Sunday, August 30, 2009

Checklist

Most of my recent days can be categorized into (A) My Life is Awesome or (B) My Life is Ridiculous.  Nothing bad has happened yet, just a lot of ridiculous.

So here's a checklist of things I have recently completed. Feel free to categorize them as you see fit:

[x] Attend a dinner party at the home of a Duke
[x] Perform 'oud in public, at said dinner party (including recently learned "Dixie," which, I should note, is a way better song than the star-spangled banner.)
[x] Bat above .500 for Ramadan fasting (with a current streak of 4 days)
[x] See a mirage in the desert
[x] See a sandstorm in the desert
[x] Wear a dishdash (now I get it, they're really comfortable)
[x] Get called "animal" then punched by a crazy person (about which I will go into further detail in a later post)
[x] Make guacamole for Iftar
[x] Sit in the room at Qasr al-Azraq where T.E. Lawrence planned out how he would ruin the Middle East for a century
[x] See a Umayyad fresco of a bear playing a banjo, cheered on by a monkey
[ ] See an Oryx, which is possibly the origin of the Biblical idea of the unicorn.  Sanctuary was closed for renovation.  Jordan fail.


That's all for now.  After fasting, four desert castles/palaces, and a bipolar driver, I'm exhausted.  I'm awfully proud that this post isn't about food, because during Ramadan, everything is about food at least for me.  While I was taking an I'm-so-hungry-but-sunset-isn't-for-four-hours nap the other day, I had a dream about mashed potatoes and mac & cheese.  When I woke up, I was really disappointed.  But damn, water tastes delicious after a long day without it.


Wednesday, August 26, 2009

How To Gain Weight By Fasting

I have heard from a few friends that no matter how devout a Muslim is during the fasts of Ramadan, he or she always manages to gain some weight.

Tonight, I got a hint of how this happens.  I did the full fast today; not even water passed my lips.  It wasn't really bad until about 5:30pm, when I knew Iftar was only a couple hours away, but I just had to sweat it out.

While not as extensive as the spread the other night due to running out of gas (literally) and not having any Arab mothers present, it was still an amazing meal.  Even just tasting water for the first time today was an incredible experience.  Water has a taste!  I never realized this before.

But the star of the show came later in the form of halowiyat.  I've had Arabic sweets before, but never like this.  First, Khalid gave me the cheesy, nutty, syrupy concoction above.  I believe it's called Hallawia al-jibna.  It's something akin to cheesecake, but out of this world good.  Already stuffed from dinner, I took a bite when Khalid handed it to me.

Me: "Oh God."
Khalid: "Is everything okay?"

It was delicious. Most Arab sweets have layer upon layer of honey and filo dough.  This was different.  It was soft, smooth, and cold, still with the characteristic sweetness.  I loved it.

An hour later, he brought forth the Kanafa, a more well-known Jordanian sweet.  It is an amazing mix of dough, nuts, and sugar strings on top.

Now I understand the gaining-weight-during-Ramadan thing.














(Side note: we had a couple of British pilgrims staying with us for a few days.  Interesting characters both: they met on a game show, and one of them walked from Belgium to the Israeli border, before getting rejected for entry because he was penniless.  His friend is now finishing the journey for him.  You can check out their blog at http://richardandmikey.wordpress.com/)

Sunday, August 23, 2009

A Tale of Two Dinners

Current photos are up (albeit not in full quality) at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032879&id=19101971&l=3ceb2c72f5

Two of the more memorable meals of my life have happened in the last 28 hours, and I think the meals and their circumstances deserve their own post.

Yesterday was my first Iftar (the breaking of the Ramadan fast at al-Maghreb, sunset).  I accidentally fasted (though I didn't abstain from water like some of my friends are doing).  I had gone to Jerash with a friend earlier in the day, daydreaming about Jerashic Park (think dinosaurs on Roman ruins), so I didn't think it wise to go without water while walking in the middle of a desert in the hottest month of summer.  I think religious traditions are supposed to bring you closer to God, but a summer Ramadan is trying to send you to the next life mubasharan (directly).

Anyway, I got back to the apartment around three in the afternoon, and it was filled with my roommate Khalid's extended family.  I had met his brothers before, and after a few shrieks and hurried putting-on of a hijab, I met his sister-in-law and his mother.  One of the funnier characters was his little cousin Yasmeen, who announced the minutes remaining until Iftar every 5-10 minutes.  Considering I arrived more than four hours before Iftar, this was a little annoying, but mostly hilarious.  It's like my brother Andrew waiting for Christmas presents.  Yasmeen also leaned most of her body out of the window so she could hear the earliest possible call to prayer, which signals when the sun has set and people can begin eating.  It's only her second Ramadan fasting, so she really wanted that food.  Meanwhile, her cousin Mustafa (Khalid's brother) was eyeing the baby food, thinking, just maybe, he should grab a spoonful.

After the customary eating of the date, we dug into the food.  Malfoof (stuffed lettuce leaves), Maghlooba (lit. upside-down) with veggies and rice, a Greek-like pastry filled with cheese or meat, something like Arab cole-slaw, soup, figs, dates, fried chicken, date juice, and oh so much delicious cold water.  It was a very memorable meal, and I joked to Muhammad (Khalid's dad), that no matter how much I ate, the pile on my plate kept growing bigger as cousins, brothers, and aunts put more food on it.  They literally would not take no for an answer.

The rest of the evening was filled with prayer, family arguments, poetry, and a little bit of Taylor Swift.  Solid, all around.  A good introduction to Ramadan.

Today, I ate lunch after finally obtaining an 'oud and registering at the police station for residency.  I figured I deserved a meal after all that work, and besides, SO MANY LEFTOVERS.  I mean, how do you resist a turkey sandwich the day after thanksgiving?  After learning "Vincent O'Brien," "Folsom Prison Blues," "Sunshine of Your Love," and "First Day of My Life" on 'oud (because I haven't started learning Arab songs yet), I went to church and then dinner at the home of one of my students.  

For anonymity, I'll call him Abdullah, which I should note, some Christians are named, as translated, it means Theodore, or Servant of God.  Anyway, he and his wife live in a tiny apartment a few blocks away from the church.  They are some of my favorites in the class.  Once, when I asked him what he did that day before coming to school, he said, "I went doctor tooth," then pulled his dentures out of his mouth.  Sufficed to say, he's a likable guy.  Tonight was the first time that I took notes when talking to a student about being a refugee.  I'm not sure if it changed things, but I don't think it did.  He told me about his kids in the U.S.  His brother was a Chaldean bishop in Basra and then Beirut, but died a few years ago.  His other brother ran a liquor store, but was kidnapped and killed by fundamentalists in Mosul.  Abdullah left Mosul to go to his ancestral village Arqush (that's just a guessed spelling), where he and his wife stayed until last December.  Masked men came to Abdullah's door, saying that the Kafir (unbeliever) must leave.  He didn't have the money to pay them off any more, so he and his wife came to Jordan.  With their kids in the states and having visited previously, they thought they'd move on pretty quickly.  They obtained refugee status, but have been waiting for ten months while some branch of the U.S. government (he says FBI) investigates him further.

He was a member of the Baath Party from 1965-1987.  On the surface, that sounds nefarious and an obvious disqualifier, but I should also note that Abdullah was a primary school teacher from 1965-1987.  He had to join the party to keep his job.  When he retired in '87, he left the party because he was against the war against in Iran.  He spent the next few decades on the city council, coordinating volunteer work in his town until he lost that job to a party loyalist.  When the Americans came in 2003, he was a big supporter of the ousting of Saddam and occupation, organizing barbecues that allowed soldiers and kids from his town to interact.  He showed me pictures of his family with a lieutenant named Smith.  He asked if I could find him.  I sadly disappointed him.

There isn't really an end to his saga.  I'm scared that he'll get rejected like some of my other students.  For now, he is still hoping that his letter of approval comes through, but who knows.

I don't have a good segue, but even with all the war/refugee/death talk, tonight was a blast.  There was a lot more laughing than sadness.  Abdullah, his wife, and I had enough food for a half-dozen people, including the Iraqi dishes Briyani with chicken and meatballs over almonds and rice, Qubaa which is a big meat/pastry pancake, and the traditional Arab salads, chicken, and hummus from the whole region.  And then the arak began to flow.  When poured, it's clear and just a hint of anis in the smell.  Then Abdullah added ice and water, and it turned milky white.  And a few glasses later, there was a drunk 70 year-old and a drunk 22 year-old talking about visiting Arqush a few years down the line so we could eat the best peaches in the world from his garden.  Then he told me that he sees me as his son.  And I told him and his wife that they're like my parents.  

Then he poured another glass of arak.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Attempted Conversion #1

Yesterday, I was walking from Jabal al-Hussein to al-Balad when a chatty guy approached me. I'm in a talk-to-everyone mode right now so I didn't immediately see what he was up to, but it shortly became clear. He was trying to convert me, but here's the kicker: he wasn't Muslim, he was a friggin' Baptist.

When I'm traveling in Arab countries, I usually just say I'm Catholic because that is an acceptable alternative to Islam for most Arabs, and is far simpler than explaining mixed religious heritage, doubts, love of rituals, and the other issues I have with religion. However, Catholic wasn't good enough for the Arab Baptist. Have you ever heard, "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?" in Arabic? I have.

The Christianity for which I still have affection is the polar opposite of what he was selling. I really believe that actions matter, that you can't just pray your way out, as the Baptist was telling me I should. When I was thumbing through the Jesuit Refugee Service newsletter while waiting for students to show up a few days ago, I read that the Jesuits set up a LGBT safe house in Baghdad. It's that commitment to social justice and doing good things that improve people's lives (rather than just pounding dogma down people's throats) that still gives me hope about Catholicism.

So getting back to the persistent Baptist, we had walked for about thirty minutes and were entering the busier section of town, and he was still talking really loudly about Jesus, salvation and the next life on the day before Ramadan. Awkward.

When he got pushier with the questions, I pulled out a quote from my prophet, my nebi, my rasool.

Baptist: "After this life, how will you live, Ted?"
Me: "In mansions and benzs, giving ends to my friends and it feels stupendous."

Apparently, when uncomfortable and pushed into a corner, I fight my way out with hip-hop non-sequiturs.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Hadha Haioan

Those were the words some crazy person said as he punched me in downtown Amman a week or so ago. They mean "This animal," which was rather random considering I was just walking down the street and had never seen the guy before. It was only on the shoulder, so it could've been worse, but still, he just punched me. He then proceeded to grab a shai-boy's change purse and threw it into the street to the dismay of the people stuck in traffic.

This was kind of funny, because I was just telling a friend that I've never been in a real fight, apart from an ill-fated locker boxing match during my freshman year on the hockey team against a guy with 40 lbs. on me.

If I'm reading the Watson Fellowship guidelines correctly, in this situation, I should have "confronted challenges as opportunities", "eschewed the known for the unknown", and "fully explored the culture of my project country." In other words, I think the ghost of Ol' Thomas J Watson was telling me to confront this quite literal challenge as an opportunity to throw my first punch, immersing my fist in the culture of his jaw.

Instead, I muttered "majnoon" (crazy or "afflicted by genies") and kept walking, which will allow me to continue exploring Jordan instead of its prisons....or hospitals.

(As a sidenote: this is the second time I've been hit by a crazy person abroad. The first time was in a train station in Bari, Italy.)



Saturday, August 15, 2009

Sunday School, Drive-Bys, and Our Lady of Iraq

Today was hard to describe. It was in turn hilarious and depressing, silly, sad, and inspiring.

In the morning, I was teaching Chaldean Sunday school. I'm vastly under qualified to do this, and the sight of me leading Iraqi six year-olds in the Our Father is frankly ridiculous, but it's nevertheless a lot of fun. I was teaching them names of the saints in English, but I often only knew the Islamic version, and not the Arab Christian version. For example, Jesus is Issa to Muslims and Yesua to Christians, John the Baptist is Yahya Ibn Zakariyya (I love saying that) to Muslims and Yohanna to Christians, and so forth. Despite my repeated faux pas, they were entertained, and we ended with a round of Simon Says, which I suppose is the universal language.

In the evening, I taught these kids' parents and grandparents. The class itself wasn't noteworthy, but during a break, I talked to a new student, Bassam, about leaving Iraq with his parents. He worked for a tv production company with his father in Iraq. However, all tv companies officially were under the direction of Uday, the worse of the Hussein offspring, so after the war, they were targeted with death threats and drive-bys by people looking for revenge against the former regime. Bassam's father almost surely has some form of PTSD. On top of that, their last name translates to "Deacon," so anonymity in Iraq is not in the cards. They're stuck: Bassam can't find a job and only has his parents for company in Jordan. The UN told them to wait for refugee status. For how long they don't know. Maybe six months. Maybe a year. Maybe never.

The theme of powerlessness seems to be a recurring one in my work.

With that in mind, I should note that the Chaldean Church is preparing a garden. Father Raymond (my Abuna - the name for your parish priest) approached me after class. "Tiiid, can you write 'Our Lady of Iraq' for me?". With tributes to Mary "Miryam" in Aramaic and Arabic, he wanted to add some English to the shrine. Even in a rundown basement apartment in the unhip side of Amman, populated by people without a real home, there's some hope. And there's a garden growing.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Chooku Maaku

I'm settling into a rhythm of Amman, and I actually feel comfortable doing this, which is a pleasant surprise.

I've begun to take the next step in my project. Now that I know these folks, I can actually talk to them and learn about their situation in Iraq, Jordan, and the diaspora. Many of my students were soldiers in their younger years. One of them, was rejected for refugee status because he was a soldier in Iraq's army in Kurdistan when Saddam was committing atrocities there in the 90s. Now his family is headed to the states, but he has nowhere to go. So what should I see him as: the possible perpetrator of atrocities or a jovial, energetic student and father of a 7 year-old daughter who learned the Our Father in English to impress the American in the church?

Another student fled because her husband, a linguistics professor, was being threatened because some of his students worked for the Baath party.

What I'm learning goes beyond the religious side of the Chaldeans; I'm seeing the lives that have been turned upside down in the last six years and I'm beginning to understand the complexities of Iraq.

(note on the title: "chooku maaku" is the "what's up, man?" of Iraq, with the "ch" sound that is foreign to Arabic but present in Iraqi colloquial. In Jordan, it becomes the smoother "shoofi maafi")




Monday, August 10, 2009

Life here...

...is like a continuous game of Frogger.

That's all for now.


Friday, August 7, 2009

Teaching and Watching

I started work yesterday, volunteering with a couple of refugee organizations that serve the Chaldean Christian community from Iraq.  Originally, I thought I'd be at Father Raymond Moussalli's church/Chaldean center five days a week, but they only have classes on Thursdays and Fridays, along with Friday "Sunday" school, so I'm supplementing that with two classes at the Jesuit Refugee Service in Jebel al-Hussein.

The groups are different, but both pretty interesting.  At the JRS, it's a modern classroom and my students (almost all Iraqi Chaldeans) are moderately well educated, including a recent med school grad and an English teacher, but all without jobs due to their status in Jordan.  Some have lived in the U.S.; others are waiting to go.  One had lived in Tuscon for a year.  She said it was worse than Baghdad.  They're all serious students, but their frustration at their national homelessness is clear.  They are waiting for something.

The Chaldean Church is a more lively place.  In what amounts to a large apartment, there is Fr. Raymond's office, a full church and sacristy, and a small classroom.  The students are mostly in their 50s and 60s, but surprisingly, the older folks have a lot better English than their children and grandchildren.  I'm assisting Ustedh (that means teacher/professor) Majid, who once in a while explains a point of English grammar correctly.  The actual teaching is almost beside the point, because I'm really there to get to know the students and their families.  One of them was a tank commander during the Iran/Iraq war, and even though most haven't been back to Iraq since they left 6 months or a year ago, they discuss the weather in Baghdad every day.  All in all, they're a funny, vivacious, talkative group who have no qualms about shushing each other or asking me why I'm not married yet.

After class yesterday, there was a mass for the Feast of the Transfiguration, which we probably had a half-day for at St. Roch.  The mass itself was very recognizable, even in the mixture of Aramaic and Arabic that I could only somewhat follow.  The music was one of the most interesting aspects for me.  The hymns were dirges, laments, minor-key chants with a hard rhythm.  If good gospel music has the immediacy of the joy of the resurrection, then Chaldean music has the equivalent sadness of Christ's death.  It was a really moving service, and in the basement apartment-cum-church with lawn chairs for pews, I started to understand the point of my project and the reason I'm in Jordan.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Adventures in Engrish!

So I start my volunteering tomorrow at the Jesuit Refugee Center and the Chaldean Patriarchate, so I thought I'd take a break from lesson-planning and pass along a few "English" tidbits.

On menu at cafe: "drink flavor herpes" (they meant herbs)

Advertisement for English class: "can you speak English?"
"Yes, I am!"

And all over town, there are a bunch of "hair saloons.". That's my favorite.

Inshallah, I can make a difference. First lesson: herbs is spelled with a b.


Sunday, August 2, 2009

Amman as a city


Having been in Amman for a couple of days now, I can only assume I can characterize it definitively. It's big, much bigger than I expected and very young. While driving around, Manaf said, "This area of the city is very very old. Its from the 1920s." Considering how old the land is (Amman was the original Philadelphia, after all), everything is strangely new. No Mamluk buildings, not even many Ottoman buildings. I know it's cliched and patronizing to say a non-western city is "sooooo westernized", but at least in urban design, it is. And that's not necessarily a good thing. It's decentralized, and totally unwalkable.

After going to the citadel and Roman theater this morning since I don't know when I'll have time to do that sort of thing after my job starts tomorrow, I made it my afternoon mission to provision my kitchen for cooking. One of my roommates told me that there was a supermarket called Ctown between 6th circle and 7th circle. I live close to 6th, so I assumed it would be an easy walk, even in the afternoon heat. I was mistaken. It was a long ways, so I decided to take a taxi home. 10 or 15 taxis, some empty, passed me without stopping. So I trekked back home an drank two quarts of water, exhausted.

Considering I only went to tourist sites and bought groceries, this was nevertheless an exceptionally tiring day.

At least the evening weather is perfect. I'm going to go take advantage of that.