Come Early, The Dust of 50 Days

Today there is a thick fog over King’s.  Now even more I feel as if I'm living in a dream.  It's incredibly strange, as if I've stepped into another universe where I can look directly at the sun and feel no burning.  I’ve never been able to do that before in my life. The fog apparently usually comes in the spring and is called "khamsin," or "dust of 50 days."  Generally there are no clouds here and I can look out on the surrounding countryside and desert for miles.  But yesterday and today I can't see anything except for the yellow and red buildings rising like floating ghost entities from the mist.  I can't wait to see the view again, but something about this makes me feel so safe.

My lessons have been going well.  I enjoy the kids and I think most of them enjoy me.  I get most frustrated with myself when I fall short of answering their questions.  It's difficult to 1) remember that what I think is intuitive and basic is not necessarily common sense to them at this point in their physics careers, and 2) most of them are learning physics in their second language.  The most difficult part of teaching so far is interpreting what they mean when they ask a question and how to direct them toward a more articulate and sensical question.  Sometimes it is a phrasing issue, due to the language or cultural barrier, and sometimes it is a conceptual issue having to do with the physics.  Identifying which it is and how exactly I should approach clarification can be difficult.  Coaching continues to be one of my favorite parts of the day.  Julianne, our Dean of Students, asked the other day if I could organize a swim meet.  If that happens, it's going to be an incredible experience--organizing a swim meet in Jordan!

One of my coworkers has a beautiful baby cat, 7 weeks old, with beautiful orange highlights.  There is a tiny orange dot on top of her head.  I played with her for a while yesterday and she just sucked on the inside of my elbow the whole time as if from a bottle.  Her name is Namira.

نـمـره 

In Arabic, this means "tigress."  Honestly, I'm sometimes lonely here.  I'm sure the relationships will develop, but of course, it takes time.  I continue to obsess over the concepts of memory and dream.  I forget so much of my life and it's terrifying to me.  If I forget something, is it as if it never happened?  Are they equivalent, the forgotten incident or the non-incident?  Sometimes, I feel as if they are.  Perhaps it's why I've always felt so frantic to record.

Last night I dreamt 70-80 people and I were in an auditorium watching a woman give birth at the front of the classroom.  (Obviously I've been thinking too much about teaching.)  She had a white sheet draped over her.  She was somebody important, so the child was important too, but I can't remember why.  Dragana, this intense, beautifully dominant Jordanian woman at the school who is Head of the math department, was lecturing in both Arabic and English about the "demonstration" at the front of the classroom.

Four-eyes?

I've been having eye issues.  Not extreme ones, but I've been having trouble focusing, especially at a computer screen and especially at the end of the day.  I decided to visit an eye doctor in Madaba, and the doctor here at King's Academy set up my appointment and arranged for a bus and everything.  So, I met the bus at the designated place.   It was full of King's staff riding back home to Madaba.  I was the only female, and caught myself just in time before taking the only seat next to a man.  (Women and men are not allowed to sit next to each other on the bus.)  I waited for them to shift around and then got two seats for myself.  They were all very curious about me--I could tell, even though no one spoke English.  A young man asked my name in broken English and had me write it down on a piece of paper.  When we got to Madaba, this man agreed to accompany me to the eye doctor's.  I didn't know how to express my gratitude with the language barrier.  We couldn't really converse, so we'd just laugh at each other every once in a while.  He was delaying his own return home to help an ignorant American.  And good thing I had him, or the trip would have been a fiasco.  I never would have found the eye doctor's, for one, which was hidden in nooks and crannies of the street and up a half dozen staircases.  We finally found the eye doctor where I had an appointment, my comrade spoke to the staff in Arabic and found that the doctor just wasn't there (typical).  So we went to another eye doctor where I waited an hour to be helped.  At one point my very nice escort left the waiting room and I wondered where he was going.  He came back with bottled water and mango juice for me!  I finally saw the doctor and the doctor said my eyes are within the most unique 10% he's ever seen, which I did have some sense of previously.  I don't know exactly what these numbers mean but one of my eyes is "negative" and one is "positive" so the two lenses will be very different.  It looks like I probably will get a pair of glasses since my insurance now is very nice and will cover them, but part of me is stubbornly resisting the idea of admitting my non-20/20-vision...Anyway, it was fun to have such an ordinary experience in a new place, because it didn't feel ordinary at all!

Another something that isn't ordinary: this recent email from the US embassy.  I think there's no real alarm.  I'll just perhaps delay any trip I had planned to Aqaba in South Jordan.

September 25, 2011 

    

Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens

Subject:  Emergency Message to U.S. Citizens Regarding Travel to Southern Israel and the Surrounding Area

There is a credible threat of increased terrorist activity near the border between Israel and Egypt.  Due to the proximity to the border area, surrounding areas adjacent to the Gulf of Aqaba in Israel, Egypt and Jordan could be affected.  U.S. citizens are reminded to exercise caution and take appropriate measures to ensure their safety and security while traveling in this region. U.S. citizens planning to travel in this area should monitor local news sources to find the latest information on the situation, as it can change unexpectedly. Mission personnel have been instructed to notify the regional security office if they plan to travel to the area. U.S. citizens in Jordan are encouraged to enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP).  U.S. citizens without internet access may enroll directly at the U.S. Embassy.  By enrolling, U.S. citizens make it easier for the Embassy to contact them in case of emergency. 

But I See Palestine

I cannot be entirely frank about my experiences in these blog posts because there are certain freedom of speech and writing laws in Jordan that are different from those in the US.  For example, I am not allowed to write of any personal experience with the royal court.  I do want to say a couple things about my observations and opinions on the current Palestinian State debate, especially because I now live alongside some of the people most affected by this decision.  And, I don't think many Americans have access to the Palestinian perspective and that is unfortunate, especially in a country where idealistically there's supposed to be limited censorship.   So I'd like to at least relate different comments that have been circulating around me as we approach the UN vote tonight as the Palestinians plea for recognition of their statehood.

King's has a large percentage of Palestinian students, so the general atmosphere surrounding this vote is one of extreme and earnest passion.  This isn't about politics to these kids: this is about whether or not they can visit their families on the weekends or even have access to their homes and their birthland at all.  Posters have been going up around the school, "UN Vote 194: Palestine Statehood," and there have been speeches and presentations during school meeting.  A group of King's students travelled to Palestine this summer to pursue humanitarian and peace work, but only students who held dual citizenship (i.e. they also had a Korean or Canadian or American or some other passport) were allowed in by the Israeli security.  Any student who only held a Jordanian passport was not allowed in.  This strikes me as ironic, since it seems as if children--students--and specifically JORDANIAN students, the neighbors of Palestine and Israel, must be the future peacemakers.

There has been a lot of discussion, especially among the expats, about how the vote will affect the stability of the region.  Some faculty have expressed (a somewhat cynical) hope that perhaps Obama will go rogue and support the Palestinian state, as many here see his reelection as an extremely unlikely possibility.  "At least he could make history."  Although now that seems even more incredibly unlikely, given his statement earlier today pledging a veto of the Palestinian state.

Many expats are concerned about the general opinion of Americans in Jordan and the surrounding areas, which will surely grow more volatile and antagonistic, with the US veto.  Tonight I'll be going into Amman to see an art street festival that is showcasing one of our student's artwork, though I probably will come back to King's before the vote takes place later tonight.  I don't know what the American mentality is back home, but here, I feel ashamed of my country.  It is difficult to see so many Palestinian people, who do have their own Palestinian identity and culture and sense of home, and understand how they do not deserve to be recognized as an individual entity and state.  Especially when this decision is being made by the non-vote of support from a country whose constituents largely have never met a Palestinian person.  This isn't a slight toward the American people but rather toward the ability of a minority of lobbyists who have the power to influence these momentous decisions for an entire people.  Granted, these lobbyists represent a people, the Israelis.  But I am somewhat confused as to the American perspective. On a human level, why aren't we interested in letting the Palestinians have statehood?  Our own government is built on a belief in self-determination.  I might feel differently if I was living in Israel right now.  But I am in Jordan, and from here, I can see a Palestine state.  I see it in my students' pride when they say, "I am Palestinian."  I also know that these large governmental decisions can have extreme consequences that are not always foreseeable.  Perhaps the creation of a Palestinian state will have terrible implications in the future.  In decisions such as this one, either way, extreme violence and heartbreak are likely to result.  My comments are coming from a purely emotional standpoint rather than a political one.

I know that a name gives something its power to a large extent, and America, perhaps, is afraid of giving this power to Palestine, but Palestine already exists here, and refusing to name something as an attempt to retroactively eliminate it, seems to me, just a dangerous way to make an already convoluted situation even more nebulous.

Where Salome Once Danced...

I love my life.  My weekdays are filled with teaching, and pleasure reading, and studying Islam and teaching theory and Arabic and the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Teaching is challenging, but rewarding because I feel as if I'm learning so much about how to be a better person, in general.  The patience and articulation and appreciation and joy of learning that I am forced to--forced by the integrity of the profession--exhibit as a teacher is wonderful practice.  I have a beautiful library at my fingertips and I'm reading everything from memoirs of Jordanian royalty to Isabel Allende to the Koran.  I get to take seminars and Arabic classes.  I feel like a student even as I begin to feel like a teacher, yet I am studying at my own pace and completely for personal enjoyment. 

The weekend came and Thursday night (the equivalent of Friday night in the US), Katie and I went into Amman to our friend Greg's apartment building where he was having a party on the rooftop.  The view was exquisite (see below).  There were mostly expats from the US, Germany and France, with some Jordanians. 

On Friday, I went to my first Jordanian soccer game between two Jordanian club teams, Faisaly and Shabab.  At first, we were seated in the "VIP" section and it was quiet and uneventful.  The King's athletic director (who was our connection) thought we'd wanted to be away from the crowd, but we wanted to be IN the crowd!  So we eventually were able to move seats for part of the game.  All around us people were jumping and cheering--the entire stadium knew certain cheers and at one point the two sides of the stadium would shout back and forth to each other as two massive units of noise.  The best part was this fantastic creature of a man who somehow balanced himself standing on the hand railing and was dancing and directing the entire crowd.  At one point, he started leading the band around the stadium.  The band consisted of men dressed in the typical Bedouin costume, black dress and red-and-white checked headscarf, playing a bagpipe (!), a woodwind instrument and various tambourines and drums.  Our group stood out A LOT.  We were not only mostly Americans, but also there were many female teachers and students in our group.  I only saw two other women in the ENTIRE STADIUM and they were completely covered except for their eyes.  So, the man leads the band over to where we're sitting and proceeds to dance with one of the male American teachers and one of the female American students while all the men cheer from the stands.  As we were leaving the stadium, hundreds of camera phones are out taking pictures and videos of us.  A small boy was running up and down the line of us trying to shake our hands.  And we even found a video on YouTube from a Jordanian TV station with a quick cut to two of our American female students in the stands. 

This morning I was lucky enough to visit the ruins of King Herod's palace at Mukawir.  The ruins were at the top of a great hill and all around we could see the caves carved into the sides of the great hills where John the Baptist lived and scrounged for many years.  The palace appears to be sunken down into the top of the hill, but I was told that they actually built the hill up around the palace for protection.  As we stood on the top of the hill, we were actually standing on the roof of the palace and we could look down into one of the rooms which must have had ceilings tens of meters high.

This is where Salome, that witchlike, seductive creature of a girl, once danced and won the head of John the Baptist (or Prophet Yahya bin Zakaria, "son of Zacharias") from her father, King Herod.  They say no man could resist Salome.  As we stood at the top I believed this--with its exquisite view, all sky blue and white--I could see the skyscrapers of Jerusalem, I could see Bethlehem and green Jericho right across the Jordan river--I could imagine her dancing there by the white stone columns, in flowing dress, dancing against the blue sky and the blue water--a natural backdrop so still it appears like a 2-dimensional image one would bump into if one walked too far, like Truman Burbank in The Truman Show--it was all very irresistible.  I don't think pictures really do justice, but I'm posting some all the same.

On the return drive, we stopped at the Bani Hamida Women's Weaving Project building, a weaving collective to preserve the weaving of Bedouin women started by Queen Noor.  The women weren't there because it was the weekend, but I took pictures of the rooms where they work, and the beautiful dyed yarn and half-finished rugs (mostly for you, Annie!).

Party on the rooftop overlooking Amman.

Hill with Herod's palace at the top, and across the Jordan--Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Caves where John the Baptist survived in the wilderness.

INSIDE ONE OF THE CAVES.

Growing in the desert.

With what's left of Herod's palace.

With the Jordan River.  Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the horizon.

 A little desert friend.

Hand-dyed yarn.

Workbench.

"Engineers of the Soul"

A part of me feels obligated to write today, but here, it's been a day fairly void of thinking about large scale politics or American tragedies.  During school meeting today, our headmaster did acknowledge the anniversary of 9/11 and read an inspiring poem by an Irish poet (a great neutral party).  I've had another day of the challenges and joys of teaching, and I had A block, Sunday morning (equivalent of Monday morning in the States) at 8:05am, so tardies and sleepiness are even more rampant than usual.  Mostly it was a challenging day, but I am learning so much.  I feel happy about that.  A couple of beautiful things did happen today, including 1) Open Mic Night!  Yeah!  Lots of talented singing and playing of instruments and beat-boxing and even some stand-up comedy, 2) A young Chinese student stood up during school meeting and gave one of the most beautiful speeches, his first speech EVER in English, about having appreciation for teachers.  Apparently, in China, yesterday was teacher appreciation day in honor of Confucian's birthday.  He called teachers "engineers of the soul," a beautiful metaphor and incredibly impressive for a non-native speaker of English.  I honestly teared up, and this was due to the overwhelming earnestness and joy and fearlessness with which he spoke.  It was amazing to see, and I can't transmit the experience properly from all the way over here.  I'd had a couple rough moments in class, but it reminded me how talented and special and inspiring just one student can be sometimes, and that makes it all worth it.

First Day of High School

So...I'm officially a teacher.  It's weird in some ways: constantly introducing myself as "Ms. Melissa," and just in general being an authority figure with the privilege to tell high schoolers what to do.  I'm not going to write much on here about the details of my students because I consider that a breech of their privacy, but I will say that I had a terrific first day, though it was overwhelming.  I've decided the teacher must be the master of the multitasking, and I also came to the realization today that I'm in charge of their MINDS, and at a very malleable age...it's daunting and, without getting too dramatic, I feel very responsible.  Especially as I try to approach a subject that generally gets a pretty bad rep from high school students.  I want them to love physics like I do, and see that they are all capable of it.  I sincerely hope that my newness to the field of teaching doesn't negatively affect their future aspirations or perspectives of their own abilities.  I want them to understand the value of the renaissance (wo)man.  And I do not want them to limit themselves to being just-a-humanities-person or just-a-science-person.  I will also say that I am working REALLY hard to be good at this. 

Today they did a hodgepodge of lab activities each representing the various topics we're going to cover this year including constructing a thermometer, pinhole camera, compass, electroscope, "black hole," and more, and then each group presenting to their comrades.  There was a lot going on in the classroom, but I hope they had fun.

I've also continued to be excited about what I have to learn from these students.  There was a wonderful performance hour the other day and two girls sang a beautiful song in Arabic in honor of "lost homelands."  They dedicated the song to anyone who was missing home.  They had a projector behind them with a ppt flipping through various national flags.  When the Palestinian flag came onto the screen, an enormous eruption came from the students.  We have a lot of Palestinians at the school.  I was struck by the sense of longing in the cheers, as if they were cheering for something beautiful that had been lost.  It was the closest I've come to feeling the true loss of these people in terms of Palestine, and I was filled with sadness.

Wadi Hassa

Or, the Valley of Hassa, was my final adventure of the Eid Holiday, and it did not disappoint.  It was advertised as a hike but turned out really to be more of a swim than a hike...

The "hike" began with a nice slide down a waterfall/natural water slide, about 20 ft long and at an exciting 45 degree angle.  Awesome!  We continued to swim along through the river channels surrounded on all sides by amazing white rock formations with beautiful projections of light sneaking through crevices and dancing on the stone walls. 

We also encountered lots of foliage and at times were sneaking through tiny crevices in the stone walls or swimming under strands of bulrushes or bamboo that made me feel like I was in a Vietnam War film (without the whole war part...).  Our guide did keep making clicking noises to scare away the Afghani vipers...

One of my favorite parts of the trek was arriving at a water pool and getting to climb up and jump off two different rock platforms, one at about 5 meters, and the other between 7-8 meters high.

We only travelled 4 km but it took us more than five hours.  I was tired, and am still sore, but it was one of the coolest things I've ever done.

I wasn't able to bring my camera along, because of all the swimming, but here are some images from the Tropical Desert website of the actual trek we took.

 My first natural waterslide.  http://tropicaldeserttrips.com/WadiHassa.aspx

Unbelievable.  http://tropicaldeserttrips.com/WadiHassa.aspx

Some cliff-diving spots.  http://tropicaldeserttrips.com/WadiHassa.aspx

Umm Qais...

...or my adventure on the second day of Eid.  Umm Qais is a town in Jordan located on the ruined Hellenistic-Roman city of Gadara.  The city was prosperous until it was mostly destroyed by an earthquake around 747 AD and was abandoned.  Some scholars think this is the site where Jesus performed the miracle of healing the demoniacs and cast the demons into a nearby heard of swine which then ran into the Sea of Galilee.

From the ruins we could see the border where Syria, Israel and Jordan meet.  We could see the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights, majestic landforms that were almost entirely captured by the Israelis in the 1967 Six-Day War.  So much history--I love it!

Inside one of the ruins.

Some graffiti...a little more recent than 700 AD.

Katie and John set loose on the ruins.

A once magnificent street.

A great view of the central plaza.  With the restaurant where we ate up at the very top.

Innards, as the sun starts to set.

Petrified wood?  I needed my geologist friends.

One of the plazas.

Eating dinner on top of the ruins.

The Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee.

If you look carefully, you can make out the Syrian border all lit up.