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!).
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.
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