Jordanian Shade

We first wrote the following post in 2006, and repost it every summer with a few changes when the temperatures soar.

It has been a fairly mild summer here in Jordan, without the usual weeks at a time of temperatures in the mid to upper 90s, with occasional forays into the 100s. A lot of people have commented about and noticed this. The past few weeks, though--just as summer is supposed to be ending--summer has instead finally arrived. It is hot, dry and dusty, and many people--if they can--avoid the mid-day heat and simply stay inside. However, because the humidity is not always very high, if you are outside, it is possible to get a decent respite from the heat by walking or resting under the shade of a building, a tree--really, whatever you can find. Yes, it is hot, but finding that elusive shade really can make a big difference in your level of comfort.

Of course many of the stories in the Bible are set in a climate like this, and in my mind the Jordanian heat brings those passages to life. In Genesis, for example, one story has Abraham sitting in his tent "in the heat of the day." When three men come to visit him, he tells them to rest under a tree. These are small details, but because of our time in Jordan I can imagine the afternoon heat experienced by Abraham, as well as the good shade from the heat that the tent and the tree would provide. Also, there is the story of Jonah, who after preaching to the people of Nineveh--a city in what is now northern Iraq, not all that far from us here--left and built himself a little shelter outside the city. It was apparently quite hot, so God raised up a bush to provide shade for Jonah, and to "save him from his discomfort." The next day, though, God caused the bush to die, and Jonah lost his shade. As a result, he became so hot and frustrated that he grew "faint and asked that he might die." Jonah was so hot that he lost his will to live.

Now, I've never been so hot that I wished I were dead, but again, because of our time in Jordan I can imagine how Jonah felt. I think I've felt like that while riding on a windowless bus in the Jordan Valley, the temperature outside of over 100 degrees causing those of us inside to bake, my khaki pants--not shorts, because men must dress modestly too--clinging to the sweat on my legs. I think I've felt like that while walking near the Jordan River, the hot breeze beating down on us like we had just opened a hot oven and all the mighty power of the sun seemingly focused on the straight, naked, part in my hair on the top of my head. I know I've felt like that while trudging Amman for a taxi in the midday summer heat: the streets choked with cars and traffic barely moving, exhaust fumes combining with dust to choke away what's left of the "fresh" air there, a backpack and long pants--modesty, again--serving to cover my body in a sweaty film of claustrophobia, and every taxi maddeningly occupied. Through these--and other--experiences, I can imagine why Jonah was so upset that he lost his shade.

So, as I said, shade can make a big difference, and it is this shade--a shade that can save you from devastating heat--that is good to think about when looking at the imagery used in other parts of the Bible. For instance, Psalm 121 calls God "your shade at your right hand," and Isaiah 25 calls God "a shade from the heat." When I read this, I remember how the other day--when I was outside walking in the heat of the day--I moved immediately into the shadow of a building as soon as I noticed it, how I sought the shade from the heat it would give me. Shade works, and I suppose it is my quick jump into this shade in the heat of a summer day that the various biblical writers had in mind when they referred to God as shade. Like the building, like Jonah's bush, like Abraham's tent, God makes the heat we experience more bearable.

We've Moved to the Country

Made in Damascus, purchased just outside a Palestinian refugee camp, and burning pressed olive tree wood--leftovers that would otherwise be thrown away after the trees are picked and trimmed, so as not to unnecessarily chop down trees in this tree scarce country--we are now heating our new home with this stove, which means we have moved to the country. 

After seven years near Second Circle in Amman, we have left the city for Marj al-Hammam--which in Arabic means "Meadow of Doves"--a small town of around 30,000 people, and about 15 minutes by car from the capital.  At our old apartment, we lived on the second floor in an incredibly densely populated area, with the buildings on either side of us so close we could hear our neighbors washing their dishes, blowing their noses and urinating. Yes, urinating. Now, we live in our own smallish house and have a huge yard ringed by various fruit trees, with no immediate neighbors and one street adjacent to the yard on which--as of 2:50 on this Friday afternoon--no car has been seen today. This will be quite a change.

Webcams Around Jordan

Jordan just installed 24/7 webcams at the Citadel--which we wrote about recently--and at Petra, the Dead Sea and the Red Sea coastal city of Aqaba, plus one of the Amman skyline. We don't know if the Amman view ever changes, but our apartment is just five minutes up the road from what is currently showing. Click this link for the article in the Jordan Times about the initiative, and click here to go right to the webcams. According to the Jordan Tourism Board (JTB), "Jordan is the first country in the Middle East to install tourism webcams."

The Citadel: Our Local Park

Amman has very little green space and we live in a first floor apartment, so we don't have a lot of options for outside play, or for just enjoying the outdoors in general. What Amman does have, though--and Jordan in general--are amazing, ancient archaeological sites. These act as our parks, and we take occasional trips to those nearby when we want to spend a nice day outside.

Recently we went to the Citadel, which is a hill overlooking downtown Amman, which we can see every day from the roof of our building, or from the end of our street. The Citadel lays claim to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world, as evidence there reveals the presence of settlement activity stretching to over 7000 years ago. It is said to have been the location of the capital of the Ammonites--frequent adversaries of the Israelites in the Old Testament--where King David sent Uriah the Hittite to his death to cover up his affair with Bathsheba. The remaining ruins, though, are mostly more recent, including a Roman Temple to Hercules, a Byzantine era basillica, and a mosque, water cistern and palace complex built by the Umayyads, the first Islamic dynasty, who ruled from 661-750. This is the Citadel--our local park.

All That Water Means No Water

All that rain and snow last week wreaked havoc on the water distribution system here in Amman.  The heavy rainfall and flooding decreased water quality levels and some pipes were swept away in the floods, and then, after it snowed, bulldozers used to clear the snow damaged some other water pipes. As a result, pumping from the water sources that supply Amman has been suspended for eight days now. We seem to have been affected by this issue, as our own tanks are much less full than usual. So, we've had to curtail our water usage. It's ironic I suppose: All that water means no water. You can read about it here in the Jordan Times. Wednesday is our usual water delivery day, so we hope to have enough in our tanks until then. We hope it comes then too. 

Snow Day

Three days of solid rain turned to snow last night and today, as the temperatures in Amman dipped perilously close to freezing. As I write this, in fact, the temperature in Amman is 36 degrees Fahrenheit, which is one degree warmer than Minneapolis. After it finally stopped around a foot of snow had fallen on parts of Jordan, with our area of Amman--we live in the lower elevations--having received 4 to 5 inches. The higher parts of the city are mere minutes away, and no doubt they received the higher amounts reported. It was a very big event for the region, and a local meteorologist called it the "fiercest storm to hit the Mideast in the month of January in at least 30 years." Of course the whole city basically shut down--even our dependable local market was closed--but many people took the chance to stroll through their neighborhood, build snowmen and throw snowballs at each other, strangers included. After several days of driving rain and now snow, our apartment seems to have reached some kind of a climatic breaking point, with water breaking through and collecting on the floor in our front sunroom and back porch, entire walls wet from condensation, and finally, this morning, frozen pipes and the resulting partially functioning plumbing. Below are some pictures of our rare snow day.

 

The bottom four pictures are not ours, but were taken from the Facebook page "Diwan Baladna." They are of various places in Amman, except for the last picture, which is from Wadi Rum, the famous desert in the southern part of the country.

Amman Floods

After a long hiatus, after three solid days of rain in this normally dehydrated country, it seems like a good time to restart the blog with some pictures of Amman under water, sifted from a few different resources online. Our neighborhood has not seen any of the type of flooding pictured below, but several of the scenes are just minutes away, and places we travel through or to on a near daily basis. I believe the rainfall we have received is somewhat unprecedented, and I can remember only one other time during our almost seven years here when it came so hard, and that was just for an afternoon. This has lasted, as I said above, for three days now, and it continues.

Reminders of God

Here in Jordan there are visual reminders of God everywhere. It is not uncommon to see cars with stickers on them declaring peace upon Muhammad, or asserting the first "pillar" of Islam--that there is no god but God and Muhammad is God's prophet. The streets these cars drive on also feature the occasional sign affirming some characteristic of God gleaned from the Qur'an, or simply implore the drivers to "remember" God. In most shops similar reminders are present, with perhaps the most frequent one being a large, often times framed, picture of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, where Muslims make their required pilgrimage. So it is not surprising that my orthopedic surgeon's office is filled with reminders too. Below is a picture I took this morning while I sat in the waiting room before my appointment. It's a large tapestry with "God" written six times--three times at the top, written so close together they are almost running into each other to form one long word, and three times in the middle, more evenly spaced out. There are other reminders to. Behind my seat was a frame with the "99 Most Beautiful Names" of God inlaid in brass. These names--such as "The Merciful", "The Creator" and "The Omnipotent"--are taken from the Qur'an, and act as descriptors of God and God's nature. Finally, there was large, framed, verse from the Qur'an written in fancy calligraphy behind the receptionists desk. I did my best to discreetly take a picture of the tapestry, but the others I left alone, lest I give the other people in the room too much reason to laugh at the crazy foreigner taking pictures of the walls.

Jordanian Shade

This is an old post, but every year the heat of the summer months invites us to re-post it.

All summer here in Amman the temperature has hovered around 90 degrees with occasional forays into the 100s. It is hot, dry and dusty, and many people--if they can--avoid the mid-day heat and simply stay inside. However, because the humidity is not always very high, if you are outside, it is possible to get a decent respite from the heat by walking or resting under the shade of a building, a tree--really, whatever you can find. Yes, it is hot, but finding that elusive shade really can make a big difference in your level of comfort.

Of course many of the stories in the Bible are set in a climate like this, and in my mind the Jordanian heat brings those passages to life. In Genesis, for example, one story has Abraham sitting in his tent "in the heat of the day." When three men come to visit him, he tells them to rest under a tree. These are small details, but because of our time in Jordan I can imagine the afternoon heat experienced by Abraham, as well as the good shade from the heat that the tent and the tree would provide. Also, there is the story of Jonah, who after preaching to the people of Nineveh--a city in what is now northern Iraq, not all that far from us here--left and built himself a little shelter outside the city. It was apparently quite hot, so God raised up a bush to provide shade for Jonah, and to "save him from his discomfort." The next day, though, God caused the bush to die, and Jonah lost his shade. As a result, he became so hot and frustrated that he grew "faint and asked that he might die." Jonah was so hot that he lost his will to live.

Now, I've never been so hot that I wished I were dead, but again, because of our time in Jordan I can imagine how Jonah felt. I think I've felt like that while riding on a windowless bus in the Jordan Valley, the temperature outside of over 100 degrees causing those of us inside to bake, my khaki pants--not shorts, because men must dress modestly too--clinging to the sweat on my legs. I think I've felt like that while walking near the Jordan River, the hot breeze beating down on us like we had just opened a hot oven and all the mighty power of the sun seemingly focused on the straight, naked, part in my hair on the top of my head. I know I've felt like that while trudging Amman for a taxi in the midday summer heat: the streets choked with cars and traffic barely moving, exhaust fumes combining with dust to choke away what's left of the "fresh" air there, a backpack and long pants--modesty, again--serving to cover my body in a sweaty film of claustrophobia, and every taxi maddeningly occupied. Through these--and other--experiences, I can imagine why Jonah was so upset that he lost his shade.

So, as I said, shade can make a big difference, and it is this shade--a shade that can save you from devastating heat--that is good to think about when looking at the imagery used in other parts of the Bible. For instance, Psalm 121 calls God "your shade at your right hand," and Isaiah 25 calls God "a shade from the heat." When I read this, I remember how the other day--when I was outside walking in the heat of the day--I moved immediately into the shadow of a building as soon as I noticed it, how I sought the shade from the heat it would give me. Shade works, and I suppose it is my quick jump into this shade in the heat of a summer day that the various biblical writers had in mind when they referred to God as shade. Like the building, like Jonah's bush, like Abraham's tent, God makes the heat we experience more bearable.

The Ten Worst Airport Terminals

Recently I came across this list on the travel website frommers.com of "The Ten Worst Airport Terminals" in the world, and was not surprised to find our airport here in Amman--the Queen Alia International Airport--on it. The short write-up is pasted below, and the full story on all the airports--which includes some in the United States--can be found here.

I was also not surprised at one of the reasons for inclusion--"bathroom cleanliness." From personal experience I can attest that you may want to avoid the bathrooms there; one of our friends even told us when he came to visit a few years ago that he walked in one, and then walked right back out, preferring to wait the 45 minute drive to our apartment, rather than braving the unseemly bathroom he had encountered. It's possible Amman will get off this list soon. A new terminal has been under construction for some time, and it is slated for completion by the end of this year. I'm no expert, but it looks nice on the outside. As far as the inside is concerned, I would assume the bathrooms will be great, at least in the beginning. Until then, if you're flying in to or out of Amman, it's probably best--as Frommers's advises--To "hold it" until you get home.

Amman Queen Alia Airport

One of the two airports rated "two stars" by global consulting firm Skytrax, Amman gets lousy ratings for services that might be useful if you're hanging around -- bathroom cleanliness, places to rest, childrens' play facilities, and service counters.

Reviews on the Skytrax website make it clear that you may just want to "hold it" in this airport: they're almost universally appalled at the state of the bathrooms. Those reviewers have probably never been to JFK Terminal 3, but still, that isn't good.

Lost in Amman

Today's Jordan Times included an astounding article about the stunned residents of a part of Amman not too far from where I work, who looked out of their homes around midnight last night to the obviously unusual sight of a Boeing 707 airplane driving through their neighborhood. Apparently, the airplane was of Egyptian origin and had been purchased at some point by a Lebanese businessman, who was having it towed to Beirut to turn into a restaurant. It had started the Jordanian leg of its journey in the city of Aqaba--on the Red Sea in the south of the country and across the water from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula--but at some point took a wrong turn in Amman, and had gotten lost in a residential part of town. The picture above is from the article in the newspaper, which can be found here. The best part of the story is that it is apparently not illegal to pull an airplane through town. No laws were broken, the police--who were just as confused about what was going on as the local residents--were just called in because the plane was lost. Assuming the plane finally found its way, though, its adventure is not over. It still has to be driven through Syria--where a civil war is currently raging--and from there the only way to Beirut is through and down the rocky mountains that separate the two countries. I hope the food is good.

Details

Two months ago when we left the United States to come back to Jordan, it seemed as if the news cycle there was beginning to move on from the so-called "Arab Spring." After all, there was the long-running Republican presidential nominating marathon to cover, as well as dire global economic news from countries like Greece, and the always popular stand-off with Iran over their nuclear weapons program, among other things. Here, though, the details of the Arab Spring are still obviously important, daily news, and this was highlighted again for me yesterday with two short articles from the English language Jordan Times newspaper. Both articles deal with the kinds of details that tend to get lost amid the flash and clamor of bombs and gunfire, and both draw attention to the human consequences that such flash and clamor bring.

Around 60,000 Libyans came to Jordan as a result of the revolution against former leader Muammar Gaddafi last year, and one article reveals that hotels in Jordan have recently decided to stop accepting them due to non-payment of bills. Apparently, the hotels are still owed around 90 million Dinars. The article goes on to say that hospitals in Jordan are still owed around 100 million Dinars from Libyans who came for war related medical treatment. According to the story, around 12,000 Libyans currently reside in hotels here, and a total of around 50,000 have come for medical treatment.

Right now there are reportedly around 100,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan due to the ongoing conflict there--a number that is said to be increasing by 500 people per day. The other article reports on the growing number of them arriving with various injuries and signs of torture.

Jordan is a peaceful, stable country, but there is war and conflict almost all around it. There are 1.5 million Palestinians in Jordan classified as refugees, and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians just across Jordan's western border continues to rage. At the height of the war in Iraq--on Jordan's northeastern border--there were an estimated 750,000 Iraqi refugees here, and of course that war continues too, and many refugees remain. And regardless of the world news cycle, the Arab Spring continues into year two. Two articles printed on the same day--one about refugees from Syria, on Jordan's northern border, and one about people from far away in the north African country of Libya--serve as a reminder about those details that linger after and during the blasts of gunfire, the far-reaching consequences of war.

Jordanian Easter

Easter in Jordan and throughout the Middle East was celebrated yesterday. This is because the region generally follows the Eastern Orthodox calendar. In Jordan specifically, many years ago leaders from the various churches--Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches are all represented in the country's tiny three percent Christian population--met and decided to observe Easter according to the eastern, and not the western, calendar, serving to show a bit of unity amongst the different expressions of the faith here. The Christian holidays here are also celebrated like the main Islamic holidays, in that they are not just simple one day occasions, but festivals lasting several days, during which time people are supposed to visit as many of their extended family and close friends as they can. Our street has an unusually large number of Christians on it, and so yesterday--Easter Sunday, and the first day of visiting--there was a happy bustle of activity below us, with well dressed Christians laughing and chatting on the sidewalk and greeting each other in their homes.

The night before, at around 11:30, the dark silence was pierced by the loud clanging of bells from what I think was the nearby Greek Orthodox church, ushering in Easter Sunday. Below is a short video, which is nothing special to look at, but it's not a sound often associated with the Middle East.  !المسيح قام He is risen!

A Dead Car and Jordanian Hospitality

Yesterday we took a drive to the outskirts of town, to an older area called Bayaader, which used to be a village separate from Amman, but which now has been swallowed up by the ever growing city. It is literally on the edge of town, as buildings on its easternmost point cling to the sides of high hills that overlook the quickly dropping route down to the Jordan Valley. Unlike where we live--and unlike most of Amman--many of the people who live there are original, tribal Jordanians, who are descendants of nomadic Bedouins. There is also a small but significant population of Circassians, whose ancestors were forced by the Russians from their homeland in the mountainous Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas in what is now southern Russia and Georgia in the late 19th century. Jordan is filled with people who came from someplace else.

Not long after we arrived in Bayaader, though, the rental car we were driving suddenly came to a stop. Since the gas tank had been creeping towards empty, at first we thought we had embarrassingly run out of gas. So, we flagged down a man driving by, and he drove me and my crutches to a gas station some distance away, while Annamarie and the kids stayed back with the car, ate snacks, and checked out the neighborhood. We returned with two old water bottles filled with gas, but that was not the answer, as the car still did not start. By this time some of the neighborhood men had begun converging on the scene, each offering their advice on how to start the car, and it was decided that I should try to start it while coasting down the top of the hill. Don't, though, go too far, they said, as the hill drops very steeply quite quickly, and the car if it didn't start would be impossible to stop. So, with no power steering or brakes, I casually began coasting down the hill. It again didn't start, though, and I turned the car up the last side-street before the big drop.

With no other option at this point, we finally decided to call the rental car company. To make a long story short, they sent out one of their workers, who discovered the timing belt needed to be replaced. The four of us waited for the car to be fixed with a family of strangers whose home it came to rest in front of. Two cups of mint tea, a cup of Turkish coffee, a glass of Pepsi--and almost four hours later--we left. Below are some pictures of our day with them, the kind of day all the travel books have in mind when they talk about Jordanian hospitality.

Minnesota's Governing Body

This is Ibrahim. Unbeknownst to him, he was wearing a sweatshirt yesterday with the words "Our Governor Can Beat-Up Your Governor: Minnesota's Governing Body." It was an obvious reference to the former governor of our proud state. So, I had to take a picture with him. He was humored by my translation of his shirt, and pleased when I told him that he and the former governor had similar builds, and that it was appropriate that he was wearing it.

Water is Big News Here

In a previous post, we wrote about Jordan being the fourth poorest water nation in the world, and about how that affects our lives, and the lives of everyone who lives here.  If you want to, you can read about it here.  Water is scarce here, and because it is scarce, its importance is felt more than it is at home.  Water is something people talk about, like how Minnesotans talk about the weather in the winter.  When our neighborhood was experiencing major water shortages a few summers ago, it was the main topic of conversation whenever I met someone on our street.  We would talk about how full--or empty--our tanks were, and we would complain together about the hardships brought on by a lack of water.  Just over the past few weeks I've had two separate conversations about a new water system being built to desalinate and pipe in water to Amman all the way from the Red Sea at the southern tip of the country.  Often when it does rain, people will bemoan the wet and cold weather, but they will usually follow-up their unhappiness with a sincere thanks to God for the provision.

The importance of water was highlighted again for me today, when I came across this short article in the Jordan Times about the amount of water currently stored in Jordan's major dams.  Then, after a quick search I realized that water updates were a regular feature of the newspaper, with at least three other short articles appearing over the past six weeks regarding the country's water situation.  This article discusses the improving situation of water levels due to recent heavy rains, this article discusses the impact of the heavy snowfall we posted about two weeks ago and this article includes a great picture of a dam in the desert, which I think I visited and skipped rocks into under the cover of night with some friends a few years back.  The stories all include figures detailing the amount of rainfall in various places around the country, the amount of water stored at various dams, the total water stored at all the dams in Jordan and the percentage of capacity that these amounts represent.  It's an important issue, and people want to know.

Jordanian Shade

This was written several years ago, but in honor of summer finally hitting Minnesota, we thought we'd post it again, with a few changes.

All summer here in Amman the temperature has hovered around 90 degrees with occasional forays into the 100s. It is hot, dry and dusty, and many people--if they can--avoid the mid-day heat and simply stay inside. However, because the humidity is not always very high, if you are outside, it is possible to get a decent respite from the heat by walking or resting under the shade of a building, a tree--really, whatever you can find. Yes, it is hot, but finding that elusive shade really can make a big difference in your level of comfort.

Of course many of the stories in the Bible are set in a climate like this, and in my mind the Jordanian heat brings those passages to life. In Genesis, for example, one story has Abraham sitting in his tent "in the heat of the day." When three men come to visit him, he tells them to rest under a tree. These are small details, but because of our time in Jordan I can imagine the afternoon heat experienced by Abraham, as well as the good shade from the heat that the tent and the tree would provide. Also, there is the story of Jonah, who after preaching to the people of Nineveh--a city in what is now northern Iraq, not all that far from us here--left and built himself a little shelter outside the city. It was apparently quite hot, so God raised up a bush to provide shade for Jonah, and to "save him from his discomfort." The next day, though, God caused the bush to die, and Jonah lost his shade. As a result, he became so hot and frustrated that he grew "faint and asked that he might die." Jonah was so hot that he lost his will to live.

Now, I've never been so hot that I wished I were dead, but again, because of our time in Jordan I can imagine how Jonah felt. I think I've felt like that while riding on a windowless bus in the Jordan Valley, the temperature outside of over 100 degrees causing those of us inside to bake, my khaki pants--not shorts, because men must dress modestly too--clinging to the sweat on my legs. I think I've felt like that while walking near the Jordan River, the hot breeze beating down on us like we had just opened a hot oven and all the mighty power of the sun seemingly focused on the straight, naked, part in my hair on the top of my head. I know I've felt like that while trudging Amman for a taxi in the midday summer heat: the streets choked with cars and traffic barely moving, exhaust fumes combining with dust to choke away what's left of the "fresh" air there, a backpack and long pants--modesty, again--serving to cover my body in a sweaty film of claustrophobia, and every taxi maddeningly occupied. Through these--and other--experiences, I can imagine why Jonah was so upset that he lost his shade.

So, as I said, shade can make a big difference, and it is this shade--a shade that can save you from devastating heat--that is good to think about when looking at the imagery used in other parts of the Bible. For instance, Psalm 121 calls God "your shade at your right hand," and Isaiah 25 calls God "a shade from the heat." When I read this, I remember how the other day--when I was outside walking in the heat of the day--I moved immediately into the shadow of a building as soon as I noticed it, how I sought the shade from the heat it would give me. Shade works, and I suppose it is my quick jump into this shade in the heat of a summer day that the various biblical writers had in mind when they referred to God as shade. Like the building, like Jonah's bush, like Abraham's tent, God makes the heat we experience more bearable.

Wow, Water is Great

Water is scarce in Jordan. In fact, I just read today that Jordan is the fourth most water poor country in the world. It's the complete opposite of where we come from in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, where we can shower morning and night, wash the tiniest load of laundry whenever we want, leave the water running while we brush our teeth or shave, hold car-washing fundraisers and run through sprinklers all summer. There, the water flows, well, like water. Here in Amman, though, it does not; it flows like mud. As opposed to a constant supply of water that seemingly will never run dry, most people have a water tank on the roof of their building which holds their weekly supply of water. These tanks are filled once each week when the government turns on the tap, and when the tap is turned off, that is your water for the week. In our neighborhood, this happens on Wednesday.

So, on Wednesdays everyone does all their water intensive projects, while the water is coming in and filling their tank: laundry, all types of cleaning, gardening, maybe an extra long shower. We even flush our toilets more often. Because of this, water day is visibly different from all the other days of the week, with color coordinated laundry flying from all the area rooftops, and people outside hosing down their sidewalk and watering their gardens, all while a stream of water runs maddeningly down the sides of the buildings and down the street, a product of water pipes and tanks riddled with holes. Water day is also audibly different than any other day, with the day-long drain of water sloshing into the metal tanks, the rain-like splashing sound of all the first floor gardens being watered and just the general sound of everyone using water all around us. Below are some of the water tanks on the roof of our building:

Because water is so scarce here--and because we have to work with a weekly allotment of it--from Wednesday to Wednesday we must be careful to conserve. Also, I like to keep an eye on our levels, and every few days I trudge up to the roof to check the progress of our tanks. We've only actually run out of water a handful of times, like when we've had guests. We also have occasionally had problems with rocks in the pipes--thus preventing our water from coming in--and there have been a few times when various problems at the local water station have affected water delivery for the whole neighborhood.

This latter problem happened just recently. Usually on Wednesdays I also like to head up to the roof in the morning to see if the water is coming in, to make sure we can perform our weekly water tasks. This particular Wednesday, though, I did not; I got complacent. Instead, I sauntered up in the early evening after work to discover everyone's water day worst nightmare: a nearly empty tank and a tiny trickle of water dripping in. Our water day was over.

We stopped doing our laundry and just let our tanks fill up. By the time the tap was turned off a few hours later, we had about a third of a tank and the whole week in front of us. So, we spent that week with water conservation dominating our thoughts. We took fewer showers (I got one, maybe two). While showering, we soaped our bodies with the water turned off (just like with shaving, you don't really need the water on the whole time!). We flushed the toilets less. When we did use the faucets, we were aggressive about turning them off quickly. And--in a move that worked out well for me--towards the end of that week, we let the dishes go ("sorry, honey, we just don't have enough water").

In the end, we made it to the next Wednesday, with some sediment in the bottom of our tanks to spare. Below are two pictures of what we had left. As you will see, the water does really flow like mud.

Water is scarce in Jordan, and water was scarce in our house that week. Admittedly, having so little of it for that short time was a little stressful. As a result, when the water came rushing through early the next Wednesday morning as it normally does, relief came rushing through as well. Wow, water is great.

The Face of an Assassin

In 1997 two members of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad attempted to assassinate a prominent Hamas leader in broad daylight on a street in Amman by injecting him in the ear with a kind of poison. Tonight, I turned down an offer to portray one of them in a television documentary.

This strange story began a few days ago at Cozmo, a large western style grocery store in West Amman. On this day as I was standing in the checkout line, quietly minding my own business and getting ready to leave, I started to notice sort of in my peripheral vision the woman in front of me looking in my direction. But then I noticed that she wasn't just looking in my direction; she was looking at me--right at me. There was a man with her, and she started to make a small commotion, turning excitedly to him, then back to me, back to him, and back to me, all while chattering dramatically to him.

"Perhaps there's someone behind me that she knows," I thought. There was, however, only empty space there.

Then, she started walking towards me, with purpose. "What in the world is about to happen here?" I thought. It was a very suspenseful two seconds.

Now, in Jordan, strange women do not stare you down and then approach you, much less say what she said upon reaching me: "I have been looking all over for someone who looks just like you!"

What exactly my response was, I can't remember; I never was very smooth with the ladies. It's possible, though, that I said nothing. What could I say? Without hesitation, however, she proceeded to tell me that she was a journalist and was involved in the production of a documentary for Australian public television on the aforementioned 1997 assassination attempt, and that I resembled one of the Israeli agents who were involved. It was my shaggy face that had attracted her attention. "That's the beard I've been looking for," she said.

She wanted me to play the part of the assassin.

I wasn't going to say yes or no right there; I would think about it. So, we exchanged numbers, and I thought about it. At first it seemed very fun. Hilarious in fact. What a great story. Me on the set of some documentary, playing a figure who is part of an organization that is universally hated and reviled throughout the region. As far as an evil bogeyman is concerned, you cannot get any worse than Israeli Mossad. Well, except maybe George W. Bush. I had to do it.

But I had some misgivings. Beyond the fun factor, there were some issues that needed to be worked out. Materially, I wondered about compensation for my time. Existentially, I wondered if it was appropriate for me to be spending my time playing assassination. I wondered also what the angle of the documentary would be. Would it glorify Hamas? Let there be no doubt that I support the cause of justice for the Palestinian people. However, I don't support many of the means used by Hamas to achieve this goal. I couldn't lend my face to a production I might potentially disagree with. Then, there was the security issue. In a later phone conversation with this journalist she told me that the documentary might also be shown on Al-Jazeera. Now, contrary to what a lot of my fellow Americans might think, Al-Jazeera is a decent television network with some good shows, but if the program was indeed shown on it, that would mean a lot of people--a lot of people--would see me, on their televisions, playing the part of an Israeli Mossad agent, a figure who is, as I said, hated and reviled throughout the region, trying to kill someone a lot of people view as a kind of freedom fighter. And, as paranoid as it sounds, there was no guarantee in my mind that some crazy person might not see the documentary, see me on it, and not understand that it was a reenactment, then see me on the street at some later date and who knows what. After all, I have had taxi drivers months or even a year after taking me somewhere, tell me where and when they took me. I have, apparently, not just the face of a documentary assassin, but a memorable face as well. This concerned me, and it concerned everyone from whom I solicited advice on the issue too.

So, I said no. In fact, I called her from Cozmo--the supermarket where it all began--to tell her the news. In the end she offered me 50 bucks for my time. It was, after all, just public television. It wasn't really about the money, though; I did have security concerns, and before I agreed to participate I would have wanted to know exactly what I would be asked to do, and find out the angle of the show, perhaps even look at the script. I'm sure this would have been much more hassle than she thought was necessary for some guy she found in a supermarket, especially for what she said would be a total screen time of about 20 seconds.

Would my answer have been different with a more lucrative financial enticement? To be honest, I don't know. It's been an interesting question to think about. At what price would my security concerns dissipate? How much would I need to feel better about playing assassin, or to be a little less concerned about angle? She called me later during the time she said they would be filming, but I was busy and couldn't answer it. I called her back when I had time, but this time she didn't answer, and so far, she hasn't called back. Maybe she was calling to revise her offer; it was only public television, though, so I doubt it.

Taxi Talk

I ride in a taxi nearly every day, and sometimes several times each day. Because I do this so often, it's always tempting to get in, announce my destination, and then turn my head towards the window, forgetting about the driver on my left and letting my mind melt away into the blur of white buildings on my right. Sometimes you just feel like zoning out. However, some time ago I made it my goal to engage all my drivers. I decided I would at least greet them and ask them how they were doing; if they wanted, they could then continue talking to me. If not, I would leave them alone. Inevitably, this is our conversation.

"Hello. How are you?
"Praise be to God... And how are you?"
"Good. Praise be to God."

Sometimes, this is it, and the driver just drives, and I start staring out the window. More often than not, though, he reciprocates.

"You speak Arabic?"
"A little. I try."
"You try? No, you speak very well." (Or, if he's given to extreme hyperbole: "You try? No, you speak better than me!")
"Thank you." This is said simultaneously with a sheepish grin, because I really don't speak that well.

Of course by this point the driver's interest is usually quite piqued.

"Where are you from?"
"I'm from America." (Or, if I'm feeling playful: "Where do you think I'm from?" At which point, the driver guesses Germany, Sweden, France, England, Australia, Russia, Switzerland, but almost never America. This means, I guess, that I don't "look" American; sometimes, this is just as well. And yes, I have a few times actually made them run through a litany of countries like that.)
"Ah, America... Texas?" (Or, instead of this simple guess of home state, a statement or expression of wistful envy. You can read about this in a previous post here.)
"No, Minnesota." This answer is followed by an immediate expression of great confusion on the driver's face or a rapid shaking of his head--as if he was knocking the cobwebs out--calling for some clarification.
"It's in the north, on the border with Canada."
"Oh, on the border with Canada."

And then, unavoidably, something it seems everyone I've ever met in Jordan can say.

"My brother/sister/father/mother/cousin/aunt/uncle lives in Texas/California/Chicago/Florida/New York."
"Oh. Have you visited?"
"No. I want to, but getting a visa is very difficult." Occasionally, they tell me they applied for a visa, paid their nonrefundable application fee, and were denied. Sometimes I do hear they have visited.
"Yes. It's very difficult these days." Post September 11, that is.

At this point usually the ride is over. But I always want to know if they are of Palestinian or Jordanian origin, because--either way--I want to hear their story. So, if I have time, I begin a new query.

"Are you Palestinian?" This is the best alternative I can think of to "where are you from," since they are, of course, from Jordan, and most likely they're Palestinian anyway. The usual answer is:
"Yes. I am Palestinian. But I am Jordanian. I have Jordanian citizenship." Always this explanatory note is added, as if attesting to their citizenship status. I do know Palestinians feel defensive about their citizenship from time to time around non-Palestinian Jordanians.
"Oh I know. But were you born here?"
"Yes. I was born here."
"Where is your family from?"
"They are from Jerusalem/Hebron/Jaffa/Haifa/Tulkaram/Ramallah/." (Or any number of small villages near those places.)
"Oh. Have you visited there?"
"No. I can't. It's not allowed." (I don't know exactly what the policy is, but I've heard over and over from drivers that they're not allowed by the Israelis to enter the West Bank. It might have something to do with being men of a certain age.)
"Oh."

And with that, the ride is definitely over. Sometimes they ask me how long I've been in Jordan, where I work, or how I like Jordan. Sometimes other topics come up. Yesterday a driver asked me if I liked Clinton, Bush or Obama, a topic that was, of course, much more popular a year or so ago. However, the preceding represents a standard conversation I have with taxi drivers on an almost daily basis. It's a conversation that, despite its repetitiveness, never gets old, because although the words may be the same, the people uttering them aren't.