Travels in the Levant

I’ve been incredibly finished and sleep deprived the last week and so havn’t really had a chance to update my blog. Yesterday we had a 7 page paper due, for which we had to interview 4 Jordanians. Today we had a 10-page paper due, written as a “think-piece.” I wrote that whole paper yesteray and stayed up so late writing it that by the time I walked down the street with Ian to the 24-hour computer lab, the first call to prayer was sounding. Tomorrow is our 3-hour final in Arab Histories, after which everything for classes will be over. The ladies are going to the Pasha Turkish Bath in the afternoon and then the group is going out for one final dinner. I spent four hours today studying and smoking shisha at the Doors Cafe with Jessica and Monica.

I’ve also been busy trying to get last minute gifts and trying to find somewhere to exchange my dinars for Syrian pounds. No luck so far. I got a pair of fake Diesels in Swefiyya for 15JD, which a tailor hemmed for free. Monica got a pair of fake Puma’s for her sister (Fumas!) and then we hit up the silver market for silver literally almost as cheap as dirt. I got a silver ring with turquoise for 4.5JD.

Here’s what I’m planning for travels. I’ve bought a lite, long-sleeved and loose black shirt and have a pair of all-purpose pants. I bought some new tennis-like shoes and Monica’s also going to lend me some of her long-sleeved shirts. I bought a fake Adidas duffle for extra stuff and will bring that, my backback, my Arabic phrase book, sunscreen, and a guidebook. Also, Marquez’s autobiography and some crackers, socks, and underwear. I thought about wearing my pink hejab I bought in al-Baqa’a, but somewhat, people might not understand if I didn’t speak Arabic. Let me know if there’s suggestions for anything else for travel.

I will try to update my blog during our travels to Syria and Lebanon in the coming weeks, even if briefly. See everyone soon.

A few weeks ago, we visited al Baqa’a Palestinian Reguee Camp as a class, located on the outskirts of Amman. The experience is difficult to write about because it was both so moving and so disturbing. Children begged in the streets and yet the people we met were still exceedingly kind and invited us into their homes. We saw a family with 16 children, 2 of which were blind and one handicapped, living in one room. We saw a woman and her children without running water or electricty, proud of her tiny TV that ran off of a car battery. Children were everywhere, ragged and barefoot but with smiles on their faces. I would guess that the fertility rate is at least 7 children per woman, and probably more. People are so tightly packed into al Baqa’a that, in the central areas, it is difficult to move because of the masses of people, cars, and animals.

Our group, walking through a narrow street.

Two girls.

Most houses to not have real roofs, but instead use a piece of tin with a cement block to weight it down.

A typical Jordanian sight.

Tin shacks on the left.

A beautiful door in on of the poorest areas in the camp.

Trash in the streets, with outter Amman in the background.

Goats in front of dwellings.

A donkey, tied to someone’s house, forages among the rubble.

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