing we know testosterone is being unleashed by windows getting smashed in with 2x4's and security guards are running in the opposite direction. No violence was directed at any people, but I'm sure anyone related to the shooter was already long gone. My friends asked me if this would ever happen in the US, "Not over a snowball!" I said. The Jordan Times just reported that the shooter is currently in custody and the injured is in the hospital being taken care of.  CIEE rounded all of us up, made sure we were safe, and told us to go home since all classes were suspended for the rest of the day.

One the way to the CIEE roundup my two friends and I got the coffee we initially set out for and were chatting about how people relate to one another, One of them is a Ph.D. candidate for "the sayings of the prophet Mohammad" (Islamic studies) and he said that he ultimately believes that religious or not, we are here to connect with one another. I like it.  But I also think that something should come from connecting with others, whether it be a friendship that's good for the soul, a friendship to accomplish similar goals, or both!  I'd like to see if this easy-friendship-making continues with Arabs as they get older, or if it's just a finding-yourself-in-college thing.  Either way, I'm so glad that my Friendship Skepticism Wall is coming down as I'm able to connect more and more with locals. But I'm still gonna think twice before I throw a snowball at anybody.

Pictures from sport climbing a month ago

Here are some pictures from sport climbing in the farms and rolling hills north of Amman a month ago or so.

Nick killin it on lead:

Me boldly following: