Independence Day

Today is Independence Day in Jordan - you know, like the USA's July 4th or France's July 14th or even Canada's July 1st.  (Which isn't really independence day, is it?  It's the anniversary of the passage of the British North America Act.  Why does it seem quintessentially Canadian to celebrate an administrative success?)


Anyway, May 25th is the date in 1946 when the region known as Transjordan that operated under a British mandate became legally independent from the UK and changed its name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Unlike other countries where I have lived - where this kind of a date is solidly cemented in popular culture - it wasn't until last Wednesday that an e-mail message went out to the staff team to let us know that today - Tuesday - was going to be off work.  

It is understandable to me that I didn't know this was a holiday - living in my foreigner bubble daze.  What is interesting to me is that my colleagues also didn't really seem to know until the last minute that there would be a day off.  And, as it turns out, the scheduling was a bit of a bother and messed up a final deadline we have been working towards.  And people are upset about that.  And other people are upset that the first group is upset.  And so it goes.   The agitation certainly could have been avoided if only we had known earlier that a national holiday had been scheduled and we would have planned for it.   Which seems like a ridiculous thing to observe, but there you have it: a cultural insight.

I guess this low-key recognition of the date accounts for the extremely low-key way it is being celebrated.  Or rather not celebrated.  It is sunny and hot today and the town is completely quiet, like a regular Friday weekend day.  The only thing I have seen out of the ordinary was a lone convoy of stretch limos around noon.  They were followed by a couple of pick up trucks and taxi drivers honking their horns and flying those car flags you see after a soccer team wins.  Maybe 10 cars in total.  My hometown of Deep River, population 4,000, puts on a bigger celebration for Canada Day.  Maybe the celebrations start up after dark?    I will wait and see.   (Fireworks, by the way, are a regular occurrence these days.  Big displays every Thursday and Friday night, accompanied by lots of gunfire from the tops of the hills that circle the old downtown.  Wedding season!)

bugs

It turns out that May is mosquito season here in Amman.  These creatures are smaller, fiercer and faster-moving than their North American cousins and they have ruined several nights of sleep for me so far. (Is there anything worse in the darkness than that high-pitched doppler effect sound of a mosquito flying by your ear, followed by a sudden silence?)

It doesn't really do to think about what mosquitoes are doing here in Amman.  At a kilometre above sea level on a high, dry, waterless plateau, it is not like there are low-lying marshes and stagnant pools dotting the landscape.   Pondering this question too much leads me to wonder about the water cisterns  that inhabit the roofs of Amman's buildings.  These are filled weekly by water trucks and meet residents' washing, cooking, and drinking needs.  They certainly don't look very reassuring, and I'm not sure how well sealed they are.  I figure that they probably constitute the only source of standing water in the vicinity, and I don't much relish the thought of mosquito larvae swimming around in them.  It does make me glad I get my drinking water delivered, though.

A couple of weeks ago I commented to my various colleagues about the attack of the killer mosquitoes.  They all had the same answer, delivered in a kind of  tone that conveyed a "but, of course, only an idiot wouldn't know about this" message.  Here's the answer:  "well, you have to buy an electronic mosquito killer ... you can pick one up at the Safeway."

Now, coming from the Ottawa Valley, I have a proprietary feeling about mosquitoes and how you repel them.  Skin so soft... citronella candles... deep woods off... cedar oil...you name it, I know it.

I like to think that Canadians take mosquitoes very seriously and have all the answers.  So, I admit to being surprised that I have come to the middle eastern desert to discover a Japanese product called Fumakilla - VAPE MAT DEVICE - Electronic Mosquito Destroyer.  It has a special semi conductor.  It also comes *with pilot lamp* but *insecticidal refills* to be purchased separately.  For the packaging alone and at less than $10, I was compelled to buy it today.

I am not sure yet if it works.  I am going to give it a whirl though. 


A whole different question is what I am going to do about the giant cockroaches that have started visiting my kitchen sink of an evening.  Sigh.  Life in a warm climate.

souks and more souks

April was a grueling month at work, but finally all the deadlines have been met.  So I was fortunate last week to have some dear friends visit from Toronto;  it was the perfect time for a break and an adventure.  They arrived last Saturday evening and and less than 12 hours later we were heading north to Syria.

Finally on the road to Damascus!

http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/road_to_damascus_experience/

I cannot claim that I had a revelatory moment or a personal conversion like the apostle Paul on the trip north.   We travelled through Jordan's gritty, dusty industrial heartland of Zarqa, then skirted the edge of the arid Eastern desert - a landscape dotted with black basalt boulders, makeshift bedouin shelters, itinerant farm labourers, camels and goats.  As we approached Damascus on the Syrian side of the border, to the west we saw snow-capped Mount Hermon, wreathed in haze, and a line of distant blue hills contrasting against the dusty yellow landscape.  A lot of information to take in.

But, I can report that Damascus itself was a revelation.  Breathtaking, fascinating, and incredibly warm - both the people and the temperature.  Our local, Damascene cab driver became hopelessly lost after about 3 minutes crossing into the old city through 'Bab Touma' - one of the city's ancient gates.   We realized quickly that the intricate network of alleyways (that predate the automobile by about 3 millenia) would be an adventure in themselves to explore.  No need to plan much more than walking for days in Damascus.

And walk we did. Through the vine-covered streets of the Christian quarter, through the textile souk (where we were nearly lost for days in a complex warren of covered alleys that went for kilometers) and the medieval Bzourriya spice souk and the awe-inspiring 19th century Hamidiyya souk.  And the awning fabric market and the vegetable market and the handicrafts market.  We even went to a bicycle souk out of the old city - really just a turn-of-the-century french-inflected shopping street known as the souk al bicycletiyya lined with bike shops selling imported chinese and indian bikes and locally-made carpeted seat covers and hand-woven paniers.

We walked through the crowded, narrow streets behind the 7th century Ummayad mosque, where Shi'a pilgrims from Iran mixed with visitors from the Gulf and local merchants.  While feeling ancient, the city is also an incredibly vibrant hub of 4 million inhabitants, all of them seemingly trading goods.  How can you not want to buy something in such conditions?  I picked up a couple of beautiful syrian silk scarves and a tribal carpet (jajim) from northern Iran.  I am sure I didn't get a good price on anything.  But I do now know 100% more about traditional weaving than I did before I went. (Which is to say I went from knowing virtually nothing to now having extremely scant knowledge).

It is also true what the guidebooks say: that there is a distinct contrast in the city between the teeming, busy, loud, fascinating public streets and squares and the private sphere.  Off the narrow streets, behind high walls, are quiet, shaded courtyard gardens with orange trees, mosaics, fountains.  We stayed in a lovely hotel that was a converted palace and we took the opportunity to wander through a few more, including the impressive Maktab Anbar.



Now I want to go back, of course.  And to Aleppo in the North - an even older souk inside a walled old city.  And next time,  I will take better shoes.

scribes

In general, my neighbourhood is slow to wake up in the mornings.   The streets are still sleepy at 8:30am when I am walking up the hill to the office -  I'll see maybe a shop owner or two sweeping the sidewalk or hauling deliveries and a few guys standing around and smoking in the morning sunshine in front of the autobody shop at the corner.  (This appears to be the favourite neighbourhood hangout for men aged 45 - 60).

 Stillness prevails, at least until I get to King Abdullah square where I hit  'Embassy Row'.  A number of high-profile embassies and consulates - Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey - all of which generate a lot of visa applicants in this part of the world - and an array of Jordanian government institutions are all located here.  In one block you find the passport office, the Civic Registry, The Prime Minister's communications office, the Department of Statistics,  the excellently named Museum of Political Life (which unfortunately is never open when I want to go in, so I am still in the dark as to its collection),  and a host of many other institutions (some of them with inexplicable functions... see above).

Here the sidewalk tempo changes.  It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but it finally dawned on me that these people milling around are waiting for offices to open or appointments and trying to get their paperwork in order.  They are from all walks of life.  Young guys in jeans and aviator sunglasses and Guess knock-off T-shirts, black-clad women in face veils, men from the Gulf in spotless white kaftans and kefiyehs - these guys (always guys) are usually milling around the well-guarded entrance to the Saudi embassy -  old bedouin couples, the women in traditional embroidered gowns, with tatooed faces, the men in red-checked headscarves with incredible sun-weathered skin.

A makeshift cottage industry has sprung up in response to the plethora of official buildings. Again it took me a long time to figure out who the guys were sitting at card tables on the sidewalks under folding patio umbrellas.  Were they selling lottery tickets?  Signing up people for cell phone service?  They are there every morning.   At some point in the middle of the afternoon, they fold up their tables and chairs and depart,  leaving their mobile offices propped up against a nearby wall overnight.  Some even have built more solid-looking stalls that look like part of a farmer's market and have, predictably, taken over the sidewalk.

I finally asked a taxi driver what these people had on offer, and he informed me that they were scribes.  And fixers.  I can't believe it didn't occur to me sooner.  For a fee they fill in the forms of illiterate people.  Or draft documents.  Or they accompany foreign workers or rural peasants around the maze of government offices and sort out their paperwork. Now that I know what I am seeing, I get it.    I just noticed yesterday that on one of the side streets, one entrepreneurial fellow has set up a little photo booth in case you need visa pictures.  I have no idea how much they charge.  There are so many of them, each one cannot possibly get that much business.

I do know that as a foreign worker myself, you can't get through the paperwork without a little bit of professional help.  It is a sad truth that the nature of my stay here and my country of origin mean that I get a little more support than the folks who need the assistance of sidewalk scribes.  But that is another post for another day.


I want to take more pictures of the different government offices and embassies - particularly the Iraqi embassy which is a lovely miniature reproduction of the Babylon Gate.  But they are all heavily guarded by young men in camo holding semi-automatic weapons.  And I am afraid that I appear highly suspect snapping photos of banal government buildings and embassies - who knows what I could be planning!

I also want to get more close ups of the scribes at work with their clients, but that too, is a bit too intrusive.  So for now I am taking pictures during off hours and might work up the nerve to take some crowd shots in the coming weeks.

thinking about security

I love the film Missing by Costa-Gavras.  I saw it for the first time when I was in Grade 12 in a great big awe-inspiring cinema in Toronto, when I was visiting my friend Karen for March break.  (It was either the Uptown or the University where I saw it - both now demolished, long since gone, and left only in memory.)  Missing caught me at an impressionable age and I attribute that film, in part, to shaping my political tendencies.  I rented it again last year after a 25 year break and despite the fact that Sissy Spacek is far, far younger than I remember and Jack Lemmon is still annoying, the movie holds up.  If you don't know the film, it is about the Pinochet-led military coup in Chile in 1973 and the trials and tribulations of a young American couple who are living there at the time.  I recommend it.

I was thinking about it today, when the news came through this afternoon that a Russian-made Grad missile had exploded in Aqaba, a city in the south of Jordan, and destroyed a warehouse.  No one was hurt. A second missile landed nearby in the Red Sea, doing no damage.   It is worth knowing that Aqaba is right next door to Eilat in Israel, and right across a narrow inlet of the Red Sea from Egypt.  Interesting border country.   The news reports explaining this have been changing every half hour since.  Explanations over the course of the afternoon have included:  The rockets were fired at Israel from the Sinai in Egypt ;  the rockets were fired at Jordan from the Sinai; the rockets were mis-fired from Jordan and were targeting Eilat in Israel.  Some reports say Hezbollah;  some say Al Qaeda.  Now the BBC has a quote saying "We are 100% sure that the rocket which hit a warehouse in Aqaba was not fired from Jordanian territory, but from beyond our borders."  Here's the BBC link where the news keeps changing: 


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8636796.stm


This is not that big a deal and people at work absorbed it with passing curiosity, focused more on our looming deadlines next week.  In fact, a couple of people in the office are heading off to Aqaba tonight to go scuba diving, and one colleague has a son in a basketball tournament there this weekend. They were mostly annoyed at the prospect of their travel being delayed by increased highway checkpoints.


What I find interesting is that this single incident has happened in a week full of equally interesting single incidents:  scud missiles allegedly crossing the Syrian border into Lebanon to arm Hezbollah; concerns from friends of friends who live in Lebanon that violence is imminent between Hezbollah and Israel; a week full of revenge killings and instability among east bank tribes here in Jordan that caused one of the cities where we work to shut down any access for 3 days.   These events may or may not be incidental - all leading to something bigger, or each completely random.  Evidence of instability or simply the episodic moments of life in this part of the world. 


And meanwhile, the biggest threat that I face in my daily existence is the possibility of being hit by a crazy car driver on my walk home from work and the likelihood of carpal tunnel syndrome from an improperly aligned office chair.   Which is why I have been thinking about Missing.  As an outsider, one has a daily life that is somehow removed from both the local and bigger geo-politics.   You are a part of it, but you are not.  So you think yourself immune.  Without access to the local arab-language media, you are reliant on colleagues to relay the latest news.  And in any case, some - lots - of the worrisome stuff never makes it into the printed word in any language.  So, there you are, living your daily life with your daily concerns until somehow you find yourself right there, where it is happening.  I am pretty sure nothing bad is happening here.  I am watching events with increasing awareness and acuity.  And mostly I am watching out for dangerous drivers when I cross the street! 


(This post, by the way, should be no disincentive to people planning to visit !!)

knafeh

I have been meaning to write about sweets for a while, since they are everywhere, everyday, all the time.  Whatever calorie reduction has occurred in my diet as a result of alcohol-free socializing,  it has been more than made up for in the constant intake of sugary drinks, tasty snacks and a wild array of sweets - from junky chocolate bars and twinkies to delicious stacks of honey-soaked pastries and chocolates filled with nuts and dates.

But there's one sweet treat here that generates more excitement and anticipation than all the others: knafeh.    So it deserves some attention.

Knafeh gets ordered for the office or extended family or school class when some momentous occasion has transpired: graduation day, the birth of a baby, a milestone anniversary.  When the wife of one of the guys on our team, Saddam, had a baby recently, knafeh was ordered.  When the team submitted a final report after more than a year of hard work this past Tuesday, knafeh was ordered.  Our little celebration was scheduled for 1:00pm and by 12:45,  staff were milling around the meeting area, keenly awaiting the treat.

I had never seen it before moving here. I am told that knafeh originates in Nablus, in the west bank, but has spread throughout the arab levant - from Egypt to Lebanon.  And it is hard to describe. It involves softened nabulsi sheep's cheese, wrapped in a crispy semolina pastry, soaked in a rose-scented sugary syrup and garnished with crushed pistachio nuts.  It seems like something that only gets cooked in large quantities, so that might explain why it is so closely associated in people's minds with celebrations.  I can tell you this: you eat a piece, you are full for the rest of the day.  It serves as lunch and desert in one fell swoop.  

Knafeh aside,  I can't leave the topic of sweets without sharing a photo of a chocolate pudding brand that shows up occasionally in the corner store here.  The picture speaks for itself.

more khamseen

Another dust storm hit on Tuesday.  From my office window I watched as the grey wall of sand advanced, consuming east Amman until the view was entirely obliterated.  The dust blew all night, covering my balconies in a fine grit.  By Wednesday, the weather was clear again.  Here are two pictures, both taken at approximately the same time in the late afternoon - one on Tuesday, the second on Wednesday.