Unlucky

Yesterday--as part of a near daily occurrence--my taxi driver asked me where I was from. When I said I was from America, he replied with a standard Arabic phrase that we learned at school I think within our first two weeks there: "How lucky you are (Niyaalak)!"

While I hadn't heard this particular phrase for some time, the sentiments it represents are nearly as common as the question. So, when I divulge the identity of my home country, besides "How lucky you are," I often hear such comments as, "Why would an American want to come here?" or--preceded by laughter--"All the Jordanians are trying to go to America, but you have come here?" or "I love America," "America is very nice" or simply a wide-eyed "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh."

So, I decided for once I would return the favor.

"And where are you from?" I asked with a smile, obviously aware that the answer would be Jordan or Palestine, depending on if the driver was of Jordanian or Palestinian origin.

But when he said Palestine, and the words "How lucky you are" were beginning to form on my lips, I stopped. Was he really lucky to be from Palestine?

After all, around 60 percent of the population of Jordan is of Palestinian origin, all of whom are refugees or descendants of refugees. Regarding the flight of these people to Jordan, I've heard some version of three different stories. One, in 1948 people were forced out of their homes in what is now Israel and fled to Jordan. Two, in 1948 people were forced out of their homes in what is now Israel and fled to what is now referred to as the West Bank, but in 1967 again were forced to flee, and went to Jordan. Three, either in 1948 or 1967 people were forced out of their homes and fled to Kuwait (why Kuwait I don't know, but many people have told me this story), but in 1990 or 1991 were forced to flee again after the invasion and occupation of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, and came to Jordan.

So, many from this older generation of Palestinians were forced from their homes not just once, but twice. I have had friends tell me stories of fleeing from Jerusalem amidst the confusion of gunfire and of being evicted from their home near what is now Tel-Aviv by Israeli soldiers, of walking miles to safety, or of packing their household in the back of a truck and driving.

Of course, the younger generation of these Palestinians were born in Jordan, and the majority have never been to Palestine and--unless there is peace--may never go. Yet, look at the place they still refer to as their home. Across the river in Palestine--the West Bank--life includes coping with, among other things, a never ending cycle of violence, a divided and ineffective government, a paralyzed economy, a criss-cross of security checkpoints on the roads, severely limited movement and, finally, a great wall, just like the one in Germany the fall of which 20 years ago we all recently celebrated.

So, back to my question. Was he really lucky to be from Palestine? In that brief moment I decided that maybe "how lucky you are" wasn't the best response after all. Instead, I simply smiled and nodded my head, and put "Niyaalak" back inside. But how sad it is it seemed better to do so.

Local Shawarma Makes New York Times

Here is a link to an article from the New York Times about a shawarma stand that is literally just up the street from our apartment.

And here's a link from a post we did over three years ago about this same shawarma stand.

Unfortunately, we rarely eat there; we like chicken shawarma, and they only do beef and lamb. In fact, we had a nice chicken shawarma just yesterday from a place called, oddly enough, "Burger King." It's also near our apartment, just a few doors down from another local eatery called "Queen Burger".

It looks like, though, this shawarma stand is doing just fine without us.

Eid Al-Adha

We have been a little slow posting here but recently we marked the end of Eid Al-Adha - the festival of sacrifice. The Eid commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael and it is also during this time that Muslims make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. It is a much anticipated three day holiday for which people put on their best clothes and make short visits to their friends and family, during which small cups of Arabic coffee and specific special sweets are served. Also families sacrifice a sheep in honor of Abraham and Ishmael, and the sheep is then traditionally supposed to be divided into thirds between your own family, your friends and the poor. In Amman there are designated sites where people can go buy and sacrifice sheep for the Eid and we went to check one out and take some pictures (we also visited some of our Muslim friends over the Eid but didn't take any pics).

Matt talking with some of the men about the prices of the sheep and where they were from. The more expensive were from Jordan and there were sheep from other countries like Slovakia and Australia as well.

Waiting...

We watched this man in the suit spend about 2o minutes looking for the right sheep--he picked two--and in this picture he is negotiating the price.

Weighing the sheep to determine the price.

One of the shepherds taking a break during a very busy Eid weekend.

Waiting in line for the sacrifice.

This guy was first in line.

In accordance with Islamic law the throats of the sheep are cut in one motion while the phrase "bismallah" (in the name of God) is said. The blood is then drained from the body. The blood from this sheep is being drained into an old water tank, put into a large hole in the ground.

The skinning and disemboweling were really quite impressive. These guys had skill with the knife and could do all the work in one quick slice.

Ready for the butcher.

The sheep being chopped up and divided into bags for the respective recipients.

Taking the sheep home.

Ramadan Kareem

We're over half way through the month of Ramadan now, during which Muslims are supposed to fast from sunrise to sunset. It is at once a slow paced and a festive month, as during the daylight hours people are of course a little more tired than usual and many shops and stores keep irregular hours, while at night everyone lights up after eating, and everything opens up, many shops and stores staying open almost until daybreak.

Outwardly Ramadan can be compared somewhat to Christmas, as families decorate their homes and businesses their workplace, usually with some combination of stars and crescent moons. Below are some pictures taken of decorations inside our building.

Banners in the first floor entry.

A closer look at the banners. In Arabic is written Ramadan, and underneath is a Qur'an on a Qur'an stand. Below the Qur'an is written, "Month of goodness and blessing."

A lamp in front of the door to a neighbor's apartment. Underneath the man praying is written "Ramadan Kareem," which means "Blessed Ramadan" and is a common greeting during the month, and on the side is written "The month of fasting and worship."

On the door of a different apartment, this again says Ramadan Kareem, and was made by one of the kids who live there.

A different door, but the same Ramadan Kareem sign, again made by one of the kids there.

More kids artwork, on the wall outside another apartment.

Back in Jordan, or Thinking Required

Finally, after being gone eight long months, we returned last week to Jordan.

It is hot, and it is dusty.

And there are a few things I'll need to get used to again.

Number one, we are back to having no car. In the States, most people drive everywhere, in their own car, and during our eight months there, so did we. Our new reality hit hard a few nights ago, though, as we took a trip to the Western style grocery store on the other side of town, bought ten bags of food and supplies, and then hit the streets to find a taxi. It continues to hit hard every time I walk to our local store in the mid-day heat for anything else we have needed.

Number two, we are back to conserving every drop of our water. In the Land of 10,000 Lakes, water flows freely from our taps. Not so here, though, where our water for the week is stored in rooftop tanks. Once it's done, it's done, until--in our neighborhood--Tuesday night, when the government pumps in our next weeks supply.

Number three, we are back to needing to be careful about what and where we eat and drink. One fantastic aspect of being back home was never needing to think about the cleanliness of food and water. Sure, people get sick from time to time from undercooked meat, and maybe there is an outbreak of some food borne illness occasionally, but generally speaking, one has confidence that when one eats at a restaurant or at someones house, they are not going to get sick. I do not have a similar confidence here, though--not after having fallen ill several times. Even the government has very little confidence, having shut down all the shawarma (like a gyro) shops in the country for a time a couple years ago after several bouts of mass illness stemming from the tasty little sandwich.

Although Jordan isn't the most difficult country in the world to live in as a foreigner--I can think of plenty of much more difficult places--it is true that I find myself needing to think more when I am here.

I don't have a car. Can I get to a certain location in a taxi? In a bus? How long will it take if I walk? When is the easiest time to get a taxi? Can I get back? Water is scarce. How can I plan my day to do laundry on water day? Should we share a flush? How much water is left? Can I shower today? Food and water can be dirty. Should I eat at this place? Is this salad clean? Was this water bottled? Is this the sandwich that does me in?

In eight months in America I grew accustomed again to doing whatever I wanted. I went wherever I wanted, when I wanted, ate whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted and--perhaps cavalierly--ran water whenever I wanted, and for however long I wanted. It is almost as if no thinking is required to live there (non-Americans, hold your jokes please). Thinking is required here, though. I'm glad to be back, but I do miss not needing to think.

Jordanian Dishonesty?

A lot of foreigners in Jordan--and not a few Jordanians too--think Jordanian society is dishonest, and not just dishonest, but markedly more dishonest than the average nation or society. And while this may seem to be true to some extent sometimes--taxi drivers can be particularly trying, and the agreed upon details of any business arrangement seem to always be open to later revision (see this post for a description of a full day of dishonesty)--one must always be careful not to exaggerate the tendencies of the society in which you live.

By this I mean that when you are living in a foreign country it is always tempted to be dragged down by the differences between it and your home country and by the bad things that happen to you there. Yes, it is true that each culture has its positives and negatives, but if you are not careful, all the things that are just different can become negatives. Also if you are not careful, the bad people you meet or the bad experiences you have can become representative of the country and society as a whole, and not just people or events that happen to live or occur in that country. One must work hard to be realistic about the foreign country in which you live--in our case, Jordan--and be truthful to yourself and others about both its positives and negatives.

Because here in the United States of America we experience dishonesty too. A few days ago we wrote about our car getting hit while parked on the side of the road as I was putting our 8 month old son in his car seat. Afterwards it made me think about the issue of relative safety between Jordan and America. Now it has me thinking about the issue of dishonesty.

I'm thinking about this issue of dishonesty because today I discovered the insurance information given to us by the driver who hit us was false. I asked her for her information, and she pulled out an official looking piece of paper with the name of the insurer (a well known national company) and all of her information on it, all of which turned out to be false. The policy number that I copied from this piece of paper didn't even have the required number of digits. She lied right to my face.

Not only this, when I called her--why she gave me false insurance information but her actual telephone number, I do not know--she quite aggressively told me that the accident was as much my fault as hers, because I had opened the car door as she was driving by. Again, this was also false. Yes, the door was open, but I hadn't just opened it, only to smack her car as she drove by. I was standing inside of it, my back to the street, strapping the kid in his car seat while parked in a legal parking spot on the side of the street. I was a part of the normal flow of the city street, something to avoid hitting like an oncoming car or a person walking on that same spot. Again, another lie, this time over the phone.

It's frustrating to be cheated and lied to. And although I can be cheated and lied to on a semi-regular basis in Jordan, events in my life this week have reminded me that dishonesty is not specific to Jordan. As if I needed reminding. Because in the country of Bernie Madoff, Enron, Arthur Anderson, WorldCom, rock solid intelligence on Iraqi WMD's, Mark Sanford and all sorts of Wall Street chicanery, we don't.

Safety

* We've taken quite a break from this blog as we've been in the United States and out of Jordan, but this post represents our return to regular blogging. In case anyone wants to know.

When people find out we've been living in the Middle East, or when we talk to people who want to talk about our lives in the Middle East, one of the first questions we get asked is this: "Is it safe there?"

Now, "safe" is a relative term. What one person means when they wonder about the safety about a place or an activity could be quite different from what another person means when they wonder about the same place or activity. And, as someone who has moved halfway around the world to live in a country and culture much different than mine and thus must deal with all the pitfalls (and joys) that this entails, perhaps my own definition of safety is different than the person asking me. On top of this, even my own perspective on safety changes depending on the activity. You will never catch me sky jumping, bungee jumping or working with teens, for instance, as all of those activities seem very unsafe to me for one reason or another.

So, although this question always has me wanting to break into the mind of the interrogator, my answer is always this: Jordan is in fact very safe. Jordan is not Iraq, which, although it is somewhat more stable now, I would call unsafe. Jordan is not Gaza, which was recently the scene of terrible fighting and bloodshed. Jordan is not even Beirut, which, although seemingly stable now, often seems to have the threat of civil unrest or Israeli incursion hanging over it. Jordan is safe.

But how safe is America? Two days ago as I was leaning over to put our 8 month old son in his car seat, a woman sped by in her car and smacked the open door that I was standing inside, perfectly oblivious that a car had managed to miss hitting me by perhaps a few inches. No one was hurt--although our little boy was strangely silent while stuck in his car seat for 30 minutes afterwards--but, as people say, it could have been worse. A few inches, a foot, closer to our car, and I'd be in a hospital bed right now. Maybe we all would be.

As I think about this incident, I think that if this had happened in Jordan, part of the narrative about it would have had something to do with the safety of living there. People would have bemoaned the crazy speeding habits of Middle Eastern drivers, the lack of order on the roads or something along those lines. The foregone conclusion might have been drawn that--although for different reasons than the usual--Jordan was not safe. I write about our experience the other day, though, to point out that bad things can happen anywhere. A lot of people seem to think that living in the Middle East brings us to the precipice of death. Without being too dramatic, though, this is the closest I have come to suffering extreme bodily injury since moving to Jordan in 2006, and the closest I've come in life--which includes a previous stint in Jordan between 1999 and 2001--since I rolled my car off an icy winter road after a date in high school and ended up upside down in the front yard of my girlfriends' parents.

Does this mean that there are no risks living in Jordan? No, but it doesn't preclude there being risks in America too. Because although when people ask how safe we are in Jordan they are wondering about the possibilities of being caught in the middle of a war or the victim of anti-American anger and aggression, the most unsafe I have felt over the past several years involved casually strapping my child into our parked car after leaving a coffee shop in south Minneapolis. As an American friend of ours in Jordan remarked, that would never happen in Jordan. Nobody uses car seats.

Away

It has been a long time since we posted, just taking a break from the blog. We have been travelling with the new babe and visiting family and friends for the past three months. We will be returning to Jordan soon. A few random pictures...

The View of Gaza from Jordan

Last night on the news we saw Israeli Defense Forces footage of precision strikes on what they said were various locations from which missiles had been fired into Israel. It was familiar looking footage; in America we see the same type during coverage of our wars. You know, grainy aerial shots with an "X" where the target is on the ground, followed by an explosion upon impact, after which we the viewer are supposed to take the word of the presenters that what is said to have been hit is really what was hit. Then we are supposed to be awed by the precision.

But what are Jordanians--around 60 percent of whom are of Palestinian origin--seeing on their news right now? And how are they reacting to this new crisis in Gaza? Since we're outside the country currently we obviously don't know exactly what they're seeing and how they're reacting to it. However, although we don't have access to regional television here, one can glean something of what Jordanians are seeing on their news now by looking at the pictures of the conflict they see every day when they open their newspapers. The following pictures are from the front page of the last three days of the Jordan Times, the English language daily in Jordan, but they reflect what's shown in the Arabic dailies too. I feel a bit voyeuristic presenting them here, but I think it's important to see what Jordanians are seeing regarding this conflict.

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

According to the Times, the last picture is actually the result of one of those videos we saw on the news. Thus, two different looks at the same action, and in general, two different perspectives. And this second perspective is what Jordanians are seeing.

Gaza

The Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip is in its tenth day now. Since its beginning ten days ago I knew I had to say something on this blog about the situation, but in this time I have struggled to produce anything thought provoking, struggled to construct anything worth writing down that isn't cliche or isn't being said someplace else, by someone else, already. Someone on our travels here in the United States asked me for my thoughts on the subject and all I could come up with was that it was part of what seems like a never ending cycle of violence. Anyone, however, could have said that.

I will say, though, that what enough people are not saying is that violence will never solve this conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Take a quick look at it. For 60 years the Palestinians have been fighting the Israeli state, but their situation only continues to deteriorate year after year after depressing year. For their part during these 60 years the Israelis have been fighting fire with fire (or is it the Palestinians who have been fighting fire with fire?). After all of their incursions, bombardments and raids, though--and for all of their American made higher tech equipment and weapons--is their security situation much or any better than it was 60 years ago? What is happening in Gaza is a tragedy. Unfortunately, violence is common and cliche, and cliche is easy. I am praying that eventually something more thought provoking will prevail.