Day 313
I got a good tip from Lina on an all-day (8 hour) Jordanian blogging workshop, Sha3shaboneh, taking place on June 28th, and I sat in for a number of really great multimedia presentations (in Arabic) at the Makan art space just down the hill from my place in Weibdeh.
Sha3shaboneh, which I think means 'Daddy Long Legs' or something (and probably a play on the world wide 'web' as well as the new Jordanian-crafted pan-Arab job listings site Akhtaboot--'octopus'), was the brain-child of local blogger (Khobbeizeh), journalist, and visual designer Mohammed al Qaq. He gathered eight local bloggers and blogging experts--including Lina (Into the Wind, 7iber) and Ahmed Humeid (360East)--to give talks on the history of blogging in Jordan, blogging basics, citizen journalism, and issues of censorship/self-censorship. All related nicely to my research, and were quite informative in their own right.
It's pretty cool to see impassioned Jordanian bloggers and interested audience members all gathered in one place to really tease out all the layers in this still new and misunderstood phenomenon of blogging in Jordan. Since the death of blogger meet-ups under the now defunct aggregator Jordan Planet, forums like these continue to play a valuable role in educating and inspiring Jordanians about this new platform for free thought, social space, and occasionally, citizen journalism.
Day 313
Once upon a Friday, Jordan Cycling hosted the 2nd annual Bike & Run race at King Hussein Gardens park. Great fun was had by all, and namely friends Nina and Dave (ex-pat team #1), and me and our friend Kelsey (team #2). To be fair, there were some Brits from the posh 'Abdouni gym Vy on hand as well, but they had paired up with Jordanian cycling stars, so I'm not going to count 'em. Kelsey and I sort of scrambled even to register on time. In fact, Nina and Dave had kind of talked us into this whole thing; I wasn't really in serious training still from the Dead Sea half marathon, and Kelsey and I had to track down a racing bike via a French friend-of-a-friend so that she actually had something to ride.
About 30 pairs of competitors were on hand for the ~20k bike and ~5k run combo-race on a warm June morning. Dave and Kelsey sped off at the start while Nina and I jogged and stretched in the waiting area with my Jordanian running pals from Sports City. Dave came speeding in about third among the bikers (some of whom wiped out unclipping from their pedals in the exchange zone). Also dangerous was the biking route itself, apparently, without any traffic redirecting and with plenty of jostling among the cyclists for the shoulder. Kelsey got tangled up with another biker heading around a traffic cirlce, flying head first over the handle bars. The warrior that she is, though, she hopped right back on the bike (with a new nasty gash on her hip) and came flying into the exchange area to put me in a good spot in the race overall--and 4th in the mixed team competition heading into the run.
I caught the first two mixed team runners after the long first hill, and closed in on Nina (with a friendly smile) at about 2 miles. I came trotting into the finish area still unsure of our place, but Kelsey and I ended up fourth overall and first in the mixed category (with Nina and Dave close behind for second).
We were (all four of us) all smiles as we fetched Kelsey some ice and chugged some cold ones from our (now familiar) neighborhood race sponsor Red Bull (see Dead to Red and Dead Sea Half Marathon posts). And we collected our bling at an award ceremony presided by HRH Princess Reem.
I'm a bit sad to say this will be my last race in Jordan. But I've been hitting the Sports City running trail daily now, bumping up mileage to be ready for some more serious post-collegiate stuff back in the States...
Day 313
*I'm obliging a request to make the text shweyyah bigger--although it no longer matches my microscopic handwriting...
Aware that my 6 month visa to Syria was set to expire, I split a serveece with three friends for about 5 days in and outside of Damascus.
Suq al-Hamadiyya
Damascus shopkeep (it was hot) and Glassblowers at work
While two of my friends had headed back to Amman for work the following day, Uliana and I continued onward and outward from Damascus. First stop (after a long hunt for the Hertz rental car office) was the October (1973) War (with Israel) Panorama on the city outskirts. (I use a lot of parentheses). This was a real treat in Syrian state propaganda. It's always good to catch the 'other side' of this conflict, as was our goal, but I was even a little unprepared for the one-sided presentation of history. The huge museum building is flanked with military hardware and relics from the war. To the left is a collection of captured and destroyed 'enemy' equipment--including a pair of downed fighter jet skeletons, which are carefully tagged with 'American (or French) made' plaques. To the right is the pride of 70s era Syrian military equipment (and a joint Syrian-Soviet space capsule), which were good for some unsupervised climbing around on if nothing else.
The main attraction, however, is the panorama itself. After a 10 minute film of old war footage, our guide took us to the top floor of the museum building--essentially a huge circular auditorium with a rotating set of seats centered within. From our seats, a carefully recreated battle scene diorama spreads out 360 degrees until it almost seamlessly melds into the North Korean-painted floor to ceiling wall mural. As we sat, rotating ever so slowly, patriotic march hymns and a scratchy narrator relayed the story of the battle over the Israeli-controlled reconnaissance and observation tower that the Syrian soldiers bravely assaulted. In the pale blue sky above, dog fights and mortar shells glided over our heads.
You just can't make this stuff up
We hit the road after noon and drove north into the town of Ma'lulah, one of only three villages (all in Syria) in the world where the ancient Semitic language of Aramaic is still spoken. The small town is almost completely Christian, so Uliana and I hiked up the hills to a couple of monasteries honoring Christian martyrs from the late Roman pagan era, and explored a small cave said to have provided sanctuary for persecuted early Christians. We tried to pick up a few phrases of Aramaic between sampling local wines and lunch with a Ma'lulah patriarch, but I will admit to have forgotten most of it here just two weeks later.
I guess day two was essentially a spiritual journey, so we continued on racing the sunset to the secluded monastery of Mar Musa that I had heard about from a friend, just outside of another small Christian town of An Nabbek. The place has an interesting story to it. Essentially what was once a Roman Byzantine church and mountain fortress (first established by a Ethiopian prince-turned-Christian wanderer) was rediscovered in a state of disrepair by an Italian Jesuit priest in the 1980s, who then convinced his order (and the Italian and Syrian governments) to provide the funds to restore the site as a functioning monastery. The Priest, still only in his late 40s, is multilingual (and fluent in classical Arabic, in which all liturgy and readings take place). What's more, the monastery is multi-cultural and actually religiously indiscrimate--welcoming all denominations of Christianity and curious visitors of any religion. We hiked up the hundreds of stone steps to arrive at the low door of the monastery just after dark, and just in time for evening prayers.
Deir Mar Musa perched in the Syrian hills, with refreshingly spartan and quiet living quarters
We were the newcomers, but Mar Musa attracts all manner of Arab Christian pilgrims and foreign backpackers. The biggest group of the roughly 15 guests when we were there was a crew of young Egyptian Copts. Mar Musa's doors are always open; some stay 2 days, some ten years. Room and board are free, as long as you do some work to pay your way. After morning prayers the second day, Uliana and I spent about two hours with one of the Egyptians cleaning about 3 days worth of monastery dishes, before prepping some locally-grown veggies for the lunch meal. I could have stayed a week there, but Uliana and the other sights in Syria were calling me onward.
Continuing north, we passed through the city of Hama, famous for its late Roman period waterwheels and, more recently, for a local Muslim Brotherhood uprising in 1982 that was brutally supressed by former Syrian leader Hafaz al Asad via an army artillery barrage. The locals don't get too many tourists, and were creeping Uliana out, so we quickly pressed further north to Halab (Aleppo).
Aleppo has an (even older) Old City of its own, and an impressive Islamic citadel perched high above the bustling city. We took in our fair share of both that evening and early the next morning. I personally found Aleppo a bit disappointing, so I won't write much here.
le Krek
We spent the remainder of our last day at the very impressive Krek de Chevalier French (and later Islamic) crusader castle. Like the Aleppo citidel, we covered the whole thing on foot sans tour guide--and in about 4 hours, before grabbing lunch and some localish wine to hold us over for our trip to the Med. coast near Tartus. We drank the wine and drank in the sinking sun on a pebble-strewn quiet beach north of Tartus, taking time for a tip in the warm water before our long drive back to Damascus for that last night.
Mission accomplished. I (heart) Syria. Even more now than the first trip just to Damascus a year ago. Good people, great food, amazing sights. Hopefully future travels or work in this region will take me back someday.
I'll miss you Bashar
Day 283
I stumbled upon a press release for an intriguing conference in March that was taking place in Amman at the end of May. It seemed right up my ally as far as my Fulbright research project (more on this further down) and I knew it had the potential to be a really interesting and worthwhile experience. I was not disappointed in the least.
Co-hosted by Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), the three-day conference was billed as "We are Connected, But are we Communicating?: American Foreign Policy and Jordanian Society, A Dialogue." That left a lot of room for interpretation, and left me skeptical that this may turn out to be another high-minded and well-intentioned conference that produced a lot of generalizations and not much else. I decided to risk it, and what played out really surprised me in its depth and breadth. The conference, part of POMED's three-part series after unique iterations in Morocco and Cairo (full description here), brought together 50 young Jordanians and Americans to hear panelists, discuss issues, and ratify policy recommendations to be presented by one elected Jordanian and American participant to various NGOs and the appropriate respective government officials. Panels consisted of:
- U.S. Department of State Cultural and Educational Exchange Programs
- Youth Cyber Activism: Tool of American-Jordanian Communication
- American Foreign Policy in Iraq: Effects on Jordanian Politics and Society
- American Foreign Aid Programs for Political Reform/Democracy BuildingThe second panel had obvious draws for me, personally, regarding my research. To my delight, the panelists included Marc Lynch, GWU professor of political science and international affairs, renowned scholar and author on digital Arab news media (insightful articles available at Arab Media & Society), and popular blogger at Abu Aardvark. It also featured Line Ejeilat, columnist for JO magazine, co-founder and contributor to the unique 'citizen journalism' project 7iber, and prominent Jordanian issue-blogger. Lina later presented a workshop on citizen journalism in general, and both the panel and workshop generated a lot of discussion and debate around the viability of new media, internet press freedoms in Jordan, and concepts like 'bridge-blogging' and web 2.0.
In a greater sense though, the conference en toto really impressed me. Like Tunis, participants were extremely bright, well-spoken, and highly-analytical. So much so that the debate surrounding the final group policy recommendations was simultaneously exhausting and highly rewarding. The other Americans included fellow Fulbrighters (from Jordan and beyond), and an assortment of interesting folk who either found themselves in the region for academic or professional purposes or traveled from the States to expand upon their regional studies or international relations work at American graduate degree programs. The Jordanians were equally impressive; a collection of students and young professionals that really invested themselves in the weekend's program and in presenting the crucial Jordanian POV counterweight to even the most culturally-immersed Americans.
Our linguistic barriers were steadily broken down through official translators and a genuine effort from both sides to meet each other half-way in communicating (although, in general the Jordanians' English was far better than our Arabic--where it existed--so the real kudos goes to them for sure).
With an eye to practicality (aided especially by the insights of a U.S. House of Representatives junior staffer), our policy recommendations were mostly specific, timely, and thought-provoking. I don't agree with all of them--some kind of impractical ones still made the democratic cut. And we were all, however, appropriately skeptical about their chance of actually being implemented through lobbying in either country. But in a larger sense, in light of the fact that the conference could generate so much and so deep of discussion around them and the more general themes, the fate of the recommendations themselves seems like a small footnote in the success of the conference as a whole. We also pursued various strategies to remain connected, and communicating, despite geographic and cultural distance. If the conference demonstrated anything, its that even in an era of overblown cultural and religious differences and discourse on a 'clash of civilizations,' there remains an incredible amount of shared ideational ground between young Americans and young Jordanians.
For my own part, I'm taking some of the lessons of the conference to heart in applying to volunteer at American University this fall with Soliya, a non-profit that provides training and technology to facilitate video-teleconferencing sessions between American and Jordanian university students around an assortment of themes relevant to the "Arab world-West relationship," and all the baggage that phrase may imply today. The idea is to keep the dialog started at conferences like the POMED Amman weekend going, to build bridges and tear down walls and hopefully create a space where genuine discussion can take place outside of greater political, cultural, and media-inspired misunderstanding. It's a bit lofty, I will admit, but if the POMED conference taught me anything, it's that lofty ideas, embodied by passionate and open-minded youth, can have real longevity and practicality beneath and beyond their rhetorical or conceptual beauty.
So here's to high hopes and all the leg-work necessary...
Day 283
One undisclosed perk (among others) of a Fulbright scholarship to the Middle East is the opportunity to meet your fellow regional Fulbright fellows in a pan-Middle East/North Africa research conference. Well, two conferences actually. U.S. Department of State and IIE divides the MENA folk in half, dispatching a group to Tunis and a group to Amman. Fortunately, the Jordanian Fulbrighters all had the chance to travel to Tunisia (which I will call "little Europe" compared to Jordan), and likewise with the Tunis folk to Jordan.
It was a particularly good opportunity for me to socialize among, learn from, and network with the other regional Fulbright groups, seeing as I missed the pre-grant orientation session in DC for a summer immersion program in Irbid. The three-day conference hosted speakers and divided us up into presentation panels by research topic, enabling an exposition and (occassionally heated) discussion of our projects. Some travel time was built in as well, so outside of the quaint beachside Sidi Bou Said host town and nearby capital Tunis, many of us traveled North and South to take in as much of the Tunisian experience as possible. Not to mention our opportunity to wine and dine with the US Ambassador to Tunis at a reception at his private residence.
I am reluctant to go into heavy detail about the conference (mostly because it was so long ago, whoops), but here are some take-away thoughts:
-The people your US tax dollars have sent over here are brilliant and intellectually/culturally diverse.
-The range of projects wowed me: even in only half the MENA Fulbright pool gathered in Tunis, we had everything from a materials science masters student making construction-quality concrete from reused Moroccan mine waste ('slag') to a contemporary theater writer/director/researcher in Damascus.
-Friendships made over weekend conferences have an amazing ability to endure beyond their contextual limits (more on that in the next post as well)
Thanks Tunis, thanks Fulbright. But note to self, learn French.
*also, more pictures of this and Tim's visit available on Fbook for the friendly...
Day 283[despite this trip occurring almost two months ago, it's probably an important post in the travel/research/ramblings blog this has become...]
First off, having someone come visit you in the Middle East is a blast. You get to play tour guide, make practical use of language skills, and enjoy a short vacation yourself. Having that person be your older brother is just an added bonus.
Dana
...From the Dead Sea, Tim and I headed out with a big crew of my friends to Dana nature preserve. April is the best month to see Dana, and having a two-car caravan of excited outdoorsy folk made the trip a perfect kick-off for our around-Jordan tour itinerary. Dana is considered a unique success story for sustainable development, with all the baggage that term implies these days. A tiny village situated on the cliff above a vast wadi (valley), Dana makes an ideal spot for a protected nature reserve. After economic trends dried up the Dana economy in the 90s, the Jordanian government and NGO the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) turned the village and expansive wadi into an eco-tourism geared nature preserve, providing much needed capital to the area surrounding Tafiyleh--the small industrial town straddling the large mountains that rise out of the Dead Sea coast. The locals that stayed in the village or commute from neighboring villages are employed as hotel operators, nature guides, and handicraft entrepreneurs.
After relaxing in the quaint and Bedouin-inspired hotel, our group headed out the following morning (still stiff and sore from the races) for a 4 hr. hike. The descent down into the wadi is long and steep, comprising a myriad of switchbacks past small farm houses and herds of goats. Although still a bit sparse and desert-like for a nature preserve, in April Dana's trees and bushes are in full leaf and full bloom, and the ground is more or less carpeted with strange plants and herbs. If you pay attention to the little things at your feet, you're also apt to spot colorful lizards and butterflies. The real downside to the hike from the village-side of the preserve is the return trek up the switchbacks, which was long and exhausting, if not rewarding for the views of the valley floor below.
Wadi Rum
Parting ways with the bigger group, Tim and I diverted further south to Wadi Rum for a couple days of touring and camping. We arrived just before sunset at Beit 'Ali, an eco-lodge run by a British-Jordanian couple just outside the official Rum preserve. While Tim caught up on sleep, I shared the camp fire and some beer with a stock broker from Amman and a British family on holiday from Aqaba. The next morning we rendezvoused with a Bedouin Mohammad in Rum village, who operates Jeep and camel treks around Wadi Rum out to his secluded tent camp. Fairly tech-saavy for a Bedou, I had found his tour packages and phone number on his website (currently unavailable). Tim and I shared a Jeep tour with an Italian woman named Monica, piloted by one of Mohammad's employees Ruwan. I guess we were paired up with Ruwan instead of Mohammad himself because they quickly figured out I spoke Arabic and could act as translator and mediator for our car. The Jeep was a no-frills 1970s model (actually a Toyota I think), which Ruwan started and restarted via some hot-wiring below the steering wheel. Pretty 'adi here. Our circuitous route took us to WR's main attractions, including secluded springs surrounded by vibrant plant life, ancient inscriptions from the Nabitean people (of Petra fame), strange rock outcroppings and rock bridges, and several sites notable for having supposedly hosted T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) himself. Of course, and I think Tim would agree here, Wadi Rum's major attraction is Wadi Rum, and all the expansive views punctuated by sand dunes and massive vibrant red rock pillars. Our motor tour ended just before sunset at Mohammad's aptly-named Sunset Camp out in the desert. After a night of communal dining and Debkah dance in what amounted to the party tent, we indulged in the touristy pleasure of a morning camel ride back to Rum village to complete our stay. Two other campers came along for a four camel caravan of two hours of gentle swaying.
Petra
Leaving Rum in late morning, Tim and I had enough daylight to squeeze in a few hours in Petra outside of the quiet (but very touristy) town of Wadi Musa. Fortunately most of the European and Asian tourists were booking it out of the park by the time we descended through the narrow and high rock-walled siq into the ancient city. Impressed by the towering rock-hewn facades of temples, we were both a bit tired from the non-stop adventuring since Friday's race and stuck to a simple circuit of the main attractions, Nabitean and Roman, and saved the stiffer climbs til the next morning. After trekking up to Petra's peaks to check out the High Place of Sacrifice (of probably goats, not virgins) and the Monastery temple the second day, we were ready to hit the road back up to Amman. Trying to give Tim the full Jordan experience, I chose the King's Highway route which snakes (more switchbacks) through Jordan's beautiful middle North-South corridor back to the capital before darting, frustrated, to the bleak Desert Highway in the interest of time.
Amman and Irbid
On our last full day in Jordan, we explored downtown Amman on foot, taking in the Roman amphitheater, Ummayyid Palace on Jabel Al Qala', Darat Al-Fanun contemporary art gallery in Weibeh, and Hashem's restaurant for some sha'bi humus and ful. We caught a trusty Hijazi bus up to Irbid to meet up with my former Yarmouk dorm-mate and American Rotary scholar for some argheelah and a relaxing evening. Ahead of us was an early morning taxi and the trials and tribulations of the Northern border crossing to rendezvous with Tim's friend for 5 days in Israel. My tour guide and translation work done, I could breath a sigh of relief and look forward to playing the passive observer role. And so I also will defer more active observations to Tim's thoughts and memories of the next leg:
Israel
(Guest post from Tim forthcoming...)
Day 253
The opening salvo of my older brother Tim's two-week visit to Jordan was an early Friday morning race I had been training for, running from the outskirts of Amman down (and I do mean down, net-elevation drop was a nice feature) to the public beach at the Dead Sea. Unfortunately my training had been pretty skittish the previous month, ~60 miles/wk and a week off due to illness, but I was still out to have a good run and enjoy the down-time thereafter with Tim, traipsing all around Jordan. Plus, I could only squeeze in about 3.5-4 hours of sleep that night due to our late dinner and hectic provisions shopping.All in all, though, things went pretty well. The 15th annual Dead Sea marathon is actually 4 races in one: a short ultra (48k), a marathon, a half, and a 10k fun run. The fun run brought out Jordanians, resident ex-pats, and foreign tourists in droves. The start point and check-in were a nightmare, the busing system to the various start points was ill-managed, but nevertheless it was great to see so many enthusiastic runners in a country normally devoid of respect and recognition of the sport. One caveat though--it's still Jordan and I greatly enjoyed the sight of a number of runners lighting up for their last smoke in the waiting pen.
Tim followed in our rental car to the half start line, and acted as impromptu photographer and enthusiastic supporter at various stops along the way. My race had a couple of talented Jordanians in it (from the national team), so it quickly developed into a 4-man race where a third Jordanian guy and I battled it out for third in sight of the leaders. This was my first race in about 10 months, so I was a little rusty tactially-speaking, besides not being in tip-top shape. I cruised through 5k at 14:45 and 8k at 24:15 before settling down and trudging though the second half of the race. The route was pleasant, although hot (with no shade to speak of on the side of the highway)--so I made good use of the sponge and water stations. The last 5k or so was a bit frustrating, not only because it includes the only 3 or 4 long uphills on the course, but because slow jogging and walking 10k fun-runners were congesting the entire highway. After leaving my race partner at about 10k, I wrapped things up in 1:07 even for third place, which I was pretty pleased with, all things considered.
The various races had different prize systems, but my finish was good for a box of coffee products and a flashy new cell phone. So I could finally say goodbye to the standard base-line Nokia model "foreigner phone" and gain much-needed respect from the camera phone and ring tone culture here. On another bright note, my friend whom I had been coaching for her first half-marathon ended up switching to the full marathon distance last minute and pulled out a win! Her 3:34 was a couple minutes quicker than second place and, not to mention, a Boston marathon qualifier.
I had a big crew of ex-pat friends taking part in the race, from the 10k to the ultra, so with Tim included we all enjoyed the lavish post-race party beside the pool above a crowded Dead Sea beach. Then Tim and I kicked off the rest of the trip...
Day 253
yikes, a six week drought is up...
Perhaps needless to say, stuff came up and I got a bit swamped with things for a few weeks.
Anyways--in early spring here, I took off with some friends for a weekend in Wadi Rum and Aqaba. Rum is always a treat but the draw this go around was a new program offering flights over the Wadi in a microlight plane. A young female instructor pilot Basima, after smashing the glass ceiling at Jodan's commercial aviation academy, came up with the idea to fly the short jaunt from the airport in Aqaba, land on the dry lake bed outside Wadi Rum park and take up weekenders and tourists for 15-30 min. hops. The twist is, she goads you to do most of the flying (outside of landing). Fortunately it's pretty hard to screw up in such a light plane and I had a blast flying over Rum village and Jabl Rum. If you're an actual pilot, like one of my friends, you can pay half the price essentially and tool around solo.
So yeah that was amazing. Then we took our 4x4 truck way out into the reserve near the Saudi border and set up an isolated camp. I was still in training mode for a half marathon (more on that later)...so I did laps around the dry lake bed one day, and went for a sunset run from camp the next. Sunset run, alone, in the desert. Not a great idea. This is the happy pre-run picture, in which I am oozing (misplaced) confidence at my adventurous idea. I figured I could squeeze in 4 miles before dark, but turns out all your landmarks look different at dusk and from reverse. Short story is I made a wrong turn somewhere, and ten miles of frantic and frightened running via crude star navigation later, I finally saw the camp fire. The real fire, I should say--desert mirages are not just the stuff of myths. So a little dehydrated and bloodied (thorny desert bushes are hard to see and harder on the legs), I wolfed down our lavish BBQ feast and slept easy that night.
Turns out there is a (well-marked) nighttime race in Wadi Rum in late May. For various reasons I will not be partaking, but much respect to all those who do.
Day 209
Deja Vu? This is an even stranger coincidence than the recent coffee culture repetitions in the press. I first started the 'Weird News' series last December with this post, after I came across an letter to the editor bemoaning the 'immoral' trend of young Jordanians sagging their baggy pants.
That first piece I discounted as the marginal rantings of an out-of-touch member of the older generation in Jordan. Unfortunately, this more recent editorial [Arabic] is straight from the pen of a daily columnist for the popular Ad-Dustour newspaper and a respected issues-blogger (with both Arabic and English sites) on domestic and international political, economic, and social matters--and who, by the way, is considered a pioneer among (young) Jordanian bloggers for building a bridge between traditional print and e-media*.
The parallels in language between the letter-to-the-editor and this columnist's editorial are striking...
"Jordan Watch: Young people of the nation: Raise Your Sagging Trousers"
(previous post's headline: "A National Campaign: Raise your sagging pants young people!")
some exerpts:
-"I fully support the 'unwritten' directives of the Public Security Directorate (blogger's note: I cannot believe the PSD is tackling this issue and not a myriad of legitimate domestic security concerns) to reduce the phenomenon of the young men of our beloved country wearing sagging trousers that reveal a significant portion of their 'backs'"
-"As a Jordanian citizen, it is my right to not to have to be exposed to the experience of seeing the 'back' and underwear of the person walking in front of me or that tragic moment when they bend down to pick up a pack of cigarettes or money."
-"Young Jordanians' problem is not their outward appearance, but a general lack of attention to work and culture and a lack of clarity in their objectives that we want them to receive from older generations, who judge and misunderstand young people because of their external appearance."
* article also available on his Arabic blog
Day 198
So this iteration of the coffee culture question has more to do with the current economic situation in Jordan than specifically with changing coffee tastes. However, it does illustrate the observation I tried to make about the generational shift from traditional Arabic coffee to the Western style moving only as fast as economic progress in the country will allow: those who can afford cups at a Starbucks or similar venue are likely to make the switch, and the distribution of Western-style cafes in more affluent urban areas like West Amman proves the point.
For some context, early this year the Jordanian government removed gasoline, electricity, and heating oil subsidies to, among other reasons, keep its expanding Social Security program afloat (small world). Because of the ubiquitous role of these basic amenities in daily life, the price hikes have had a wide ripple affect, driving up prices for all kinds of commodities like food staples.
I think these two ideas are perfectly united in the following political cartoon, reprinted in Maraya News online, one of the emerging electronic news sites from my research...
Trans:
(A look at the serious skip)
1. "Honey, what do you think about drinking coffee in this cafe?" "Not here"
2. "Alright hun, here...great coffee...!" "No not here"
3. "Hey buddy, I want to get coffee with you...Nothing pleases you--enough, where do you want to drink coffee?" "Watch it!"
4. "Abu 'Adb, 2 coffees (with a little sugar) and a cup of water...you love of my heart!"
Day 190
Yes, you can ski in the Middle East.
Last weekend, I traveled with friends and roommates to Faraya, Lebanon (a mountaintop ski village about 40km north of Beirut). Although the drive there through Syria was not without hassle and misfortune--one of our group was turned away on account of a grumpy border officer and some ambiguous evidence of her trip to Israel :( --the weekend itself was a blast.
I hadn't been skiing in over a decade. And it showed. After my gracious roommates Lynn and Bestian gave me a quick ski lesson on our first run, I was off and skiing (and falling, a lot). But several hours later I was respectable enough to take on some green, blue, and even one red slope. The weather was perfect. Although the ski resort had a good 3 feet of snow from the winter for the slopes, it remained mostly sunny and probably in the 40s.
One special feature of skiing in Lebanon is that you can sit atop a mountain and overlook the Mediterranean (you can distinguish the horizon in the first pic). Faraya is a known haunt for Beirut affluent families, but the slopes weren't crowded until the official state weekend started on Saturday and I had to avoid the mother-duck-and-ducklings ski classes that were weaving down most of the runs. Note, most of these 8 year olds were much better than me, so I would usually let them pass and then tag along and follow their well-chosen routes down the descent.
Coming off the previous weekend's Dead to Red adventure, I found myself pretty exhausted after ~8 hours of skiing on each of the two days. Running fitness only transfers so well.
I'll have to go back to Beirut again. Just walking past some of the protest tent cities and down streets famous for their restaurant and night life flare before catching our ride up the mountain was a treat.
