Off the Beaten Path

Yesterday my friend Sandy and I decided to explore East Amman to find some children to interview for my work. East Amman is rarely featured on any map, siphoned off from the more affluent and modern West Amman by a major causeway that runs through the city. There are no tourist attractions, hotels or infrastrucuture of any kind that might woo visitors. It took our taxi driver about 20 minutes to navigate his way to our destination, a slum called Al-Qwesmeh. The main road was overflowing with junked cars, jalopies long past their prime that workers streaked with dust and grease and oil operated on feverishly. Sandy, a Palestinian-Romanican student who is fluent in Arabic and about a half dozen other languages, instructed me to wish everyone the more formal "Assalum Aleikum" (peace be upon you) as opposed to the more casual "marahaba" or "ahlah wa sahlan." We walked around, feeling the heat of a hundred eyes peering at us with a dozen silent queries (are the lost? are they loose Western women? are they jewish?). Garbage heaps lay unattended in open lots, and dozens of children chased each other round crudely constructed apartments. Every city has its poor neighborhoods, but I was surprised by the enormity of East Amman, it sprawls out endlessly and is home primarily to Palestinian and Iraqi refugees as well as migrant Egyptian workers.
Thank God for Sandy, she handled the awkward introductions as we attempted to find children (and willing parents) to be interviewed. Our first child, 10 year old Ahmad, shyly brought us to his father who charily led us inside for tea where we began our chat. Halfway through the interview a curious grandmother burst into the sitting room, blue eyes flashing against her paper thin skin. She brought us coffee and tea and showered us with information and laughter and then realizing that we were in fact not philanthropists with aid for her family, she nearly knocked over the small table in a fit of rage. That's when Sandy told me in English, with a calm smile so as to belie her words with tone to the non-English speakers, that we should get the hell out of there. And that ended our trip to East Amman, and while brief it was an illuminating look at how the other half (or i should say at least three quarters) of Jordan lives.

No Comment...

Except that these two paintings were given prominent display at a recent art gallery exhibition in Jordan. Look closely at the left painting's epaulet and you will undoutably be creeped out. Is this indicative of a larger perception of America, as child-eating cockroaches? I sure hope not.

Burning Bush and My 9 Commandments (just short of Biblical) for Living in Jordan

The other evening I was holed up in my room studying for the evil GREs when my nostrils picked up a whiff of smoke. I thought one of my neighbors had overcooked her dinner but the effluvium grew to be pretty powerful and an associated crackling noise sent me to the window. About twenty feet from my hostel a large bush had caught fire and the wind was whipping the flames through an open field in our direction. I ran downstairs to Miss Fatima, our landlady and curfew enforcer, in a panic. "Don't you see the fire? Shouldn't we call the police? It's spreading!" She looked at me cock-eyed, "You mean across the street? Eh, la mush keela" (my lame transliteration of "No problem!").
I ran back to my room and grabbed all the water bottles within reach and stood vigil at my doorstep, ready to douse the flames I imagined would be lapping at my room..... But to my surprise the brush fire eventually starved itself out. Staring at the burning bush [see actual picture below] reminded me of another famous story of burning foliage, and my subsequent pondering eventuated in a few commandments for living in this crazy, wonderful country. :-)

1. Thou shalt not be alarmed by random roadside brushfires and/or a pervasive smell of smoke or burning plastic. (Be wary though, you never know! ha)
2. Thou shalt not expect taxi drivers to know their home-town, (note this is not a faux ignorance for tourists, even when with Jordanians who made me stay mute the whole time taxi drivers have gotten woefully lost). Can't blame them, half of the streets in my old neighborhood didn't even have names!
3. Thou shalt find a balance in attire between what your great-grandmother would have worn and hoochie mama. Jordan is a lot more accepting of tasteful Western dress than one would imagine.
4. Thou shalt not assume that drivers in Jordan who whiz millimeters past your limbs at breakneck speed are anti-American. They are simply insane. In Amman there is an accident every 75 seconds, and I'm surprised the duration between fender benders is that long.
5. Thou shalt not be afraid of being American here. Although many Jordanians aren't fans of "King Bush," they open their hearts, homes and to visitors, and proclaim sincerely, "I LOVE AMERICA!" and want to move there. Be prepared for endless cups of salutary coffee and tea.
6. Thou shall not drink the tap water unless thou wants to incur an intestinal plague of Old Testament proportions.
7. Thou shall expect an abudance of conversational non-sequiturs from relative strangers such as, "Are you a virgin?" or "Why did Jennifer and Brad break up!?!?!"
8. Thou shall be ready for a plethora of eye-openers about the effects of America, both politically and culturally on the region. I.E.: The economic effects (specifically the abrogation of importing Iraqi oil at cost) of the war in Iraq on the Jordanian economy
9. Despite the long-term health risks of continued use, thou shall try shishah at least once. It's a national/regional pastime and exhaling the fruity smoke makes you feel like mix between a beatnik and the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.

Unlike Moses', this list is open to alteration. :-)

Narrow Portrayal of "Islamic" Reaction to Katrina Can Only Add to American-Islamic Maelstrom

"World reacts with sympathy, shock", reads the headline of this Chicago Sun Times article that details the resounding chorus of sympathy, empathy and prayers from the international community to the devastation and misery wreaked by Katrina. The Pope, European and Chinese leaders and even South-East Asians effected by the January '05 tsunami were all mentioned as conveying their utmost sympathy and condolences.

In contrast to the global goodwill however, the article goes on to mention that, "Islamic extremists rejoiced in America's misfortune, giving the storm a military rank and declaring in Internet chatter that "Private" Katrina had joined the global jihad, or holy war. With "God's help," they declared, oil prices would hit $100 a barrel this year." The Drudge Report, an online muckracker, posted a similarly-minded link that translated a statement by a Kuwaiti minister who equated the winds of Katrina to the mighty hand of Allah that would smite the unrighteous and evil American empire.

I don't the deny the statesments of these smug extremists or their assisine associations of a natural phenomenon to the hand of God, but I was troubled that their blurbs were the only reactions of the Arab world mentioned in our media. There was no mention of how, akin to other world leaders, the Kings of Morocco and Jordan as well as the Kuwaiti Emir (to name a few) had expressed their sincere and heartfelt sorrow and solidarity with the United States. Looking up these vignettes of support of took me a good 30 minutes, a chunk of time that most Americans cannot afford or are disinclined to use for such ends. So, in the split-seconds of headline and byline scanning that news savvy netizens are accustomed to, the association of "Islamic" and "extremism" and "anti-Americanism" is yet again recirculated without a counterbalancing description of the moderate voices of Muslim and Arab leadership and people.