Eid al-Fitr Holiday

I haven't started classes yet, and already I'm enjoying my first vacation.  The Eid al-Fitr holiday is comprised of the three days immediately following Ramadan when everyone eats and celebrates with their family.  Yesterday was the first day, and the expats at the school made a nice day trip to the Dead Sea.  It was AMAZING.  I can't believe people complain about being out of college and having to be an adult.  If spending my day at a resort on the Dead Sea is being an adult, I'm all for it!  (Okay--I do actually realize this isn't all being an adult entails.)  We swam in the salt-rich water, impossible not to float!, and covered our bodies with this beautiful silver-black mud that's supposed to have wonderful cleansing properties for the skin.  My skin does feel super smooth now.  Here are some pictures.

 Katie and I at the Bahamas-esque resort, except with a desert nearby.  (This is the first time my legs and arms have seen the sunlight in weeks.)

The Dead Sea.

The lovely shoreline.

Upgrade to "The Castle"

It's difficult to get used to a shifted week.  The work week goes from Sunday to Thursday, so Thursday and Friday nights are the nights to go out.  On Friday night, a couple of the younger teachers and I went to Rainbow Street, a hip, Westernized section of Amman, but of course, with plenty of Jordanian flavor. We found a restaurant in a nook of the street and had a great night sitting, drinking fruit juices and listening to live music.  They kept bringing us yummy treats and also brought us some shisha, which we thought must be complimentary because it just showed up.  Apparently it was supposed to go to the table next to us...The music was wonderful; there was a piano player/DJ and a singer performing pop/traditional Arabic tunes.  Everyone--whole families of all ages--were moving in their seats and singing along, all the while smoking their shisha.  It was beautiful.  And once again, the Jordanians proved their hospitality and their desire to please and entertain guests: the singer himself came over to our table (we were so obviously American, I guess) and offered us all a free round of drinks, anything we wanted, on him. At one point, he also came over and had Katie and I stand up and dance with him in front of the whole crowd and introduced us as his "Friends from America."  That was slightly intimidating, but fun, too.  I had been dying to dance so I guess I got my wish.

I haven't fully done my research on this, so it is hearsay, but I continue to be surprised by the difference in the accounts from Jordanians and the American media.  I was told that the "2011 Jordanian protest" reports coming out of Jordan were almost entirely fabricated by CNN here in Jordan, who were apparently in desperate need of some news from this fairly stable and well-functioning country.  The CNN reports said the protests were for "political, economic reforms."  The people here, in response to the initial reports, had a protest in order to demonstrate support for their King.  During one protest, a man died of a heart attack and it was apparently reported as a "death during protest."  I really don't know what is true, but I will say, from all my observations, the people here LOVE their King, truly and genuinely.  And from what I have heard about King Abdullah II and his father, King Hussein, they have earned this respect and admiration through consistent, fair, generous, peacemaking and loving leadership.  The people hang pictures of the entire royal family in their houses and offices and on the streets and when you compliment the pictures (they ARE an incredibly beautiful family), the Jordanians act as if they've been personally complimented.  I personally am becoming more wary of American media reports, and perhaps before I was simply naively trusting.

Also, I feel super safe here at King's specifically.  This is a great piece of information: whenever the King's Academy fire alarms go off, the call doesn't go to the fire department.  It goes straight to CIVIL DEFENSE.  So...that's awesome.

I also don't think I mentioned that the pictures I posted of my living quarters were of a temporary living situation.  Now, I live in a castle.  Seriously.   The castle is on campus and it is called "Al-nilam," the blue supergiant star in the constellation of Orion, discovered by the Arabs and also related to the Arab word meaning "string of pearls."

 I live in here...my apartment is the right-hand Tower.

There's my room up there.  Top right window.

Courtyard in the middle of the castle.  Beautiful space.

Oh, just walking out my front door...

My living room/dining room (I share with Katie and then we each have our own room).

My bedroom.

My 1st International Driving Experience: Lost in Amman

Dad wrote an email with some interesting comments about my last post, and I want to clarify that I do understand and believe that both sides in the Israeli-Arab conflict have inflicted terrible wrongs on each other.  Dad said, well, the Arabs also wanted to take [back] all of the land and the Isaralites were only defending themselves against imminent war (in 1947) [although, this argument seems as fair to me as it would be for a little child to demand a toy back from a younger sibling that the child stopped playing with hours before], the Palestinians were ready to kill all of the Israelites, the Palestinians also lied to the British many times and the Palestinians committed many brutal and bloody acts.  The point of my last post was not that the Palestinians have not committed horrible atrocities, but that I personally had never heard the Arab perspective to which I was introduced through reading Queen Noor's book.  I had heard all of the facts from the Israeli perspective my dad related to me, and that suggested to me that an American like me, who doesn't study this topic in depth but is only partially introduced to the topic via the media, is exposed to an Israeli-biased perspective.  Dad gave me good advice, saying I should not make any premature judgements until I've gained deep knowledge about different elements of the conflict, and he's right.  I do hope to do that.

Now, a warning for Dad: do not get nervous about the next story I am going to tell.  I feel very safe in Jordan.  So, last night, my apartment-mate Katie and I went out in Amman.  We went with our friend Greg who is now working at King's Academy but has lived in Jordan for 8 months and has a large group of expat friends.  It was very cool to meet the young expat crowd.  Very interesting and diverse bunch.  A girl from Lebanon who is studying poly sci in the US, a Phillipino-Iraqi girl from NYC on a Fulbright, a flamboyant and funny guy from the SE US who was a private tutor for one of the richest families in Jordan, a guy from Texas who was in Jordan for a couple days after literally travelling the world--maybe hitting 20+ countries in the last year, even a guy from Columbia, South Carolina!, and many more.  We got to see a little more of Amman and had dinner at this great Italian restuarant.  The real adventure started when Katie and I tried to get back home to King's Academy.  First of all, it was my first international driving experience, and Dad would be proud!  The driving here is much like it is in Colombia: paint lines on the road, road signs, these are all suggestions rather than rules.  My nasa nerd friends will not be surprised to know that I held my own.  Also, during Ramadan, EVERYONE stays awake at night and is out and about, eating, talking, socializing.  Anyway, we finally stopped to ask directions from a guy on the side of the street holding a parrot.  He didn't really speak English but he asked to take plenty of pictures with Katie while I was in the car with everyone behind me honking and yelling.  Finally, the guy with the parrot found two friends who knew English.  Jordanians are SO hospitable.  They actually got into the back of our car (it was safe, there were hundreds of people around, and traffic was going a mile an hour) and offered to direct us.  But they misunderstood that we needed to go to Madaba, which is a good 30 minutes away.  When we realized the misunderstanding they got out and tried to tell us which way to go.  Still got even more lost.  Finally, we hailed a taxi, desperately tried to communicate despite the langauge barrier, and I drove in the taxi to 7th circle while Katie followed behind in the car.  Needless to say, we did end up making it home around 3pm...

Today, Katie, John and I (the three fellows!) went into Madaba to buy some food and look around.  Here are some pictures!

One of the many fruit stands along the road in Madaba.

The mosque in Madaba.

Some Arabic graffiti.

One of the favorite Jordanian pasttimes: smoking hookah, or "shisha."  The other day the entire faculty and staff from King's Academy was eating dinner in Amman and after dinner, it was considered appropriate to smoke shisha along with our chai tea.

Some more shisha and some head scarves.

A square in Madaba.  There are pictures of "His Majesty" [and his entire family] everywhere, people's homes and offices, on the street, in restuarants.

The desert.

Camel sighting!

Bedouin tents...

...beside mansions.

Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life

This is the title of Queen Noor's memoir.  She's an American woman who married the late King Hussein, former king of Jordan.  I came here, to Jordan, not really knowing much about the Israeli-Arab conflict.  I've seen the major headlines, I could broadly tell you there were arguments over land.  But my knowledge of this region's history is weak.  I still feel that from living in America, I have been fed a pro-Israel perspective.  I know that Queen Noor is biased, she is married to the king, and that I am slightly biased now because I live in Jordan and have not yet visited Israel.  But there are certain facts in her book that I cannot ignore and that have (already) vastly changed my perspective on the situation.  For example, the  fact that in 1947, the UN granted 55% of the Palestinian land to Israel (1/3 of Palestine's total population), and that Israel proceeded to take the other 45% of the land, brutally, bloodily, and by force, from the Palestinians against the mandates of several UN resolutions.  There are also several instances of the British and the Americans not only promising to return this land and not acting on this promise, but also directly lying to the Palestinians about their intentions.  There is also the atrocious massacre of Palestinian civilians that occurs at Deir Yassin in 1948, led by the Jewish terrorist group Stern, in which they went door to door killing people and burning houses.  Hundreds of people were killed.  So much of this event was never made known to the public, according to Noor.  Maybe much of this is common knowledge.  But it wasn't to me.  I'd definitely suggest reading this book.  It is the perspective of an American woman finding herself newly in love with Jordan--so I guess I can relate on that level, too.  I also feel as if this part of my life is so unexpected.  I never thought I'd live in the Middle East for a year after college.  Goes to show how rewarding the most unexpected experiences can be--And this from a girl who's been here all of a week!

Anyway, some updates.  Maybe I should not have come here so soon in my life.  The expat life suits me very well, and many of you are probably not surprised by that.  I would love to stay here for a while.  The other expats (and the Jordanians, of course) are so interesting.  There's a man here who spent 8 months in Libya and had to be evacuated by boat in February.  Last night he was telling us the most interesting, terrible stories about frantically trying to board the boat with Brits, French and many more, having to wait on the boat for days because of 30 ft. waves, while all the while they're actually in SIGHT of the location where Gaddafi was giving speeches. 

Tonight we went to Amman to have another authentic meal.  It was great--the best hummus and falafel and they just cook it right there in the corner of the place, and then bring it around in bowls tossing it on the tables.  Whoever gets served first is whoever yells the loudest.  And the plates were papertowels.   We got to walk around Amman a bit after that at night.  I was somewhat reminded of Colombia because of the fruit and vegetable market and the stands of trinkets that pop up along the road.  I'm definitely going to have to get a picture of the market for Mom. Tomorrow I have another day of training.  All the returning teachers are back now, and it's been a lot of fun to meet everyone.  I'm loving the creatures here.  I promise pictures soon, but today I failed again because I left my memory card in my computer.  Until then-

Walkin' in the footsteps of the Pope, & other field trips

I just got back from watching a movie with some of the other teachers.  We watched Return to the Planet of the Apes, which is still in theatres.  There's this entire STORE of bootleg videos in Amman.  I am glad a community is starting to form here.  Not developing close relationships is one thing I worry about, and also not getting out of the King's "bubble" enough and seeing a truly authentic Jordan.  But I think I'm going to share the rent of a car with two other teachers, and that should help with planning weekend trips to surrounding areas. 

I haven't been great about snapping pictures (but I do have a year here!), so I don't have much to share in the way of visuals.  2 days ago I went into Madaba for the first time.  Highlights from Madaba include seeing the 6th century mosaic map at St. George's Church.  There's the strip of color built into the sidewalk in some places of Madaba.  A woman told me it tracks the Pope's walk when he visited the city.  I looked down at that moment and the strip had ended.  Where did the Pope go?!, I thought, worried.  I looked across the street and realized he must have crossed the street at that exact point, because the strip picked up on the opposite sidewalk!  We had dinner at this AMAZING restuarant.  We sat outside in a courtyard with ivy climbing up the walls and beautiful trees.  It was unreal, and the humus was so good that I teared up a little bit I was so happy.  Someone also told me that the land I am currently living on, the land at King's Academy, is the land that Ruth and Naomi (from the Bible) lived on!  Again, is this real? 

Yesterday, we drove about 30 minutes to Amman (the capital of Jordan and the largest city).  We went to the bootleg video store and the large Carrefour grocery store which is pretty Westernized, almost Walmartish.  And I got to practice using the first Arabic I've learned, "Shukran Jaziilan," or "Thank you very much."  Then we had dinner at another amazing resturant, again outside courtyard style, buffet style, but the food was being cooked on grills right next to the buffet line and a little kitty was trying to get scraps. 

I'm feeling nervous about teaching.  I want to be great at it, not just mediocre.  I don't feel prepared right now, since there hasn't been a lot of direction for new teachers.  The returning faculty arrives in the next couple days, so I am hoping to speak with the other couple teachers who are teaching the same class as I am, regular intro 11th grade physics, and feel more comfortable with the curriculum and the fact that I will be standing in front of a classroom of teenageers in just a few short weeks.  All in all, I am still so excited and grateful to be here, though of course, occasionally feel my twinges of missing home. 

This. is not. real life.

Seriously.  One of the other teaching fellows (there are three) asked me today if I could believe we had graduated and were out in the "real world."  And I just said if this is the real world, then I am glad I'm in it.

I was wondering if I'd actually have anything interesting to post, but I've already been amazed by this country and its people and this general experience (all 1.5 days of it...)

I flew Lufthansa to Amman, and I highly recommend this airline.  Great, friendly service and the best airline food I've ever had.  Leave it to the Germans.  I was lucky and got 3 seats to myself, and was sitting by the window.  At one point during the flight, this older Arab woman came over, laid down on the empty seats, and proceeded to put her feet in my lap.  I might have been okay with it, because she was older and probably uncomfortable in her own seat, but her feet smelled really bad, and she was squishing Jada.   So I asked her to please move.  She just waved both her hands at me as if to say "Shoo."  When she did that, I was like "Oh, NO."  No matter her age, she can't just shoo me away when I paid (King's paid) for this seat and she is currently getting 2.5 seats and I'm getting about .5.  The incident ended with a flight attendent coming to ask her to move, a 20 min conversation insued. The woman didn't understand German or English, but with enough hand waving she finally moved. 

I was greeted at the airport by a lovely Egyptian woman named Mona who I already adore and a quiet man (I would butcher the spelling of his name) with the friendliest smile.  We were through visa and immigration and security SO FAST.  I could not believe it.  It must have taken 20 minutes, even with Jada.  Mona said it is never this fast.  She said they're so much friendlier at night after the fasting is over and they've eaten for the day. 

The two major cultural adjustments so far are, as you might expect, religious customs and intimacy between men and women.  First of all, I arrived in Jordan during Ramadan and during this time, Ramadan controls daily practice and life in Jordan.  Everything closes at 3pm.  It is rude to eat or drink in the streets.  I've heard one can even be ticketed for it.  Once, I was drinking a Coke indoors and a man delivered yogurt.  I walked to the door with the glass of Coke in my hand.  Jill (my new friend who is a counselor at the school and lives with her husband and three kids in an apartment below the Fellows) quickly grabbed the Coke out of my hand in case these men were fasting.  It is definitely something I have to be conscious about all of the time. 

Physical contact is VERY different here.  Some of the men here have adjusted to having American women around and will shake my hand when they meet me.  At this point, though, I have become very conscious of personal space and I will not shake a hand until it is offered to me.  Especially as I walk around with the all-male new faculty of the Physical and Life Sciences department, it is strange to walk into a room with a man in it and watch him shake everyone's hand but mine.  It can definitely feel a bit exclusory, though is meant as respect for a woman's reputation.

That being said, this school is very international.  Many of the new faculty members are American and Canadian.  There's even this hiliarious guy from Peru who has a miniature replica of one of my bags from Argentina (of course I love that). 

One of the most stand-out moments so far was the first time I heard the call to prayer.  We had dinner last night after dark and I was walking home with another teacher under this INCREDIBLE night sky and all of a sudden, came this ethereal, haunting call--vast and echoing is right, T.E.!  We just stopped to listen to it.  And to think this happens five times a day!  The discipline of the people here (and from such a young age) is stunning.  Today I was talking to a woman who said her son struggled with the fast today because he saw some of the teachers eating inside.  I said, he's fasting?, I thought the kids are only required to fast at 11, and he looks not older than 9.  She said, yes I keep telling him to eat something, but it is his decision to do this and it is important to him.  An American teacher at the school is fasting for his Muslim wife, who had a baby 5 days ago.  He says it is just what he can do to support her and demonstrate his love for her. 

Also, this place is just generally beautiful...

Room #1.  You can't really see it, but I have a walk-out balcony!  Overlooking...

This.  Everytime I walk under the overhang, there is the beautiful echo of cooing doves.

Room #2.  As you can see, I have nothing to put in this room.  Travelled light on 2 suitcases.

Our foyer, leading to a kitchen/living room/dining room area.

One of the views of the countryside desert.

Interesting mixture of New England boarding school and Middle Eastern influenced architecture.

We have an inside balcony!

We visit the city part of Madaba tomorrow, so I'll definitely have pictures from that, too.

The Messes and Miracles of Planeflight

(This post is actually a couple of days old.  My hacking job in the Frankfurt airport didn't last very long so I got booted out just before posting.)

I'm in the Frankfurt airport right now with an 8 hr layover.  The trip has gone pretty well so far (21 hours down, 13 hours to go), but I am already exhausted.  Jada has been pretty well behaved except one freakout on the plane that almost gave me a panic attack.  Luckily I was able to rush to the bathroom with her and let her walk around a little bit in there.  I HATE using the leash.  It is the saddest thing to watch.  Every time I put it on she just tucks her tail in between her legs and tries to get it off with her little paws.  She just wants to be FREE.  I got to Frankfurt this morning and went to the bathroom to change (I also spilled Coke ALL over myself on the plane).  Three women in burkas asked me if they could use my water bottle.  They said they had to wash themselves for their morning prayers.  Their gratefulness was profuse and genuine and I was surprised by the amount of thanks they expressed for what seemed to me a simple favor.  It touched me how much these women thirsted for prayer.  Despite being a repetitive ritual, it still seemed meaningful for them--more than meaningful, vital.  It was such a beautiful little event in this dirty airport bathroom.  Afterward, I filled the bottle with water for myself and felt as if it was a little bit holy.  I finally found the correct terminal (after going through security twice) and I'm sitting in the wing where flights leave for the Middle East (I think, because most people here look Arab or are very blonde, German I think).

It's also very fun to meet creatures along the way while travelling, and Jada is a constant attractor and lead-in to conversation.  In DC, I started talking to a man and found out he's originally from Jordan and is now taking his 7 yr old son to visit for the first time to meet all of his extended family (reminded me of my first visit to Colombia at age 5).  The son was super funny, and kept talking about this scary, possessed "clown doll" in his carry-on that I later found out was just a gift for his grandmother.  Later, on the plane to Germany, I met a guy who'd taught physics, of all subjects, in Germany for 15 yrs and we started talking about physics labs, ect.  As I was getting off the plane, an American woman I'd never seen, wished me luck in Jordan, telling me it was a beautiful country--she must have overheard my earlier conversation.  So far, all good signs. 

Goodbye Space Camp, Hello Jordan

The NASA internship is officially over, as of Friday.  We had a great string of presentations, videos, food, families, gifts and certificates, and then, bright and early Saturday morning I was on the road for 11 hours of driving.  Warning: do not drive in VA if you can avoid it.  Every time I do, something catastrophic happens.  This time, my experience included driving over something on the highway, getting a flat tire, being stuck in the middle of the highway on I-95 on a bridge where I couldn't pull over, causing a traffic jam and then a cop making me drive a mile on my hub cabs.  Needless to say, I was delayed.  BUT I finally got to Davidson and was reunited with Jada!  Bex and the rest took excellent care of her, of course. 

One other thing that was interesting about getting stuck on the highway was getting to see the set of people that actually stopped to help me.  The story was very Good Samaritanesque.  Two people stopped to help me and they were both Hispanics who barely spoke English, one with a family in tow, and yet each was willing to help me change a tire or get some gas.  It touched me that two people limited in language were so quick to offer whatever they could, instead of simply focusing on how I was delaying their day.  Of course it's a small subset, and I can't make any broad generalizations about the situation, but it seemed another example of "America"'s fast-paced and self-centralized mentality.

Tomorrow is my big day.  I'm off to Jordan.  A layover in Frankfurt and then I'll actually arrive in Amman, Jordan on the 17th, so two days after I first embarked.  I'll actually be living in Madaba.  Jada is coming with me, so she'll be my little piece of home. 

T.E. Lawrence called Jordan a "vast, echoing and Godlike" place where even the proudest men gazed into the night sky and were "shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of the stars."

I can't wait.