Petra

So I finally left Amman. A friend of mine from Arabic class, Hanna, planned a weekend trip for her mother, who was visiting, and a bunch of us jumped on the bandwagon. The first day was spent in Petra (I was the only person who did that with them) and the second was spent in Wadi Fein, which I will write about tomorrow because I don't want to overshadow Petra. We set out after class on Thursday, so basically after dark, which was a bit of an adventure all by itself. We thought we might be able to take a bus, which everyone said would be safer and cheaper than a service taxi (basically a taxi that you share with anyone else going in the same direction), but it turns out that there is only one bus a day to Petra, very early in the morning. Fortunately for us, we got a taxi with a driver who spoke English (he spent a year or so in India, apparently) and who not only took us to the right bus station to get a service taxi, but negotiated with the taxi drivers to get us a good deal. On the whole car ride down, which was about 2-3 hours, Hanna and her mother quized me on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jordan's part in it. It was nice to know that I haven't forgotten everything I learned last semester, and it's not a subject that I've talked to many people about, which surprised me at first, but it makes sense that that would be a very sensitive subject here.

Our hotel was cheap, but clean, so I was happy. We only had to sleep there, after all. All of Friday, we were at Petra. We went around 8, but there were already pretty big crowds at the ticket office, including a huge group of I think Japanese tourists, all wearing kuffiyehs (the traditional Arab men's headdress, made famous by Yasser Arafat). We got an optional public tour as part of our ticket price and decided to take it, which turned out to be a very good decision because our guide was one of the archeologists who had worked on the site. I'm not sure why he was ferrying tourists around, but he had pictures of his digs, and corrected several of the plaques which were apparently wrong. For example, the most famous part of Petra, the Treasury, the site of third Indiana Jones movie ending, was actually a temple, not a treasury. It more spectacular in real life than in any of the pictures I saw, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself. In order to get from the visitor center to the entrance to the city, which is a narrow canyon called the Siq, we had the option of riding a horse. At a walk, of course, although the guy leading mine did let me take the reins, so at least I was able to direct her myself. Once we reached the Siq, it's a ways down, gradually, to the point where the canyon opens up and the Treasury appears. Oh, most of this rock is sandstone, and the color variations are due to mineral deposits from rain, I think. Actually, except for the carved portions, it looked very similar to southern Utah. Here are some pictures from the Siq:







Once we reached the Siq, the canyon opens up and the farther you walk, the more there is to see. Almost everywhere you look there is evidence of the Nabataean people, the ones who built all of this. They ruled Jordan, and a bit of each of the surrounding countries, a little bit before the Common Era, and a little bit after they were conquered by the Romans. There was some evidence of both Roman and Greek influence in the architecture, including an amphitheater carved out of the surrounding rock, unlike any other in the world. It was lost to the outside world for quite a while (there were Bedouin people living there the whole time) until sometime in the 1800s when it was re-discovered by a European traveler. Of the buildings that remain, they are almost entirely tombs, temples or other public buildings. There are very few surviving houses, and apparently no tools have been found, so we don't know exactly how they did their carving, or much about their everyday lives. The last place we went was the Monastery, which actually looks very similar to the Treasury. It's at the top of what I think was the highest mountain in the area. The hike up wasn't technically difficult, but we went up at the hottest part of the day, so I had to rest a lot. I've learned to not try to predict Jordan weather, because the temperature seems to change drastically overnight, but it was probably the hottest it's been since I came. Here are some pictures of the Treasury, tombs, the amphitheater, the Monastery, and the row of columns which apparently was some sort of public audience chamber:












After viewing all these amazing ruins, one of the highlights for the day involved a flesh-and-blood man. While we were at the top of the Monastery, we saw six helicopters fly by, which some Jordanians that we had been talking to confirmed that only very important people, like the King, use. They also mentioned that Vice President Joe Biden was supposed to show up to Petra that day. Sure enough, we got off the mountain just in time to watch a line of about 20 bright and shiny SUVs drive down a very narrow back road to near where we were resting. So, we went over to see if it really was Joe Biden. The Jordanian army guy that we struck up a conversation with confirmed that Joe was there, with Hamza, one of King Abdullah's brothers, to see the sights. We waited for quite a while, watching some clearly American military personnel (the bullet proof vests and guns strapped to their thighs were the clues) taking pictures of each other, but no sign of Biden. Just as we were leaving, here he comes, down the road from the Siq, with about 50 other people. I wasn't able to spot Hamza, but Biden was wearing a baseball cap and easily identifiable. So, I saw my Vice President, in person, for the first time in Jordan. It was a pretty perfect ending to a good day.

I will tell you about the other half of my weekend tomorrow.

Monsoons (close enough)

We had enough rain on Sunday to need a few sandbags on one of the streets of the University. Or rather, on what was the street; it had turned into a river. I found out that I have a hole not just in one shoe, but both, while fording this river. It had been raining since Thursday and it finally stopped today. For the most part, I enjoyed the rain, since I didn't have to be out in it much, but it was also nice to see the sun today.

I haven't written in a few days because the internet has been rather unreliable. Apparently, for some reason at the end of the month the internet gets really slow. The other CIEE people I know who have witribe (the wireless internet service I have) experienced the same thing.


Anyway, moving on. My classes are progressing, although I think we could be going a little bit faster in Arabic. The Arab Women Writer's class has been especially interesting. We started by reading several chapters in Leila Ahmed's "Women and Gender in Islam." Had read parts of that book before, but not these chapters which focused on Egypt in the early 20th century and the interactions between the imperialist power (Britain), the first feminists, and various Egyptian nationalist and Islamic groups which were emerging at the time. According to Ahmed, this was the period when the "women's issue" became a matter of national importance, a position that it has maintained since then, largely thanks to the British. The Western powers in the Middle East (mainly Britain and France) used the supposed oppression of women, so defined by the practices of female seclusion, veiling, polygamy, and child marriage, to legitimate their economic and political domination. That isn't to say that there wasn't necessary oppression going on, but that is a very tricky word to define and in this instance, the word was used by some imperialists as merely a tool to explain the necessity of their presence: to civilize the ignorant peoples of the Middle East. One possible reason for why this issue was highlighted above others that they might have chosen is that it coincided with the rise of the feminist movement in Europe and the States. Ironically, one of the greatest spokesmen for the "liberation" of Egyptian women was Lord Cromer, who apparently founded the "Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage" in England. The main focus of these "liberation" efforts was to get women to unveil, not to educate them (in fact fewer women were educated under the British than before they took control) or empower them politically. Egyptian nationalists took the symbols attacked by the British, like veiling, and sought to defend them because they opposed on principle anything the British supported, which further reinforced the importance of the "woman issue." This discourse is the root, according to Ahmed, of the ongoing controversy surrounding Muslim women and the veil, both in the West (especially in media) and in the Middle East.

Most of Ahmed's ideas were familiar to me, and her logic makes sense. When I was first starting to research Muslim women and the issues surrounding them, the attention given to the veil didn't really make sense to me. It may be true that some forms of hijab are physically uncomfortable or inconvenient, but it seems that lack of education, political rights, social rights, and lack of voice in general should be more important issues. The veil is a symbol of those things for some people (Westerners), but to think that by simply getting rid of it would therefore get rid of all those other problems seemed overly simplistic to me. There are certainly instances where a woman is forced by a male member of her family (husband, uncle, father, brother, etc.) to wear the hijab, but the majority of the women that I have talked to here and in Egypt about it have declared quite proudly that they chose to wear the veil, either for religious or political reasons. The political reasons go back to the efforts of the British (and in other countries other imperialist powers) to eradicate the veil, which turned it into a symbol of resistance and nationalism. Another of Ahmed's points, however, was that all the attention given to the veil masked the fact that the British seem to have done nearly nothing for women during their control of Egypt, and in fact did harm in some areas. There were even European (and maybe American) feminists who supported the imperialist project against the veil, without realizing the shallowness of that crusade.

Feminism is another issue that we have been discussing a lot in Arab Women Writer's. Over here, it is a dirty word, signifying an adoption of another culture (the West) in place of the native culture. I believe that this is an issue for many former colonized countries, as are other ideas that are viewed as Western imports. (Technology is fine though.) Rula, the professor of my class, is a self-proclaimed feminist, but she has been very frank about the difficulties of using that word, as well as other imported terminology, such as gender. People hear these words and shut down, it seems. I haven't witnessed this myself, but I also haven't asked any questions using the term feminism yet. I did ask my peer tutor about the hijab (she wears one), and she has promised to give me a lecture, complete with sources from the Qur'an and hadiths at our next meeting. It will be interesting to hear her take on it as opposed to Rula.

The Citadel and City Mall

This weekend I went to a mall that could have been yanked from any major city in America and then a ruin that contained remnants of the civilizations who have occupied this country since the Romans. It was quite a contrast. I needed to get some shoes, so my roommate and I went to City Mall, the most expensive shopping center, although not the only one, in Amman. I didn't actually get shoes there, but it was big enough that we did spend the better part of 2 hours wandering around. In addition to the Clare's, TGI Friday's, Starbucks, Gap and various other American stores, there was a gigantic Walmart-like thing attached to the mall called Carrefour. It was bigger and slightly fancier than Walmart, actually. Apparently it's a French chain. All of this combined to make me feel like I was back in the States. It was a very odd and disorienting experience. I'm not sure why I was so surprised, really, because there was something similar in Cairo called City Stars, but I don't think I'll be going back there much while I'm here.

The ruins were much more what I was expecting, although they were rather spectacular in their own way as well. We went to two sites, I think the two biggest and best preserved in Amman, the Roman Theater and the Citadel. The Roman Theater was exactly what it sounds like. I saw very similar theaters in Greece, but it was still impressive. There was also a museum attached that for the price of 1 dinar (about $1.40) you could go in, and even take pictures. It wasn't about the Romans though, but the Bedouin. There weren't many informational plaques, it was basically a collection of artifacts such as traditional costumes worn by people (mostly women) from specific areas, including some areas in Palestine, various jewelry, tools, artwork in various mediums and there were a few examples of what a Bedouin tent might look like, or a loom, etc. It was interesting, but not very informative about the history or current importance of the Bedouin culture on display. The Bedouin tribal system is still very much in evidence in Jordan today, to the point where it dictates marriages (clans that don't get along historically don't intermarry, apparently). This museum didn't go into that at all, though.

Here are some pictures of the theater:











The Citadel was a bit different. For one thing, it's the site of multiple civilizations' settlements. There weren't many informational plaques at this site either, but at the very least it was a Roman site and an Umayyad site (the first dynastic Muslim rulers, after the original caliphs, around the 700s). There didn't seem to be any rules as to what could and couldn't be touched, walked on, climbed on or sat on, although there were guards walking around who yelled if someone climbed too high. All of these ruins, by the way, were limestone, I'm pretty sure. That seems to be the local rock. There was only one intact structure, which I think was the mosque, and it had obviously been restored. Everything else was outlined by half falling down columns and the remnants of the foundation. The only information I gleaned from one of the few plaques around explained that because there was no natural spring at the site, all rainwater had to be collected and saved in underground cisterns, some remnants of which remain.

The truly magnificent part of this site, however, was the view. I may have mentioned in one of my early posts being surprised by the hills that make up the city of Amman. Well, the Citadel sits on the top of a hill that if it is not the center of the city, certainly once was. You can see, in all directions, the city sprawled out below. The entire city is probably not visible, but if not it's probably close. This is where I took my long-promised pictures of the city, since it's probably one of the few times I'll remember my camera. I even got some pictures with me in it, just to prove to my mother I'm not making all of this up.

Here are some more pictures:

A Day in the Life

My life here is starting to settle into a routine. That's one of the reasons I haven't written for a few days. I go to class 5 days a week, for various hours of the day, but I'm at the university from 9 am until at least 5 pm, more often 7 or 8. On Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday I only have afternoon classes, but I meet my peer tutor, Arwa, for an hour at 9 because that is what is convenient for her. Between 10 and 2 (when my afternoon classes start), I usually do homework or read something non-academic. Monday and Wednesday look pretty much the same, except I have a class instead of meeting Arwa. At this point, I still don't have much homework, at least compared to Marlboro, and I don't think that's going to change much. Contemporary Arab Women Writers is a literature class, so we'll be reading several books, but they're all pretty short. For the first two weeks, we only have 80 pages to read. My other class, Contemporary Thought in the Islamic World (I seem to be picking contemporary subjects lately, which is funny because I'm a history student), requires only about 400 pages for the entire semester. However, both classes require things like presentations also, so it won't be too easy. Just not as much reading and writing as I'm used to. The Arabic classes don't require much homework either, although that might change. We do get lots of quizs though.

So far, my weekends have consisted mostly of hanging around the apartment, usually with one excursion out a day, to downtown usually. I discovered the souk yesterday, the fresh fruits and vegetables market, which was interesting. That's probably where we'll be getting our produce for now on, since it's cheaper than the grocery store. There were several spice stalls which smelled particularly amazing, although of course everything was labeled in Arabic and I didn't recognize most of it. I haven't done much cooking yet, beyond pasta and rice, because we still haven't found a long lighter to light the oven (it's gas), and my roommate doesn't cook at all, beyond boiling water and heating things up. I'm hoping that I can find someone, maybe my peer tutor, to teach me some Jordanian cooking recipes or techniques.

Arwa, my peer tutor, is extremely nice, as are most of the Jordanians I've talked to, especially the women. She is a senior at the University of Jordan, is the oldest child in her family, and comes 2 hours on the bus to get to school everyday. She is working on becoming a translator, and her English is quite good. She is also fairly religious (Muslim), from the few conversations we've had so far. Of the three times we've met, religion has come up twice, including the first time. CIEE tells us (both Jordanians and Americans) not to get into the sticky subjects, like religion, politics, and sexuality, until we get to know each other a little better. We've already broken that rule/suggestion, but she seems open-minded about my lack of religion, although I think she thinks I just haven't figured it out yet, and I'll choose something when I do. She hasn't tried to convert me at all though, not even by just explaining how wonderful Islam is (something that I actually do agree with, I just don't want to join), which is the usual reaction I've gotten in the past.

I haven't heard back from the UNRWA people yet, but Ahmed at CIEE got me and two other students an interview with the Microfund for Women organization in Amman. I had expressed an interest in it before I found the ad for Gaza Camp, although microfinance isn't really my passion. However, from the interview it sounds like they're trying to branch out into non-finance related fields as well, to generally help their female clients and their families. One program that they mentioned being involved in was a breast cancer awareness effort, spearheaded by a branch of the King Hussein Cancer Center. The other thing that was clear in the interview, however, was that they don't really need a ton of help, although they'll try to find jobs for all 3 of us for at least a couple of hours a week. It would be interesting, but if that's the case I'll probably just volunteer at the Gaza Camp, if they need me of course.

Jordanians

It occurs to me that I haven't really described Jordanians very much. The population on the streets is mostly men, typically dressed in jeans if they're under 30, otherwise in slacks. I've seen very few galabiyyas (the dress-like garment traditionally worn by Middle Eastern men), except for last Friday, and I'm not sure if that was in deference to the holy day, or because it was particularly cold and they were just another layer. In Egypt, there were quite a few men wearing galabiyyas all the time, although usually they were 30 and up. Women on the streets, as far as I've seen, wear at least the hijab, and I've seen quite a few variations of face veils as well, although only once or twice is everything, including the eyes, covered. Women's dress is a little bit harder to judge at the moment, because it's winter and everyone is bundled up in coats. I haven't seen anything that bares more than the hands and face, but again, that could be winter. Some women do wear tight clothes though, particularly very tight jeans. Everyone, women most notably but men too, is very fashionable. That was something that I was expecting from my experience in Egypt. Arabs in general (I think) make a big distinction between inside the house and outside. Appearances are very important. When I was in Egypt, my host sisters and mother had indoor clothes and outdoor clothes. The outdoor clothes were much fancier, of course. I don't know if it's the same here, but there is definitely a lot of thought put into appearance by everyone.

Jordanians also seem a lot quieter than Egyptians. During orientation, Allison cautioned us not to stand out too much, which included talking and laughing loudly in large groups. I didn't think much about it at the time, because as a rule Egyptians are much louder than any group of Americans, although we are certainly loud too, and I assumed it would be the same. Not so. When there are women on the street, they don't really talk, or if they do it's very quietly. Men talk, but also not very loudly, usually. There is plenty of horn honking though.

UNRWA

One of the reasons I decided to apply to CIEE was the contacts they have with local organizations who would welcome American volunteers. On the website they were quite vague about what organizations those might be, but during orientation we were given a list. The great thing is that we contact the organizations ourselves and set up an arrangement with them, without help from CIEE. So far I've been satisfied with the program, but it is a bit all-encompassing. Almost everything we could possibly want or need is taken care of or we're shown how to do it, which of course makes our lives easier, but I didn't want to study abroad because it would be easy. The difficulty is part of the appeal, at least for me.

So far I've only contacted one organization, a particular UNRWA camp (UNRWA is the UN organization that provides specifically for Palestinian refugees) called Gaza Camp. I think it's located right outside the city, and they're looking for a number of volunteers to fill specific positions. The only opportunities that I am qualified for involve teaching English, either to refugees or other volunteers, but that's fine with me. They don't require TEFL training, just English speakers, although it sounds like the classes are meant to prepare the students to pass TEFL type exams. I got a response to my email which consisted of the list of open positions, but it sounds like they really need people. The large numbers of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, and the possibility that I might be able to work with them in some way, was part of the reason I decided to come to Jordan, so this is very encouraging.

Downtown Amman

Class was canceled on Thursday (the weekend here is Friday and Saturday; Friday is the holy day in Islam) because apparently it snowed the night before and was supposed to snow again during the day. Lauren went to campus to use the internet and go to the gym she just joined there, and she said there was a dusting of snow on some cars, but sadly, there was nothing in Jabal Amman. It was raining very hard though, for most of the day. Winter here seems to be fairly inconstant. For most of the week, it was in the 50s and 60s and very sunny.

On Friday, Lauren and I decided to do some more exploring around our apartment. We ended up downtown, which is something of a labyrinth of small shops and restaurants. Shops selling the same things are usually grouped together, so it's pretty easy to compare prices, not that I've done much shopping yet. This trip was mostly just to get a feel for the place. We found some Roman ruins, I think of a bathhouse, in the middle of the shops, which was a little jarring. They were fenced off, so we couldn't go in, and they were pretty small, but it was still strange to walk past a meat shop and suddenly see ruins, right in the middle of downtown. I remember seeing that a lot in Greece, but somehow I didn't expect it here, although I know there are some famous Roman ruins in Jordan, as well as such places as Petra. The country itself is so young that I keep forgetting that this area has been inhabited by thousands of years. During orientation, Allison (the program director) pointed out that this land has been part of at least 7-9 larger empires in it's history. It is ancient, although the country and government of Jordan is not.

So far, I haven't interacted with Jordanians as much as I would like. It is still the first week, of course, but it's already clear that it would be quite easy to interact only with Americans or English speaking Jordanians, either in the CIEE program or not. Fortunately, I have been assigned a peer tutor, which I requested, who will be a University of Jordan student who is charged with only speaking to me in Arabic for a certain amount of time each week. I've also decided to join a gym near the college, called Aspire. It's not cheap, and because of it's proximity to the school there will be quite a few CIEE students there too, probably, but when I got a tour of the place, there were plenty of Jordanians as well. It's a women only gym, too. There are coed gyms, but they tend to be even more expensive, and apparently women only gyms are somewhat unique in that they are a place outside of each woman's home where she can unveil, if she wears the hijab (most of the women I've seen on the street and at the university at least wear the hijab, the headscarf.), and interact with other women. The program director recommended the experience as unique. Between those two things, I will hopefully overcome the temptation to interact only with people I easily understand.