Jackie has graced Jordan with her presence for a month…
She ate at Jafra, Al Quds, Habibeh, and Hashems, visited Petra and Wadi Rum, floated in the Dead Sea, taught a Language Club at the OWA summer camp, experienced long Ramadan days, broke fast with the OWA students, spent a long weekend in Palestine, and ate 5 servings of Maqlubeh at Wael’s house.
Needless to say, she did it all.
Yet.. I STILL WISH SHE STAYED!!!
Megan came to visit me in Jordan.
Two best friends, reunited, on an adventure.
It was actually the best week, ever.
“May your adventures bring you closer together,
even as they take you far away from home.”
Now I’m left missing Megan and looking towards a new countdown…
Jackie arrives July 31st!
Amman better get ready for a set of Whittaker sisters to hit the town!
“An unusual occupation in an occupied land”
My roommate Nadine has done it again. Check out her mini-documentary below, “Brewing for Peace.” It is the story of a small, Christian village in the West Bank and its famous beer brewery that puts a different face on Palestinian resistance.
Brewing for Peace from Nadine Ajaka on Vimeo.
“Brewing for Peace” gives voice to a beautiful story, a story that we (read: Americans) can relate to and understand. Its a layered story: its about a family – its about the first beer brewery in the Middle East – its about the last exclusively Christian village in Palestine – and its about peaceful resistance to occupation.
I think its an important story to tell, for a lot of reasons. To start, Palestine is something pretty unrelatable to most Americans. Its a charged word, a political word, that invites fierce opinions and debate. Palestinians are people who are different from us – Arab, Muslim, conservative, you name it. Even if we don’t hold outright stereotypes, Palestine still feels like a very different place – literally and culturally.
This story turns that upside down.. because its about Palestinian Christians doing what we love best – drinking good beer. It seems like a silly thing, but it actually means a lot. “I can imagine sitting having a beer with him” really does lead to a feeling of connection – feeling of shared culture or similar daily lives.
Its also an important story because it gives a new face to Palestinian resistance. Peaceful resistance never seems to get enough coverage in the media, which tires out the audience with stories of political standstills, hate, and violence. Yet there is a strong non-violent resistance movement in Palestine, and the Khoury family looks at their beer brewery as a contribution to it. In their microcosm, one sees the detrimental effects of the occupation on normal people, trying to live normal lives and run a normal business. As Medees says, “We just want to live like everyone else.”
I hope the Khoury family is right… and that someday soon we will “Cheers” to peace with Taybeh beer.
PS. This is also a “MUST SEE” place to visit while in the region and hosts an amazing Oktoberfest. Highly recommended.
You got a fast car,
I want a ticket to anywhere
My first time driving a rental car: 4 hours along the coast of Oman
Muscat to Ras al Hadd — January 2013
“Oh, Life, I am yours.
Whatever it is you want of me,
I am ready to give.”
Muscat, Oman
My blog has looked very political and sad lately. Not suprisingly, of course, as that is how the world has looked lately too. But I figured its about time for an uplifting post! So here goes.. Three Things that made me happy this week.
1) EMILY came to visit.. and we had an amazing time. I am too tired to regale you with all the stories (inshallah I will eventually), but quick synopsis…
Tuesday: Petra University and exploring Amman
Wednesday: Aqaba and Wadi Rum
Thursday: Petra
Friday: Baqa’a Refugee Camp and Nisreen’s House (girls’ night)
We quite literally, did it all.
2) I got to see my family on Thanksgiving!
The only thing Emily and I were not able to do was go to any of the Fulbright Thanksgiving parties. #exhausted
HOWEVER, it still felt like a great Thanksgiving because, as Emily and I sat and ate our pizza (from Pizza Hut, no less) … I skyped with my family!
I miss you all so much! I loved feeling like I was a part of the day :)
3) As always, my classes at Baqa’a were amazing.
What’s funny is that my classes at Baqaa were actually REALLY hard this week. I struggled with classroom management and working with the limited resources more than usual this week.
Yet…. I still left smiling.
I look forward to my Friday / Saturday classes more than anything else in my week. Maybe this is why —->
Note: the assignment was to write about your day
(When do you wake up? Then what do you do, etc)
Comprehension of the activity: Low …
Level of heart melting: High
So there you have it.
I’m still sad about the world crumbling around us… but it feels a little brighter now.
Girls walking to school in Gaza — which reopened Saturday, for the first time since the conflict started
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces,
I would still plant my apple tree.”
– Martin Luther
One thing us ajnabi (foreigners) joke a lot about is the fact that it is extremely difficult to accomplish even a small task here in Amman. And really, its hard. Especially for Type-A, busy-bee, check your watch mid-conversation, Americans….like myself.
As of late, my “small tasks” have been to go to the Post Office to pick up two packages as well as to pay my phone bill. For two weeks, something kept getting in the way of going to either office – most recently, the Eid break. BUT today, Halloween, I knew enough was enough. I had Halloween packages waiting for me… and I did not want my phone to turn off on me. So, I committed to an early and productive morning before I met with my Language Partner at 11:30.
Now, back in Acton.. doing both of these things is easy: picking up a package just requires a 5 min drive to the Post Office and paying a phone bill is done quickly online.
It is oh so different here.
To start, my early morning wake up at 7 am failed… because although I set my Apple I Touch alarm for 7 am, I had forgotten that Jordan cancelled Day Light Savings’ time change last Friday. Yes, that’s right. The Jordanian PM cancelled Day Light Savings’ time … with no notice/media or apparent reason. Sooooo even though Apple technology THOUGHT it was 7 am, it was really 8 am because the Jordanian Prime Minister did not inform Apple (and again, for that matter, any of the country’s people) that the time change of 1 hour was cancelled this year. If I could give you a picture of Jordanian politics in a nutshell this would be it. It is just as ridiculous as it sounds.
So anyway, I started the day – already 1 hour late.
First move —–> I decided to go to the Post Office and get my package. I did not bring my package slip, just my passport, assuming that they could just look me up in the system… Silly! It would be prudent to remember that even at Fairfield, the Package lady got mad at me when I did this. But c’mon, this is the Jordan post and I had already left without my slip..
So I tried my luck. The Office (nice guys, poor system) dug through millions of slips of paper (no computer service) looking for “Julianne” or “Whittaker” … but nothing turned up. Frustrated, but warmed by how kind the staff was, I left with plans to return later.
My next stop was across town to pay my phone bill. I had received a text message 2 weeks prior, telling me I owed 13 JD, and I was nervous about my tardiness in paying. But after I met the teller and tried to pay, she informed me that I had already pre-paid the 13 JD they billed me for. The invoice just gets sent out automatically, regardless of any pre-payments. So…. time wasted? –> glass half full: one mission accomplished..
Anyway, so it was still only 10:45.. and I was free until 11:30 – when I had to go to the northeast of Amman (University of Jordan) to meet my Language Partner. So I thought, hey, I’ll go back to the center with this Package Slip (retrieved from home on route) and get my stuff. “That should be easy!” —> false.
Even at 10:45 in the morning, the traffic in Amman is miserable. There are too many cars and too many people everywhere… my taxi CRAWLED to downtown. Finally, it was 11:20 and even though we were only 5 minutes away from the Post Office, I told my taxi driver.. just turn around, take me to my meeting at UJ. “mashnoon!” (crazy!) he told me. But what could I do? My meeting was in 10 minutes!
Yet then my friend Teresa called me. As it turns out, when she went to get one of HER packages, the Post Office asked her to contact me (all ajnabi in Jordan must know each other!). They had my packages ready! Soooo al hamdulileh, I asked my taxi to wait for me – just while I ran upstairs to get the packages and come down to dash to my meeting.
ROOKIE move. Because “ready” is a relative term here. Ready means they are half located — but you still need to go to 6 different windows, talk to 6 different staff, and jump through a few more hoops to get your stuff.
Nshkur allah li Teresa though – thank god for her! She recognized my visible frustration and convinced the Post Office to let her “pretend to be me” (gave her the Passport # , etc) and get my stuff …. And of course, THAT technicality is no problem .. So I dashed off, and she waited to get my packages from the depths of the Post Office bureaucracy. An angel.
I then dashed out to the patient taxi driver… who had a great laugh at my expense and took me as fast as he could all the way across town to UJ for my meeting. We battled more traffic for 15 minutes until I finally arrived full of apologies, 45 minutes late, to my Language Partner.
SO! There you have it. Trials of Life in Amman. I accomplished…. 1.5 things? no things? nothing by myself? and definitely nothing in a normal way!
But hey, what can we do?
I am so much more laid back in Amman. This is why.
Needless to say, my blog is being much to slow to provide a detailed entry of my trip.. but I just wanted to share.. it was amazing!
Here are some quick photos with an overview :)
The journey:
Flew into Vienna, Austria –> Budapest, Hungary –> Bratislava, Slovakia –> Prague, Czech Republic –> then returned to fly out of Vienna back to Amman, Jordan :)
The crew:
I went with my friend, Vicki, who is also an English Teaching Assistant here!
This is our one photo from Vienna… because unfortunately, we did not have any time there. Just one night and one morning… enough for a beer and a strudel!
Three general things to know about our trip:
1) We did a lot of travelling. Most of our sleeping was done on some form of transportation.
(Train to Bratislava —>)
2) We ate a LOT of good food. Vicki is kind of obsessed.. and I was happy to join in. So, I tried a lot of stuff… check me out here, with a roasted goose leg in Budapest :)
3) We drank a lot of good beer! Of course. Only in Eastern Europe (Bratislava to be specific) would I believe my eyes when seeing a middle aged man having breakfast with a giant glass of beer AND a shot of liqour…. at 11 am.
The trip was full of castles, communism, bars, potatoes/cabbage, graffiti, music, new friends, memorials, revolution, goose/duck/pork, quotes, beer, trains, jewish quarters, changing colors (fall), learning languages, changing currency, asking questions coffee, architecture, writing on walls, history, and adventure.
Two things I did in each city:
1) Learned the basic words of the local language (hello, please, thank you)
German: guten tag — bitte — danke
Magyar (Hungarian): yo napot — care-ek — kuhsuhnuhm (or kuhsee!)
Slovak: dobry-den — prosem — dakujem
Czech: ahoj — prosem — dek-oui
Its shocking how useful these three words were!
Also, it was a great learning experience to be on the other side of the language barrier. Aka, a receptionist trying to explain directions to me – in Hungarian… just like we do in English, he would speak in Hungarian while gesturing the directions. (“then you turn here, then left, then right”)… but of course, I understood NONE of the words (“blahblahblahblah”) aiding his gestures.
2) I also had a conversation with at least one local friend, asking…
“What is your favorite thing about living here — what is your least favorite thing about living here — what is one thing you want foreigners to know about ______ (country)”
Everyone I asked giggled at (with?) me but answered honestly and we had a good conversation. They all also knew right away a little about me… “What a Teacher Question that is, huh!”
But it made me feel better that, even though we spent only a whirlwind touching down in each city, I had at least one opinion from the ground that gave me some insight….
— these stories will be coming soon, when I am less sleepy and frustrated with internet :)
Julie in Jordan! 