Get used to disappointment

Waiting for "Ahmed" at the bus station, my phone rang.

"I am very sorry. My parents have forbidden me to come to see you."

Story of my life.

ISLAM means peas

"Just remember ALL CAPS when you spell the man name."

-Madvillain

My friend "Ahmed" is coming to visit tonight, and the title of this post comes from an email he sent me on 9/11 this year.  He's very conservative and ultimately thinks everyone should be Muslim, but he has a warm heart and was a good friend to me while I was in Syria.  I met him when I was studying in Damascus last year, and we've had an email correspondence since then, in which he always capitalizes ISLAM and MUHAMMAD.  There aren't many public spaces in Damascus, so I would often study in the mosques, including the Ummayyad Mosque, where I met an Imam, who introduced me to some of his students, including Ahmed.  Ahmed and his roommates are Tolab al-Fiqh, or students of Islamic Law, studying to become Imams.  Though we clashed on issues as diverse as adoption, women's rights, dating, and even smoking arghileh (he's opposed to all of the above), he and his roommates were so welcoming to me during my time there.  They have six roommates in a tiny apartment, but they always were inviting me over for dinner or tea, and they were always disappointed that I didn't want to sleep over.  For Thanksgiving (or Eid ash-Shukr), I made them an American meal, and they were very appreciative.

From their studies of the Qur'an, they speak fusha, the formal Arabic that I know better than Syrian or any other dialect.  They were very curious about American habits and customs along with my own beliefs about religion, politics, and whether the Jews were behind 9/11 (they weren't, FYI).  Through our discussions of Syrian history, Islam, and America, we developed an odd friendship.  I'm quite excited to see him and show him around Amman.

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After a several uncomfortable cab rides with pushy types trying to convert me in the last few weeks, I met a nice guy this morning.  I had to go to the U.S. Embassy because I've succeeded in filling up my passport, so I had to get some more pages.  As I got into the cab, I asked to go to the embassy.  In Arabic, the cabbie asked me if I was trying to get a visa to visit the U.S.  No, I told him, I'm an American.  Mashallah, an Amriki speaking Arabic?  I like this Hussein Obama.  You Americans have not enough children.  Only one per family, correct?  No No No, I have two brothers, I told him, and my mother has nine brothers and sisters.  I have fourteen, he said.  That's four better.

After the shocking revelation that I am unmarried ("I am very very sorry"), we had the feel-good moment when we agreed all religions are brothers and that peace is good.  We arrived at the embassy, and said goodbye.

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That's all for now, but here's a picture I took from Jabal Webdeh looking over Wast al-Balad, Amman's downtown into East Amman.

Dubai - Fault Lines

But none of the money we spend

Seems to do us much good in the end.

I've got a cracked engine block, both of us do.

-The Mountain Goats, "Fault Lines"

During my recent visit to Dubai, I kept coming back to this song by the Mountain Goats. Dubai has everything and is a beacon of prosperity, but feels very empty.  At the end of my first day there (last Friday), I was disgusted by what I saw.  With all the money in the world, the shaykhs in Dubai had chosen to develop in the least-sustainable way possible.  They have chosen a path which extinguishes any remnant of local culture, replacing it with grandiose hotels, giant air-conditioned malls, and a permanent underclass of Indians, Pakistanis, and Filipinos.  I know that we Westerners can fetishize "local culture" and "authentic life" to an unrealistic degree, but I got no sense of history or connection with this land from what I saw in Dubai.  The city was not built upon a unique place with a unique history and culture.  A theme park of malls, hotels, and a monorail were thrown onto the place, covering anything that was there previously up.  I wish I could've visited the area in 1930 or 1950, before DUBAI™ happened, because it was probably once a sight to behold.

I'm not a strict ideological environmentalist, but I do think a connection to one's environment is important, as is minimizing the damage one does to it.  What's the opposite of minimizing damage and building a connection to the environment?  In Dubai, you can pick from a few choices:

1. Air conditioned bus stops, kept at a cool 60 degrees:

2. A ski slope inside of a mall:

3. Air-conditioning set at 60 degrees everywhere

4. An underwater hotel

5. Building islands in the shape of things - palm trees, the world, and the universe.  All destroying the natural coastline.

Something in Dubai is deeply wrong.

A few weeks ago, while taking a day trip to Ajloun in the north of Jordan, I told a friend that it didn't really matter if the bus actually got anywhere, because just driving around the beautiful green hills with the wind blowing was pretty much perfect.  Dubai is the opposite of that.  It's a city of attractions - the tallest tower, the biggest mall, the only 7-star hotel...It's everything I don't care about and don't want.  The United Arab Emirates redeemed themselves slightly during our second day when we rented a car and drove into the mountains to the Indian Ocean, but ultimately I don't ever want to go back.

Yeah, the house, the jewels, the Italian race cars,

They don't make us feel better about who we are.

I got termites in the framework, so do you.

-The Mountain Goats, "Fault Lines"

Perhaps a better ending is the message I received from a friend who just arrived in Abu Dhabi, the emirate neighboring Dubai:

If the temperature and number of malls are any indicator… I think I may be in Hell.

The first thing I remember knowing was the lonesome whistle blowing

Yesterday, a friend told me that he thinks of me as "a dirtier Aladdin."  I'm not sure what that means, but personally, I'm hoping that when I die I'm known as the Arab Merle Haggard.

On that note, I recorded a bunch of songs today.  Now the disclaimer: I've been playing the 'oud a month and I can't even get lessons yet because of Ramadan, so bear with me.  And I'm a terrible singer.  Also, when I don't like the lyrics I've written, I just mumble them.  Just making sure we're clear on low expectations.

With that out of the way, I did two originals and a couple of covers.  "Life is Not a Highway" is a country song about the Middle East that I wrote on a bet, I believe.  It's a kind of reply to Tom Cochrane's totally upbeat hit.  I also wrote "Cairo Waltz," which is lame and self-explanatory.

The covers I did are "Right Moves" by Josh Ritter, who is amazing if you aren't listening to him already.  At one point in the song, his lyrics are so tightly packed that he starts tripping over them, and finally says, "I'm here with you.  I'm coming to the chorus now."  It's a great moment that I do my best to interpret.  Finally, I did "Chinese Translation" by M. Ward.  A little bit out of my range, but whatever, I like that song.

They are downloadable to my mom's ipod at http://drop.io/tedssongs

It's sixteen miles to the Promised Land, and I promise you I'm doing the best I can.

With a wonderful Iraqi nun riding next to me, the Chaldean Church of the Sacred Heart set off on a pilgrimage today for Eid al-Salib, or the Feast of the Holy Cross.  While some of my favorite students didn't feel well enough to make the trip, we had a good group for the journey to As-Salt in the north, Mt. Nebo, Madaba, and the Dead Sea.  Setting off early in the morning, the day began with prayers in Chaldean (Neo-Aramaic) that I'm beginning to get the hang of and songs in the same language; in other words, it was what I imagine a church field trip to be, had I ever gone on one of those in the states.

Our first stop was Kineesa Mar Giorgis (or Mar Jirjis to the Orthodox) in As-Salt.  It is here that St. George left a footprint in the rock, maybe even slaying a dragon here.  In any case, there is a small cave at the back of the church that seeps oil, which the faithful dab at for its healing properties.  It is quite possibly dragon blood.  The church had a serpentine motif throughout, which I thought was pretty cool.  I've always thought that St. George was one of the church's more interesting saints.  I mean, sometimes diseases can heal themselves and get attributed to an especially pious person who lives in a cave nearby, but killing a dragon?  St. George certainly did something extraordinary, and there were probably giant lizards back in the day.  Maybe St. George killed a velociraptor.  (Someone please photoshop this together)  See also: Jerashic Park (that's a daydream I had about dinosaurs populating the Roman Decapolis city of Jerash).

But I digress.

After our stop in As-Salt, we headed to Mt. Nebo via one of the most beautiful valleys I've ever seen.  At times there was a stream at the bottom, but often it was just a string of green - date palms, tall grasses, and other plants - at the bottom of a desert canyon.  Tiny paths crisscrossed the hills, making me think of the wise assertion that "Sand people travel single file to hide their true numbers."  I'm essentially the same person as I was at age 12.

After that gorgeous drive up and down the canyons, we arrived at Mt. Nebo, the site of a major part of the Book of Deuteronomy, where Moses got to see the Promised Land and deliver the law again to the Israelites before dying atop the mountain.  Fr. Raymond said mass in the Franciscan church there, which was an amazing experience.  Attempting to keep up with the Chaldean hymns, I had the feeling that I was doing something right with this project.

After mass, I walked to the lookout point, from where you can see the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, Nablus, and a few other places in Israel/Palestine.  Then I stopped to talk to a couple of my students in shade of a few trees, who were having fun with Arabish, I told them that Arabic would be a lot better if you could just add an "s" to make a plural.  "Teresa" thought Arabic could be improved by the addition of a progressive tense.  She then said, "hua rooh-ing to al-bus." That made me laugh pretty hard.

After a short drive, we stopped at a nice rocky outcropping, where everyone unloaded, bringing out a picnic to feed about twice as many people as were in attendance.  I was planning on fasting today, but Iraqis really don't take no for an answer when it comes to food and hospitality.  In about thirty seconds, I had two sandwiches, a piece of chicken, salad, a peach, grapes, dolma (stuffed grape leaves), and a coke thrust upon me.  And halowiyat (sweets).  I barely managed to turn away a second peach, a banana, a beer, and a plate of briyani (Arab fried rice).  When I got back on the bus, I was handed what looked to be a muffie, y'now, the top of a muffin (see: Seinfeld).  It was, in classic Iraqi fashion, filled with meat.  Jordanians joke that Iraqis eat meat for every meal.  Breakfast isn't breakfast for Iraqis without lamb, beef, and chicken included.  I suppose that comes with living in a fertile area like Mesopotamia.  But beyond that, I should note here that Iraqis are like magicians with meat.  They can put meat into anything.  You think that's a grilled onion?  Nope.  They hollowed it out like a faberge egg and filled it with lamb.  That red pepper is stuffed with beef.  Same goes for that zucchini.  Even a delicate little pastry is secretly a meat-filled morsel.  This is not a complaint; I just remain in awe of their wonderful cooking.

After consuming what could conservatively be estimated as four meals, I hobbled onto the bus and we continued on to Madaba.  I had visited Madaba before, home of the famous Madaba mosaic map from the sixth century AD, but it was definitely worth the second trip.  The map is fantastic, and I have just enough knowledge of the Greek alphabet to make out some place names on the map which covers present-day Jordan, Israel/Palestine, and the Nile Delta in Egypt.  After saying a few prayers and singing a hymn, we were off to the Dead Sea.  

This was my first visit to the Dead Sea, though I had seen it from the mountains before.  It is easily 15 degrees hotter than any other place we went today, and the feeling the salinity of the water was pretty strange.  Watching the teenagers horse around and older folks just dip their toes in, it was nice just being part of their pilgrimage.  After wading in with my student "Emanuel," we cleaned up and headed back to the bus.  On the way home to Amman, Sister "Miryam" fell asleep on my shoulder.  Today felt like I am doing the Watson right.

Iraqi Swedish Meatballs

I figure I should mention some of the odds and ends that don't fit into a full post, but are deserving of note, nonetheless.

The other night, I went to the house of a student, "Abu Iskander," for dinner.  His wife, Um Iskander made wonderful dolma and qubaa for Father Raymond and me.  Dolma is stuffed grape leaves or stuffed zucchini.   Always delicious.  I've had qubaa before in a few different versions.  There's the Selassie-Rowe meat-muffin/pie variety.  There's a bite-size version (meat in a pastry) that is covered in yogurt.  And there is the version I had at the Iskander house.  This version had the pastries along with lamb chunks in a sauce that tasted exactly like my mom's (or Grandma Allaire's) Swedish Meatballs.  When I told Um Iskander how close the flavor was to my mom's cooking, over my protestations, she packed a big bucket of it for me to take home.  Sufficed to say, my attempted Ramadan fasting has suffered a setback with Iraqi Swedish Meatballs in my fridge.

A little later, Fr. Raymond told me that another student, "Suleiman," who had previously been rejected for resettlement, appealed his claim and was approved.  This was big news, as he had been floored when he was rejected.  Now, it seems a lot of my students will get to the U.S. before I do.

There was a really funny moment towards the end of dinner.  Abu Iskander asked me if I wanted another glass of arak.  I told him I'd have one if he was going to have another.  He downed his half-full glass, turned it upside-down, and looked at me, saying, "khalas?," meaning "done?"  I cracked up.  Drinking with 70-somethings is becoming a shockingly regular occurrence for me these days.

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When I was hanging out at the home of another student last week, I was momentarily distracted when a dubbed version of Harry and the Hendersons came on TV.  I love this movie, but I was left wondering why someone chose this one as worthy of being dubbed.  

Also, there's a channel in Jordan that I think shows only the Police Academy movies.  Only the best parts of American culture make it through here.

I went searching for Arab zombie movies, but after talking with three video store guys, it became clear that all zombie movies are aflam ajnabi, foreign films.  I did pick up al-Maseer, or Destiny, which I saw a few years ago at Beloit's Arabic camp.  It features a young Mohammad Mounir as Marwan, a gypsy poet/singer/dancer who is friends with the philosopher Averroes in Islamic Spain.  At one point, after the prince, a formerly fun-loving dancer, has been converted into a song/dance/poetry-hating cult-follower, Marwan and the gypsies bring him back to life with....a musical number!  Awesomeness ensues.

Mohammad Mounir - Ali Sotak

(roughly translated, the lyrics go something like: "Raise your voice with song, for as long as we can sing, we'll sing.  For all the days of our life, we'll sing.  Don't let them break you.  Don't let them make you fear.  Your dream will be my dream.  Will you dance?  I'll dance.")

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I did a sketch of the Ad-Deir, the also apocryphally-named Monastery, at Petra on our second day there.  It's the first drawing I've been semi-happy with in a long time, so I thought I'd put it on here.

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I heard an Arabic pop song on the radio with moog in it.  It was a revelation for me.

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There's a great Ramadan photo gallery from the Globe:

Big Picture: Ramadan

Photos 7, 14, 21, and 33 are stunning.

If you go down in the woods today / You're sure of a big surprise

After another week of teaching, hanging out with Iraqis, and drinking their tea, I decided to head down to Petra for the weekend with my friend Katkuta.  All things considered, visiting Petra whilst one is in Jordan is a comparatively normal thing to do, but after we got off the bus, this was a decidedly peculiar trip, filled with running, jumping, jumping off of dangerous heights, and moments of serenity at midnight in a cave.

After walking through the Siq, getting our first glimpse of the apocryphally-named Al-Khazneh, the Treasury, we decided to climb on top of the peaks overlooking it, rather than staying at ground level.  Our confidence exceeded our skills in mountaineering, and we found ourselves within earshot of the Treasury, but unable to locate it after a two-hour hike up the mountain.  Due to fasting, our level of goofiness was quite high, and being lost on top of a mountain in Petra seemed like the appropriate time to discuss which stringed instrument would be most useful in fighting off a bear attack.  'Ouds would be useless because they're so light and a Flying V would be too unwieldy, but a nice Les Paul or a Telecaster would be JUUUST RIGHT.  After singing "Teddy Bears' Picnic," which resulted in Katkuta laughing so hard she nearly fell into a pile of goat dung, we retraced our steps and made it to cliff overlooking the Treasury.

After sitting and sketching with mixed results for an hour or so (just long enough to get a sunburn on my feet), we began our descent.  Now there's a well-marked trail that we could have taken, but in the spirit of questing for the unknown, we headed down something that looked like it had been stairs a couple thousand years ago.  For the first few hundred meters it wasn't bad: we crab-walked down a huge rock and squeezed our Ramadan-emaciated bodies through small passages.  After about thirty minutes on our "short-cut," we realized that the path we chose doesn't have an outlet; it's 25-30 ft to the ground.  We can't get back up the way we came without climbing equipment.  At the edge of the rock face, I saw a tree poking out of the rocks.  The leaves were green, and it seemed pretty sturdy.  I shimmied out onto a low branch and then hung until I was sure I wouldn't hit the rocks on the way down.  Then I jumped.

After hitting the ground and rolling, I was mostly uninjured, with adrenaline pumping like I'd never felt before.  Katkuta, who later informed me that she has a fear of heights, followed suit...eventually.  Despite weighing significantly less, the branch began to crack as she hesitated, sitting there for a minute before jumping.  Surgically-repaired ankle intact, we walked around Petra the rest of the day with a sense of accomplishment.

As strange as this sounds, the day got even better.  We hiked out of the Siq and I again sang "Teddy Bears' Picnic," while we waited for someone I'll call "Ahmad" to pick us up.  Ahmad is a Bedouin, and the Bedouin of Wadi Musa used to all live in caves in Petra.  The government forced most of them into a pre-fab village a mile or two away, but he doesn't much like settled life.  So he has a cave in Petra that he keeps as his bachelor pad.  After having mansaf for dinner with his wife and kids in the Bedouin village, we piled into his 4x4 and drove into the canyons, picking up his 'oud-playing brother along the way.

That night is something I'll never forget.  Outside the door to his cave, we sat around a small fire, drinking tea, singing songs, and staring up at the stars.  Seeing Petra on a tour or visit is an incredible experience, but when you compound that with hanging out and sleeping in a 2000 year old rock-cut cave, the night takes on a new meaning.  Passing cigarettes and shai and switching off on the 'oud with Ahmad's brother, under the Ramadan moon, more stars than I could count, and the moonlit mountains of Petra, life was serene.