Travels in the Levant

About a week ago, we had a very interesting experience at the Jordanian police department. When I arrived in Jordan I was given a stamp next to my visa saying “report to nearest police station in 2 weeks.” Apperently the multi-entry visa I got in the US is good for three months, but it must be extended if I want to stay longer than two weeks. Even the people who bought their visas at the Amman airport got this stamp and so all 14 students, Curtis, Regan, and Tawfiq to a field trip to the nearest police station. We tried to find cabs but there wern’t enough to fit us all so we got on one of the many, filthy, mini buses that connect various parts of Amman. The 10 minute ride cost about 20 cents. At the police station, we all dutifully explained to the police that we just needed to extend our visas (for free) and dutifully handed over our passports. There was a little garden behind the station so some of us went and sat on the benches. Several policemen lounged around the yard and one was pulling leaves of a nearby tree and eating them. We waiting and waited and after an hour went to check on our passports. They were still “being processed.” We were then informed that the regulations had changed and that an “blood test” (I read AIDS test) was required to remain in the country more than two weeks. This test could only be performed at one hospital in Amman and would cost around $25. Not only that, but if we got the test we would have to go back 2 days later, pick of the results, and take them to the police station. The alternative, they informed us, was to pay a fine of 2JD ($2.6) per day we remained in the country after the first two weeks. This seemed strange as none of us had thought we would have to pay to stay longer than two weeks. A little while later we were informed that the price had gone down to 1.5JD per day. This whole situation still baffles me, but I decided I did not want to go through the pain and trouble of getting AIDS, and so will just have to pay the fine (on top of an exit fee) when I leave the country. Talk about a tourists racket.

After waiting another 40 minutes and with still no sign of our passports we decided to take action. Curtis told us we were going to play “ugly Americans” and so the whole group of went and stood in the tiny reception office. By standing around and getting in the way of everything that (wasn’t) happening, we were more of a nussance than the police could handle. It wasn’t long until half of us got our passports back and only another 15 minutes until the rest were returned. Curtis told us that all and all, we had gotten off easily. Hopefully, none of us will have to return to the ineffecient beaurocracy of the Jordanian police, possibly worse than American drivers lisence offices.

Today, Sunday, we begain our school week with a discussion of our final essays. We were supposed to leave to tour a public health care facility at 10:30, but apperently someone forgot to arrange the trip so we didn’t end up leaving until 12:15. Curtis told us we shouldn’t get mad, because this is just “how things are” in Jordan and that getting impatient won’t do anything to help the situation. So we wondered around for a while on the UJ Campus and eventually Jessica and I decided to get some food at the Milk Bar. The Bar was apparently being rennovated and so there was no pizza and no french fries. The man at the cashier also told me that there was no jubna (cheese) but the guy next to him said, yes, there was cheese, but it was yellow cheese. So I settled on a cheese sandwhich (it turned out to be mozzerella cheese) with pickles, tomatoes, and green peppers. The man making sandwhiches claimed there was no ketchup when I asked for it, but the man waiting next to me was kind enough to point out that there was ketchup a few yards away. I always dread eating at the Milk Bar because no one there speaks English and they get impatient with my Arabic when I can’t understand what they’re saying. Also, the food I get is consistently not what I order; for example if I order french fries and a sandwhich they insist on putting the fries in the sandwhich and refuse to put them separately.

We eventually made it to the clinic, which turned out to be a majorly disappointing field trip that related to nothing that we have studied. The doctors who we met with seemed as baffled as we were about why we were there. One of the female doctors emphatically denied that smoking causes lung cancer and instead attributed lung cancer in Jordan to radiation. The gynologist we met with said that she had seen only two cases of STDs in twenty years of work, and that they were both foreigners, but we found this rather unlikely. We did learn, however that Jordanians have better health coverage than Americans and that if you have insurance and go to this clinic you can be seen by a GP for around 50 cents and by a specialist for around $2.

Yesterday morning I woke up early and went down the street to the 24-hour internet cafe. After that Jessica and I took a cab to C Town, a huge western-style grocery store, to buy gifts for the various people and families we were going to visit. We got Salam chocolate covered pistachios, and we got various sweet desserts for Lina and Yasmin’s families. After that, Salam and her friend Islam picked up Jessica and I for our ‘homestay’ and we went to Salam’s apartment. Islam was born and raised in Saudi Arabia but has Jordanian citizenship and is of Palestinian heritage. Salam’s apartment, which her family stays in when they come back from the Emirates, was beautiful and spascious a few of the rooms even had air conditioning. Salam and Islam removed their hejab and outer shirts/abayyas to reveal beautiful hair and western-style clothes. Islam has long black, wavy hair and Salam has a cute pixie cut (which we went with her to go get a few days ago.) They taught us how to do Arabic dancing and then we ate lunch, which was something wonderful that I can’t remember the name of. Later, Shahad, Salam’s friend who goes to school in Canada and is of Palestinian origin but holds Jordanian citizenship and was raised in the Emirates, came to visit and all five us decided to go to Lebnani Snack in Abdoun, the swanky neighborhood of Amman. They had awsome ‘cocktails’ there, kind of like fruit smoothies but made with lots of milk with junks of whole fruit inside. By that time it was pretty late and so Shahad caught a cab home and we dropped Islam off at her dorm on the UJ campus (which has 10 oclock curfew on weekends.) Jessica and Salam and I went back to Salam’s appartment and heated up grape leaves and chicken for dinner which we ate while watching a blurry version of Miss Congeniality 2. Here’s a picture of us in Abdoun, from left to right, Salam, Jessica, me and Shahad.

This is picture of Salam’s car, which she shares with her older sister.

The next day we woke up late and Salam dropped us off the Amera to take quick showers before we met up with Lina and Yasmin. Those two girls met us outfront and we got on a minibus, for 20 cents, and headed for Ain Albashaa, where they live with their families. The town was about 15 minutes from Amman and is right across the street from Al-Baqa’a Refugee Camp, which we visited a few weeks ago on a class field trip. The Camp is home to about 120,000 refugees on less than 2km square of land and is packed with people, animals, shops, and dilapidated houses and shacks. First we went to Lina’s house, which had a beautiful fenced garden, where we met some of her numerous sisters and brothers (I think she has 6 siblings but I’m not sure). We learned more free-form Arabic dancing, with lots of hip and sholder shaking, before we sat down on cushions on the floor to eat a wonderful lunch that Lina’s mother had prepared. We had deliscious stuffed grape leaves and zuccini stuffed with rice and spices (my new favorite food) along with some kind of stewed okra, rice, pitas, sheep’s yogurt, and mango juice. We ate until we were stuffed and then did more Arabic dancing. Lina’s father let me try on one of the family’s traditional palestinian dresses, and here is a picture of her father and I.

We ate some wonderful dessert that Yasmin’s father had made and then drank sweet, turkish coffee flavored with cardamom. We dropped by Yasmin’s house and met her mother where she fed us dessert, this time watermellon, before we went back to Lina’s house (they live just across the street from eachother.) Someone suggested that we go to the suq in al Baqa’a and then someone else suggested that Jessica and I try on hejab before we went. They also gave us the thigh-length shirts that are popular here for both their modesty and their style. Here’s Jessica and I in the fenced garden.

Here’s Noor, Yasmin’s youngest sister, and I in the garden.

We drove a few minutes the the Camp and parked the car and the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) camp headquarters, which is the body that is in charge of running the camp. This camp was formed after many Palestinians were expelled in the 1967 War. Here’s a picture of me under the headquarter’s sign.

Somehow wearing hejab created this amazing change all around where people no longer stared at us and yelled things in English and Arabic. I could easily have passed for a Circassian or other fair-skinned person and so, as long as I didn’t open my mouth, I was inconspicuous for once. I got a pot for making Arabic coffee and some wonderful Arabic coffee, all for around $2.50. I also bought a hejab, similar to the one I’m wearing in the picture but pink, at the suq (market) for around 75 cents. Lina’s father was with us in the suq and he told me if I didn’t speak English we could get local prices instead of foreign prices and so he negotiated everything for me. Both Lina’s mother and her father are school teachers in two of the refugee camp schools (funded by Chinese, Japanese, and American dollars.) It was truly an incredible experience to blend in like we did in a setting where we would otherwise be so conspicuous. The hejab, however, was quite warm in the over 90 degree weather, I have no idea how so many women stand the heat when there is no shade. All of the people I met in Ain al-Basha where incredibly hospitable and I really got a different view of Jordanian life. Also, all of these people are Palestinians (as they call themselves) although many of the younger generation has never seen Palestine.

Thursday morning, yesterday, begin our long weekend, which marks the midpoint of our time in Amman. Jessica and I met Yasmiin and Lina, our language partners, at the Donut Factory down the street from our hotel. We also met up with Salaam, who we’ll be staying with Friday night, and her friend Dima. Salaam, who lives with her older sister in an apartment in Amman, is a student at UJ and although she is of Palestinian heritage and holds a Jordanian passport, her family lives in the Emirates where her father is a pharmacist. Dima, also a student at UJ, lives by herself in Amman. She is also of Palestinian heritage and holds a Jordanian passport but her family lives in Saudi Arabia where her father is a civil engineer and her mother is a biology teacher.

The six of us went to McDonald’s for lunch and then Yasmiin and Lina had to go home. Jessica, Salaam, Dima, and I then went to Swefiia to do some shopping. We wandered around for a while and found some amazingly expensive shops, most of them French, Spanish, or Italian. I prefer the Jordanian shops, which often have immitation brands (like Diesel or Puma) for $10-15 for pants or shoes. Jessica and I were tired, as we had been out with Ian and Monica the night before at the Irish Pub, and so we decided to go take naps before our big night.

One of the administrators at the UJ Language Center, Nasser Rashiid, recently invited us to his brother’s wedding, which we went to last night. Here’s a picture of Ghassan (a language partner), me, Bruce, and Jessica at the Amera right before we left for the wedding.

It was held in a big hall, especially designed for weddings, about 1km from the Amera. When we first got there professional Beduoin dancers were dancing with (real) swords out front along with some of the male wedding-party members. When the bride arrived (after the groom and his family picked her up from her family’s house) they shot off fireworks into the air and the wedding was ready to really get started. Here’s a picture of the outside part.

The men went up the stairs into one room and the women went around the corner and down the stairs into another. In the women’s room many of the girls and women took of their hejab or burkah (covers everything but the eyes) to reveal elaborate hairstyles and exuisite, prom-like dresses. Some of the older women remained in hejab (head-scarves) and abayyas (full-length coats). We met Nasser’s wife, who is an American convert to Islam who moved to Jordan with her husband 10 years ago. She has nine children. The dancing begin with some of the groom’s sisters and other relatives. Soon the bride and groom (yes, a man in the women’s room, I’m not sure why this is allowed) came in and begin with a slow dance. Everyone danced more after that and Jessica and I were cajoled into dancing by some of Nasser’s daughters. There was hardly any dhabka (circle dancing with set steps), but rather more free-form Arabic style dancing. Here’s a picture of the dancing in the women’s room.

Jessica and I were hard pressed to dance like this and no one really taught us what to do but we tried to go with the flow. Muslim weddings do not have alcohol, and yet the women’s party was probably more fun than any wedding reception I had been to. Partially because there wern’t any men present, the women completely let loose with the dancing. They could wear what they wanted and dance how they wanted; the room was full of small children running around and crying and the recorded music was loud, but everyone seemed to be having a great time, and dancing without any alocohol. Here’s the bride and the groom and a number of female relatives dancing.

There was a 9-layer wedding cake that tasted like cardboard but other than that no food and hardly anything to drink. Bruce and Ghassan said on the men’s side they were served course after course of food and the professional Bedouin dancers entertained them all night and were accompanied by a lived band. I think we had more fun but the men were certainly treated to more of a show. Maalesh.

Tomorrow is our last day of class before our long weekend. 9 people are flying to Egpyt and staying at an awsome hotel on the Nile River. I am staying in Amman with Monica, Bruce, Ian, and Jessica; we have all got home stays planned and hope to be able to experience more of what family life is like in Jordan. I brought taffy and jam (made in NC!) for my family. I am seriously hoping that they will serve something beyond hummus and fallafel and pitas; as much as I loved all those foods in the US I am entirely sick of the chick pea. Eating vegetarian really hasn’t been that difficult here, excpept for all the chick peas. In Arabic, the word for chick pea and hummus is the same, which I think is kind of scary.

Today we had a big quiz in Arab Histories so a bunch of us went to the Starbucks in Abdoun to study; unfortunately, the Jordanians don’t seem to have caught onto the European phenomenon of coffee shopds so its often difficult to find a nice place to study here. The Starbucks here is much nicer than the one in Chapel Hill and is where all the Amman elite hang out. Drinks are just as expensive but so many of us are craving American coffee (and all of its caffeine) that it was well worth it. The coffee mainly served here is Turkish coffee, which comes in a very small cup. It is very thick, with coffee silt on the bottom and is flavored with cardamom, creating a very potent flavor. I don’t think Jordanians, however, are nearly as addicted to caffeine as Americans.

One other bizzare aspect of Amman, and probably the Arab world in general, is the way that people are supposed to cross the street. There are no cross walks or pedestrian signs in Amman and the roads/highways are often 6 or more lanes across. To cross the street, the idea is that you just wait until there’s a lull in the traffic and run to the middle of the road at full speed. You are then supposed to wait on the middle island until there’s a break in the traffick coming the other way. On particularly busy streets, like Universtiy Street (now Queen Rania Street) where we live, there have been so many pedestrian deaths that they built a fence in the middle of the road to prevent pedestrians from walking. There is a tunnel under the road that allows us to get from the Al-Amera to UJ safely. If you walk a few blocks up the street, however, the fence ends and you’re forced use your best judgement. This street is often so busy that the traffick never stops completely. From what I’ve heard, the idea is to cross this type of street one lane at a time, waiting until there’s a lull in the traffick in each lane. I prefer to find Jordanians who are crossing and cross with them, as they seem to know a little better what they’re doing. This definitely takes some getting used to, but I’ve ceased to fear for my life everytime I cross the street.

Yesterday we took a field trip to Umm Qais and Ajloun. Umm Qais is situation in the extreme North-West of Jordan and has amazing views. First, there are roman ruins there (which are the same as others throughout the world). But more interesting, Umm Qais has a view of the Sea of Galilee, now part of Israel, where Jesus walked on water. Here’s a picture with the Sea in the background.

The next picture is slightly to the right and features the hills of the Golan Heights. For those not familiar with the area, the Golan Heights is the hotly contested area that belonged to Syria until Israel occupied it in the 1967 War. The area now is mainly used for farms and military excersized, although it does not have any settlements like those in the West Bank or Gaza. From what I understood, the Golan Heights is bascially a bargaining chip that Israel uses to make sure Syria does not invade. It seems likely that this territory will be returned to Syria some time in the future, as it is not officially annexed and thus more easy to return.

The next picture is the tree-spoted hills of Jordan on the right and (uncontested) Syria past the hills in the back left.

After that we had lunch in Jerash and then went to the castle in Ajloun. This castle was built by Saladin’s nephew to defend the area from the invading Crucaders. It has an amazingly deep moat which apparently was rarely filled with water because of the general lack of water in the area.

I wrote a post a few days ago about our trip last weekend to Jerash but the internet here bombed before I could upload it and so I lost all of my post. Here’s some picture from our trip, which was wonderful but incredibly hot. Jerash is definitely the largest site of Roman ruins that I have ever seen. We explored the ruins for several hours without being able to see them all.

Here’s a picture of Tyler, Monica, Jen, and I on top of the original entry way for Jerash, or Gerasa as the Romans knew it.

Here’s the forum for Jerash with the colonaded street behind it.

This is a picture of a side street off the main colonaded street. You can see a mosque’s minaret in the background and the modern city of Jerash beyond that.

I have been so busy that I have had no time for anything but studying, travel, and some sleep. We finished our school week on Thursday with a difficult quiz and then jumped into taxis to get to the Amman bus station. 11 of our group went and two language partners, Marwan and Abdullah. At the bus station these two negotiated rides in two cars for the trip to Petra for 4JD a person, around $6 for a 3.5 hour ride. Here’s a picture of our hearse.

We stayed at the Musa Springs Hotel, near Petra, where we weer supposed to sleep on the roof for 2JD a night but got rooms for only JD a night. That night we found a bar that had been carved out of a cave and had a few beers. Later, we had the amazing experience of walking through Petra by candle light, with luminaries set every few feet all the way to the huge treasury in Petra. The next day we got up at 6 and caught cabs to the entrence of Petra. Here is a picture of our group in front of the very famous Treasury. Apparently, Petra was recently added to the list of the 7 wonders of the world.

Here are some of the dwellings carved out by the Nabateans over 2500 years ago. We climbed up to some of the higher ones to investigate and they would actually have been quite spacious, cool places to live in the roasting desert weather.

The most amazing part of Petra we saw was the view from the monastary at the top of some mountains. We climbed for over an hour up more than 900 steps to reach the view point but it was definitely worth it. Tyler, one of the UNC guys, said it was more amazing than the grand canion with its huge rock mountains jutting up from the ground. Some of us got tired part way up so we hired donkeys for 3JD. I talked to a number of the donkey guides and they are all Beduin who still live inside Petra (a 40km square area.) It was actually kind of scarry to be on a donkey climbing ancient, slippery, steep stairs.

We also found a tour in Wadi Rum where we were taken out in 4WD vehicles to exlpore the desert. Arabic drivers are already crazy but when combined with desert sand, high speeds, and a Land Rover without breaks, the experience is truly terrifying. Not only that, but Wadi Rum is a true desert with no roads.
We spent the night in a desert camp and ate Beduin food and learned Arabic dancing. We also smoking argila (shisha) and went for a midnight truck ride throught the desert where we raced another car. Another terrifying car ride. Here’s a picture of the Wadi. Apparently the temperature rise over 40C during the summer, a truly painful and debilitation experience.

Here’s a picture of the sunset at Wadi Rum.

More tomorrow.

Today, instead of attending our regular classes at UJ, we took a field trip to several the desert castles of Jordan. Check out my links at the bottom of the page and click on Jordan Tourism Map for a better idea of where the castles are. We drove east from Amman on the only road in that entire part of the country.
Here is a picture of the Azraq Castle, first built by the Romans and later occupied by the Muslims.

Here’s Curtis lecture at a dry well at the Amra castle, built as a Umayyad pleasure palace (with frescos of naked women inside.)

And here was very exciting moment in our trip, realizing that we were only 50km from the Saudi border and a few hours from the Iraq border.

Thursday night (the start of the Islamic weekend) we went to a super elite club, nicer than any that I’ve been to in the US. The entry age was 22 but apparently that doesn’t apply if you’re a foreigner and can afford to get in. We went with Hilary’s friend (that she met here) and a bunch of her guy friends. These guys (the Jordanians) were amazingly rich, one had a Mercedes and another had a BMW X5. I’ve been really shocked to discover just how many elite there are in Amman. It was really amazing to see a completely different side of Jordan than we have seen before (UF is mostly lower and middle class.) It turns out that some Muslims have no problem drinking or dancing with girls, and that girls dress pretty much just the same in clubs in Jordan as in clubs in the US. We were told, however, that this is one of the only true clubs in Jordan. The club played a mix of European techno and American hip-hop, definitely an interesting mix to dance to.

I will write more tomorrow, inshallah, after we get back from the Umayyad dessert castles. I miss you all a lot but Jordan is wonderful.