Inter-Gender Relations

So that might have been a weird title but believe me, it is a good one for today's blogpost.  So, ever since I have been in Jordan I have wanted to talk to the women and find out about them, their lives, and how they feel just like I have been with the men.  Well, obviously that is quite hard since men and women aren't allowed to eat together, women are very closed and won't speak to you on the street, and I think the only woman I have regular contact with right now is Fatimah at the center.  This weekend all of that changed.

The sign for the Iraq Al-Ameer
(It means cave of the prince)
handicraft village

  Saturday, I decided I wanted an adventure and headed of the "Iraq Al-Ameer Handicraft Village" a women's cooperative near to my work where they hand-craft shawls, paper, soap, and ceramics and are also close to two different archaeological sites.  I had visited it before with a person from our work and found out that I could take classes in traditional Jordanian weaving, pottery, soap making, and ceramics all of which sounded extremely interesting.  Well, since I got there late in the day I was informed that they were already closed but was shown around and introduced to every single woman in the center.  It was very interesting for me, because like I mentioned earlier, I have wanted to talk with Arab women my entire time here.  Mainly I have only seen them in passing and have never had any meaningful interaction with them except for our boss, as work.  I was surprised to find that instead of closed off women who did not wish to talk, I found women who were very accommodating and interesting in what a random American who speaks very bad Arabic was doing out in the middle of no where talking about learning how to weave.  After getting a tour of the ceramics and weaving areas, I informed them I would be back the following day (Sunday) after work to begin classes in weaving.  I was then asked to sit down with the director of the center who was very nice and found out that her cousin who was sitting beside her, Naeem, spoke extremely good English and was preparing to go back to school to earn a masters degree in Geography.  She asked that I help her practice English when I am at the center and I told her that I can help her in anyway possible.  It was very nice, and I then went and sat near the caves and pondered/read a book for a few hours.

Me attempting to create a beautiful hand-made Jordanian Shawl

  Since my first encounter at the Handicraft Village I have returned twice with Austin after work.  The women have opened up to us immensely and apparently find us quite attractive (which was a completely unexpected occurrence).  In fact, the first day we visited they even fed us lunch which made it the first time I have ever eaten a meal with an Arab woman in this country.  They are extremely nice and accomadating, and are allowing us to work on Shawls that they are doing to fulfill an order in the United States.  Can you imagine the label on those shawls, the people think they are getting ones made my little Bedouin ladies from Iraq Al-Ameer and instead the label reads "Hand woven by extremely tired American Interns for the Ministry of Social Development."  Oh well, what they won't know won't hurt them right?  Basically, I am having a wonderful time learning how to weave and find it to be a very tiring and labor intensive process.  Not only do I understand them and theirs lives better, but I also understand why the industrial revolution rocked so much.

My Arabic name is Mohanned which means Sheath,
Apparently it is because I look like this fellow
who is an extremely famous Turkish Television Star.

  Perhaps the coolest contrast to see is the difference between these same women when we are talking to them in private, and when we enter the public sphere and get on the bus.  In private they are vibrant, fun and talkative.  They make jokes, laugh hard and can be seen to enjoy life immensely.  In contrast, when we board the buses these same women are solemn, closed and completely quite.  They do not say hello and do not register our proximity.  It is not my place to judge whether or not this is appropriate or good.  This is simply my observation, instead, I simply find it interesting and enlightening.  Some would say this means that the woman are belittled and demeaned but I do not know.  I think I need more information and understanding in order to form an opinion on this point.  To close, our boss informed us today that the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, said that knowledge should be gained first by observation, then by listening and last of all with questions.  This is much the opposite of how we look at it in the west and we must remember this as we seek to learn about the Middle East and it's people.

The Arab form of Work...

This is how I center looked
when we got to work this morning

Sunday was pretty uneventful with us going to work for only a couple hours and mainly just watching other people do work.  On Sunday, however, I ate one of the most humble and delicious meals I have ever had with the Egyptian workers at the center.  They bought some pita bread, a can of tuna fish and a box of soft cheese.  The tuna and cheese they poured out onto plastic bags and then you would rip off a piece of the bread and grab some of the cheese or tuna and then drink some tea with it.  Honestly, the entire thing fed five people and it was amazing, and it made me so grateful for the many things I have back in America.  However, after one of our Jordanian co-workers saw us he said that that was a horrible meal and that he would show us a great meal tomorrow and then we would explore the caves that are nearby.  So, the rest of this post is going to be about Monday which was absolutely amazing!
  First of all, we showed up to work late because our boss from the previous day told us there wouldn't be much to do and it was alright if we showed up at 10:30 or later if we wanted.  So, we got to the center a little after 10:30 and then did the obligatory sit around for awhile and make small talk that we can't really do because we (or at least I) don't know enough Arabic.  By the time we started moving furniture and doing a bit of cleaning it was almost 11 and we were told that the painters would not be coming that day to finish it and so there wasn't much that we could do anyway.  So, we moved a little bit of furniture around and swept out the corridor and the front area with horribly inadequate tools.  Once that was finished we decided we would go clean up the play area which was covered in discarded building supplies.  So, we asked Mahmud if he had some gloves and he said, "No".  So then we asked if they had a rake, and he said, "No".  We then decided that we could work with a shovel so we asked him and he said, "No".  Finally we decided all we needed was a wheelbarrow but once again he said, "No".  So finally we said, well then what do you have?  Mahmud then proceeded to hand us a broken old plastic bucket and were able to find a dustpan to use as a shovel.  It was epic.  So, we simply did the best that we could cleaning up the area and after our hour of work was done and there was nothing else to do Mahmud took us on an adventure!

Mahmud and I at lunch

  Our adventure consisted of visiting the local Women's Co-op where they hand-made paper, ceramics, wove and made soap.  It was awesome and they gave us brochures talking about how we could get them to teach us how to make these things for not that much money at all.  It was an amazing place, but it only got better when we sat down to eat lunch. which was also epic!  We had for lunch a traditional bedouin breakfast where everything was in communal dishes that you ate by taking a chunk of pita bread, ripping it off and dipping or grabbing whatever it was that you wanted to eat.  The food included awesome jelly, scrambled eggs, olive oil, yoghurt sauce, cucumbers, tomatoes (which I didn't touch) and the most amazing potatoes ever.  It was amazingly good because of the simplicity, versatility and vitality of the food.  It was so fresh and raw that it was amazing to have.  Quite a change from the processed food that I must normally eat.  Once we were stuffed fool and wanted to go into a food coma from the delicious meal Mahmud led us across the street to explore the caves that had been carved from the solid rock walls.

Some of the caves I got to explore today

  The caves were really cool, and that is an amazing understatement.  Something I love and find sort of disturbing at the same time is that no sights are really protected in Jordan that I have seen so far.  You can pretty much crawl over any ruin you see and touch anything you want unless the government makes it physically impossible for you to do so.  This means that while seeing the caves we got to explore and climb through every nook and cranny looking for fun things to see and talk about.  It reminded me a lot of when we would explore the cave dwellings of the Native Americans in New Mexico all the time as a family.  I was constantly seeing new things and analyzing the things that I saw.  It was amazing, however, because these caves were so much older than the ones I had seen in the United States and they were so much more sophisticated as well.  A number of the caves had carved rectangular doorways and were multiple stories tall.  There was also a sophistacted system of writing that was extremely interesting to analyze and think about what it said.  We spent a solid two-hours there so all together we worked for an hour and then spent the next three chillaxing and enjoying ourselves exploring our region.  It was so much fun and I am definitely going to go back to learn how to weave and make paper, not to mention have another delicious meal!
  Anyway, the rest of the day wasn't really anything to highlight but tomorrow is Aid Istiklal or independence day for Jordan and there are supposed to be some pretty sweet celebrations and a parade by the army that the King might even be in!  I'll tell you how it went tomorrow!

Fun Fact:  It is the arab way to just make do with what you have or fix it as many times as possible until it breaks into a million pieces.  For instance, when I asked for a screwdriver at work I was given a Knife and when a bed broke in our house we nailed it back together and coated it with what smelled like Elmer's glue.  It's very cool.

Saturday... the day for Adventures!!!

The inside of the rebuilt Umayyad dome on the citadel

Saturdays, they have always been quite wonderful to me and in the Middle East it is no different.  I am completely free of all other distractions and have an entire day to do nothing productive except have a TON of fun and cool experiences!  Are you ready for this amazing day?  Read on and enjoy...

The outside, it was my favorite building

  Today I decided that I would explore the city of Amman on my own and have a wonderful day doing tons of different things.  I had a whole lists of things that I wanted to do but I should have known, as I have learned many times, that the best way to be unproductive in Jordan is to make a plan.  The first thing I want to do was to go see "The Citadel" in the middle of Amman.  The Citadel is a giant flat hill in downtown Amman that is full of ruins and apparently has a great view of the city.  All I knew was that it had some Roman ruins up there and that sounded like fun so I got in a taxi and after a bit of trying was able to finally communicate to the taxi driver where I wanted to go (quite a feat when you don't know a ton of Arabic).  The Citadel was amazing, especially for the small price of only 2 JDs (about 3 bucks).  The Roman ruins were probably the least cool part of the entire citadel with caves being used back to the Stone Age, Byzantines, Abassids, Umayyads and everything in between.  Also, in Jordan they aren't very much about actually preserving the ruins... instead you get to climb over everything and look into every little nook and cranny you want.  My favorite part was the Umayyad palace with a rebuilt dome and colonnaded streets.  Also there was an awesome Archaeological Museum with artifacts from all over Jordan.  I saw the first example of sculpture and a ton of other really cool objects before walking outside and hearing the prayer calls echoing through the city.

  Can I just say that this is my most favorite part of being in the Middle East?  It is odd, because in Arabic culture they don't really support the arts of dance, instrumental or voice music (at least from what I have been able to gather).  In fact, the largest theatre in the country was built two thousand years ago by the Romans!  However, the caller to prayer is literally one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard.  I have heard some of the best instrumentalists and vocalists in the world in amazing venues like Philadelphia, Chicago and New York but the simple and humble prayer car is greater than them all.  Perhaps it is because I am a religious man and there is something about the praises of God ringing and echoing through a modern city that is poetic but I think it is more than that.  I think it is a combination of the exotic sound, the simplicity, and beauty with which it echoes and resounds from hill to hill in Amman.  Truly, it is amazing and I don't believe I will ever get sick of it. I think everyone should hear it at least once in their life!

What's left of the Temple of Hercules

  After looking around the citadel for awhile I sat down at a viewing area overlooking down town Amman and just pondered for awhile.  I highly recommend some good pondering time for everyone in the world, it really calms the mind and just gives you some time to be with yourself.  Anyway, I was thoroughly enjoying myself just sitting watching and thinking and then this nice Jordanian fellow came by and sat next to me.  We started talking and I had a great time learning some more Arabic and practicing mine with him.  I couldn't believe it, but I actually carried on a reasonable conversation with him for about an hour!  Who would have thunk it?  It was sad, though, when he asked about my work in America and realized that I make more as a student working part time in a week than he does working 14 hour days 6 days a week.  The inequality of the world order has been starkly placed in front of my face here in Jordan, another thing that I think each of us should do in order to remember the wonderful blessings we have.  Anyway, that was really fun and then as the park was closing I got a taxi to head over to my favorite barbershop in town and get my second wonderful Jordanian shave.

I just thought this was a cool picture

  I got the shave, and it was glorious like always (I've decided to get a shave there every week and that's the only time I'm gonna shave in Jordan!  Heck yeah), and then started walking to the downtown to catch a service taxi home to go grocery shopping and do some of the things that I needed to get down today.  Well, that was the plan until I was walking along and I saw this shop that had beautiful Arabic calligraphy hanging up and the guys were making a frame right in front of me.  I vacillated back and forth about whether I should go in and finally I asked one of the guys how much the calligraphy cost.  He looked at me for a second and invited me in to the shop and asked me to sit down.  This then precipitated them purchasing me soft drinks and talking to me for the next almost 3 hours!  Two of the guys had amazing English, one of them lived in America for a while and the other studied accounting in the American University in Cairo.  We talked about all types of things, they told me about their homes in Jerusalem and what it was like to live here in Jordan.  One of them was a photographer and told me I have to look up his pictures on the internet. We had a great talk and they were amazed that I had any prior knowledge of Islam, I only had a rough knowledge, and said I was a smart foreigner.  I also got to ask them some of their feelings about Palestine and Israel and when I did their entire demeener changed, but I was able to pass it off on being just a stupid American.  It wasn't until after we were finished and they were all getting ready to go home that I was finally able to ask them what the calligraphy cost.  It took five minutes and I got a straight answer, and then I was on the road heading home.

The amazing view from where I sat and pondered

  Now, the reason I loved this experience (in case it isn't obvious) is because of how different it makes me feel.  As a visitor or a western tourist I do not expect be treated like a guest when entering a business, nor do I expect the people in that business to buy me drinks and introduce me to random friends of theirs who live close to me.  In the west, good business includes being cordial but getting me in and out of your store without actually making a connection.  This was amazingly different, and so wonderful.  Also, it shows how we as westerners need to interact with the Arab people.  I am not saying that I am a paragon of cultural awareness, I say and do amazingly stupid things everyday, but we must be patient and enjoy the culture simply for the culture, not seek to be in a country just to take pictures and bring our country with it.  I think in a later blog post I am going to write about the difference between a tourist, and what I have so far called a culturalist (I'm seeking for a better term).  Anyway, it was simply a spectacular experience that left me so grateful for a wonderful day full of adventures on my own, new friends and some great conversations in Arabic.  In the end, I feel like this is what life is really about (excuse my soapbox) but we need to build relationships, gain knowledge, and seek to know that which we find strange or scary.  Life is too short for me to build a box and spend my whole life within it, it is up to us to break our comfortable little boxes and seek to understand others better so that all of us can have better, more vivid existences.

I think this picture turned out alright

  I hope you are enjoying reading about My Journey to Jordan!  If you have any questions or things you have wondered about, please post them here or email me and I would be glad to give my opinion on them or the opinions of the Arab friends I have here!  Ma'sallama!