Kusuus Daghril (Hidden Stories)

It's easy to make generalizations about a people when you live beside them, as any foreigner in Jordan, but when you live among them, as we do with our home stay families, the huge variety of lifestyles, beliefs, and narratives becomes readily apparent. In one family I know, the 23-year old daughter comes home from the mall with excessively provocative clothing, camisoles with mere flaps of fabric covering the stomach, in which she parades around the house, spending hours talking to her clandestine boyfriend on the phone until the wee hours of the morning. Until a few weeks ago, she had never prayed in her life; in the middle of her first time, she started laughing, as she had no idea how to properly prostrate herself. In another family, the women are not allowed out of the hosue without the father's permission, and the window shades must be closed at all times so other men--perhapse those in the adjacent apartment building--will have no opportunity to see the women in their unveiled state.

While this variance in religious practice is fairly common, at dinner tonight with friends, I began to hear the personal histories of everyone's host families, a subject we are all only beginning to understand, since something of so sensitive a nature is a story that must be earned, and is not easily or often discussed in a society like this. Thoug hall these families function on what I would call a normal level today, almost all of them, in one way or another, previously went through what I can only identify as unmistakable tragedy, though perhaps to them, it is merely what was put on their plate.

One girl, who lives with three, elderly sisters, finally found the answer to the question she had been wondering about all semester, yet had been too polite to ask. We all live with Palestinian families, so of course we want to know, when? How? Why Jordan?

The stories, of course, vary quite a bit, and are often coupled with anger, reinterpretation, misinterpretation, and resentment. Palestinians who came after '67 are somewhat more straight forward, but for those who came in '48, their stories intrigue me to no end, as there is such a huge collection of literature on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides explaining, in mostly opposing views, what exactly happened at the moment when an Israeli state was created in the place of the Palestinian community. Were they expelled, or did they leave? Whose fault was it? How was it possible that in a mere period of days, weeks, an entirely new political entity could arise where another was, and had been, for centuries prior, in the same place?

The oldest sister, now in her eighties, was a teenager when it all happened; she remembers it as clear as a bell. There was no violence, not any that she saw, rather, the British troops in their community began spreading lies, telling them they had to leave for ten days, just temporarily, and that they would return to their homes shortly. Eager to comply, her family moved into a tent for two weeks an hour east of Jaffa, each member only taking a small backpack of clothes, leaving their houses, bank accounts, and family heirlooms behind. She remembers the tent being "like summer camp", an adventure, until two weeks passed by, and her family didn't return home--they kept moving east. Someone--she wasn't sure who--had come and told her parents that they could never return, and her parents had no choice but to resettle the family in the small town that, with the coming influx of Palestinians, would rise to become the capital of Jordan, Amman. Neighbors who hadn't heeded the warnings of the British and had stayed soon reported to her parents that a Jewish family had moved into the family's house in Jaffa the next day, taking over all their possessions, as if an entirely different family hadn't lived there for years just a few weeks ago.

Utterly incomprehensible. I cannot even begin to understand how either family--the uprooted Palestinians, or the Jewish family in their former home--could merely continue on as normal after that. The sister mentioned that now, great animosity exists between families like hers--who left at the heeding of the British, and were unable to return, those like her former neighbors, who stayed through the creation of Israel, and now resent those who left, saying they were too scared, too eager to do the bidding of the British, and if more had stayed, Palestine would not have been lost. My host father's family was from Jaffa as well, yet he is young enough to have been born in Jordan. Depsite not having any sort of painful uprooting like the one the elderly sister had, he is completely irrational about the conflict, constantly insisting that at some point in the near future, the Arabs will eliminate all the Jews, Israel will cease to exist, and that this is the obvious solution "that everyone knows will happen". He is so lost in this fantasy that it is not even worth discussing with him. The sister, however, who wasn't allowed to return to her home, whose family lost everything, doesn't blame the Jews--only the British. In her view, the British had grown tried or trying to placate the two sides, had promised the creation of a Jewish state, and therefore had to get rid of the Palestinians, by whatever means possible. I don't think the transition was as creepily smooth across the board by any means--as many historians have documented, violence did occur. In a way, it would make more sense to me if violence had occured; it is much more distrubing to me that so great a transition--the uprooting of a family, never again to return, the erasure of a community, and an identity, transplanted to a largely uninhabited area, could happen in a mere span of weeks. What a feeling of instability the must have felt, everything that meant home to them, minus their relatives, gone in the blink of an eye. What a great amount of things I take for granted, my fixed nationality and identity being one of them.

Everyone here has their hidden stories, and no one has been left unaffected by the upheavals that have plagued this area ever since the gradual release of the grip of colonialism. My host mother spent most of her childhood in Kuwait; sometimes she shows me pictures of her and her siblings playing dress up in a plush living room, gleefully running on beautiful white sandy beaches without a care in the world. Then Arafat supported Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, and all the Palestinians were thrown out of Kuwait, again...everything was lost, and they had to start over from scratch in Amman. In the process, her father suffered three strokes and died when she was merely fourteen. Now, years later, her oldest brother, just one year older than her, tries to provide for the six-person family on his salary as an administrator at the local university. It is not easy to get a job in Jordan--the economy, though growing, is meager at best, and in so small a country where wasta--the social ties in between families--weighs heavily in the professional realm, your smarts or skills often have very little to do with the job you may or may not get.

Everyday, I think to myself....I am so, so lucky to have had the life that I have.

Qahira--Umm al-Dunia (Cairo, Mother of the Universe)

For years, I have been dreaming of coming to Cairo. When I first decided to study abroad in the Middle East, Egypt was my first inclination, but after comparing programs and negotiating with my parents, Jordan seemed to be a better location for my first trip to the Middle East. In a way, I've been so focused on Jordan and all the issues and culture surrounding it I had forgotten how much I had fallen in love with Egypt from afar--and so I was taken aback by the sheer euphoria I felt when I stepped off the hour-long plane ride from Amman yesterday afternoon.

From a tour bus window, Cairo unfurled itself before me, like an unkempt garden, everything growing and dying at its own uncontrolled pace, as if the full range of humanity was contained within this sprawling metropolis. Incredible beauty, incredible poverty, relics from every historical period, places of worship of every religion--you name it, Cairo has it. Driving away from the airport, I felt as though I could have been in San Diego; white apartment buildings with massive clusters of satellite dishes covering their roofs, with a wonderful profusion of green vines and trees with brightly colored flowers twisting around wrought-iron gates, proving a welcome contrast to the red-tinged sands of the African continent that leave no Cairene surface untouched. Within the first ten minutes, I saw a sign leading to the "Virgin Mary's Tree", a weathering Olympic village, whose pristine white buildings had faded to yellow, its entrance graced by a variety of different officers on horseback, shooting the shit in the midday sun, and an old woman clad in a bright, floral dress--no black abaya--skillfully balancing an iron pot on her head while walking down the street. Descending into the city from the high way, I rounded a corner to see men of all ages and dress literally spilling out of a mosque into its courtyard, all prostrating themselves on colorful prayer rugs facing east towards Mecca. There were even a few women praying as well, which is virtually unheard of in Amman--the mosque, for the most part, is a male domain (not quite sure how I feel about that, but it seems to be the overriding custom.) Everywhere I looked, opposites appeared next to one another--a dusty, deserted bus station sat next to a pristine, iron and steel office building; a small donkey outfitted in a festive purple saddle pulled a cart of reeds, upon which a young girl was reclining in the afternoon heat, in front of a French pottery store, whose signage was all in English.

There seemed to be a bit of uproar as our colossal bus grunted and heaved its way up a narrow, tree-lined street--at all times, people were running in and out of the street with no mind to the oncoming traffic, yet I soon came to realize that what may have looked like chaos to me, was in fact completely under control to them. While in Amman, traffic rules are certainly arbitrary, for the most part, in Cairo, the pedestrians are expected to behave just as daringly--moreover, there are probably about 15x as many of each of them. Walking in the path of oncoming cars not being  one of my past times, I was absolutely petrified the first time I ventured out into the streets once we had settled down into our hotel in Muhandiseen, a rapidly-developing neighborhood in Giza (on the west side of the Nile, as opposed to Cairo proper, which is on the east side). Staring out across a seemingly endless six lanes of traffic (to be fair, six is an approximate number--the amount of lanes in any given road is completely up to interpretation and fluctuates by the second), I realized that if I didn't overcome my aversion, I'd probably be stuck on this cement barrier, I watched a few of the pros do it, and stepped out into the boulevard. Once I saw that it was ok to stop in between lanes, and pause for a bit as cars whipped by either side of you, it really wasn't so bad. Cairo life-skill number one, accomplished!

My program gave us a mixture of academic lectures, free time, experiential assignments ,and site visits to give us a complex understanding of the driving forces and issues within Egyptian society, as well as the rich legacy of Egyptian history. I was able to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx, Muhammed Ali's Citadel, the Coptic Quarter, numerous stunning mosques, and countless other sites. An academic highlight for me was being able to go to the headquarters of the Arab League, the regional body that functions somewhat like the UN; there, we received a lecture from the Head Advisor to the Secretary-General on the region's struggled for democratization, approach towards peacemaking and diplomacy with non-Arab partners, and spearheading economic development within member states. I enjoyed this lecture particularly because our speaker, Hisam Yusef, was willing to be self-critical, a characteristic not often found among many Arab intellectuals addressing Western students. Yusef compared the Arab League to the EU, saying that the Arab League had been defining its membership in the wrong way, or rather, overestimating the value of Arab unity. The EU had achieved a single currency among people of different nationalities and different languages through economic cooperation, never using the rhetoric of unity, while the Arabs had rallied around unity from the start and achieved nothing. Just as the Europeans started with economic alliances over coal and steel, our speaker noted the recent linkage of gas power plants within the region as the Arab League's equivalents--instead of relying upon slogans, it was time to unite Middle Eastern countries over partnerships with tangible benefits. Yusef continued to address the issue of democratization, expressing frustration with America's adoption of democracy at the international pulpit, as its advocacy for something that is, and has been being fought for for many years merely allowed religious radicals within Middle Eastern states to invalidate the struggle for democracy on its basis of being un-Islamic, and a foreign concept. As to the disparity between democracy in the West and in the Middle East, he pointed to colonialism as the differentiating factor. The Arab League was created in 1963, and started with just 6 of its now 22 member states--because only 6 of them had independence, and thus political self-determination, at that time. To this day, there are still many forces fighting the democratization within the region, yet he reinforced his desire for democracy, as have many of the other Arabs with whom I have spoken, even the most anti-American ones.

In my time studying the cultural and religious phenomena of other civilizations, there always exists the struggle between upholding your own, inevitably subjective notion of universal human rights and maintaining a politically correct level of cultural sensitivity--the study of female genital mutilation comes to mind. Quite often, I find that students overcompensate on the side of cultural sensitivity so as to not appear ignorant or overbearing. However, my experiences here have made me quest that pattern of analysis, because more than anything, in coming and living with people of another culture, you realize the great similarities you have in common, certain cultural and political obstacles aside. Yusef and many other lecturers and people I've spoken to, are more than willing to make direct comparisons with American society, and are eager to convey the political and social movements within their homelands as just the same as those America and Europe may have gone through a few centuries ago. More than anything, I continue to realize the similar hopes and desires between the people I meet here, and those I know within my own society, and continue to take that into consideration when viewing the region's conflicts, instead of dismissing certain issues as untouchable in an effort to remain culturally sensitive. Sometimes, acknowledging common goals is more productive than refusing to try to understand. 

Outside of politics, Egypt is a country that seems to be going through somewhat of an identity crisis, or rather, has so many different identities, it is hard to know which one to adopt. Egyptians take great pride in their heritage, often going so far as to refuse to be called Arabs, saying they are descended from the Pharoahs, not the Bedouin people. I like this, because it makes religion a part of their identity, but not the sole defining factor, whereas most Arabs are taught that there was nothing before Islam--it was merely the Jahiliyya (Age of Ignorance). Moreover, stretching back into the ancient Pharoanic times, Egypt has a long history of foreign intervention, contributing to the immense, multi-faceted historical legacy and influence. As it stands, the economy is incredibly reliant on tourism as its driving industry, and as such, the government does whatever it can to maintain the droves of visitors that come to Cairo every year. Unlike in Amman, where there are considerably fewer tourists, in Cairo, I saw people of every color, speaking countless different languages on a daily basis; European, Russian American, Asian, Hispanic, Arab, African--they're all in Cairo. And unlike myself and those in my program, who have been counseled in the cultural rules of the area, at the Egyptian Museum was confronted with masses of middle-aged Russian women, stretch marks on their exposed breasts, butt cheeks hanging out of their cut-off shorts--how they were at all comfortable next to women in niqab, let alone the aggressive eyes of the local men--was beyond me. Though foreigners and locals alike are lowering their standards of modesty as the weather heats up, I have grown overly sensitive to displays of skin that I normally would not have batted an eye about before.

A huge percentage of the population is somehow connected to the tourism industry, and thus, there are many places in Cairo that pride themselves on having an exclusively Western scene. For example, at the Cairo Jazz Club, Westerners are allowed in free, while Arab men must pay a cover charge of 200 pounds; women in hijab aren't allowed in the front door. In contrast, driving back from a group dinner one night, out of the window of a taxi I saw an advertisement for a store entitled "Sxy", proclaiming, 'it's good to be feminine, it's good to be sexy, it's good to be veiled, it's good to be you'--all in English. Obviously, there seem to be competing forces at work.

I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with my friends from Brandeis, Meredith and Charlie, both of whom are studying abroad this semester at the American University of Cairo--they were both wonderful hosts and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to visit them (my door in Amman is always open!) Being the brave souls that they are, they made the decision to live in an apartment in the downtown area, instead of in Zamalek, the tranquil island in the middle of the Nile where most AUC students live, that is considerably calmer than the downtown area. After showing me around the campus, where the upper crust of Egyptian youth resides, private chauffeurs and Gucci sunglasses at the ready, Charlie and I went on an expedition into Khan al-Khalili, the centuries-old bazaar filled with tents of haggling merchants, who all thought I was Spanish for some reason. The market is near Islamic Cairo, and is filled with tons of wonderful, one of a king goods that unless you are quite savvy, you will most likely get ripped off for. My ability to speak Arabic helped quite a bit in getting the prices down, and I escaped with some handmade leather flats in different colors, lots of scarves, and some jewelry--much less than some others in my program, some of whom came away with upwards of 4 sheeshas. A friend of Charlie's had heard about a special tower deep within the heart of the marketplace that he had climbed and had incredible views of the city, so once our shopping was concluded, we plunged into the suq, going deeper and deeper until the throngs of tourists had given way to locals who were buying the same goods as the Westerners up front, at considerably deflated prices. A huge stone archway divided the edge of the marketplace from the beginning of a residential area, and at its base, sat a tiny corner store, its attendant smoking argileh in the fading afternoon heat, absent-mindedly counting the dusty glass soda bottles that had been left behind in order to be redeemed for a rebate. 

Checking the name, Charlie tentatively asked: "Fein Bab al-Zumayli? Hun?"

"Ah, Fowq"

Pointing upwards, the store keeper indicated we were standing right below the tower, and needed to climb up the stairs on the other side of the street. Though it was technically closed to tourists after 5, after haggling with the groundskeeper and explaining it was my last day in town, he relented (read: baqsheesh (a bribe) was involved). The first flight of stairs was nothing special, though at its base was a sign reading, "You are now outside of Cairo"--apparently, in centuries past, this had been the old wall of the city. The first flight of stairs brought us to an open, flat stone surface; two narrow minarets (towers) lay at its edge. Employing our handy built-in cell phone flashlights, we ascended the first tower, an incredibly cramped, unlit stone spiral staircase that wound around for what seemed like ages. Though not for the faint of heart, or fearful of heights, the view that greeted us at the top was definitely stunning, with the different quarters of the city melding into one, and the glimmering Nile slicing down their middle.

It would be impossible to speak about everything I saw and learned in Cairo, but let me mention a few brief notes before signing off:

a) The Coptic Museum--Though nowhere near as cool as seeing the gorgeous, intact mosques (the museum held tons of artifacts and relics from Christian sites elsewhere in Egypt, as opposed to one intact whole), I was fascinated to learn that the practice of asceticism within Christianity was first practiced by the Copts and later spread to Europe. Best pieces included ancient disintegrating robes worn by the first ascetics, and a complete copy of the Gospels written in Arabic.

b) Grave of Imam al-Shafi--desperately wanted to see this, but didn't have time--also on my meant to do but didn't get around to list--going to a Purim party at one of the local synagogues (with my fellow Brandeisians in tow, of course). Was sure it wouldn't top a Brandeis Purim, but I thought it would be an interesting cultural experience. In the end, we decided to play it safe and go for sangria in Zamalek. 

On our last afternoon, we went on a peaceful felucca ride on the Nile--think a slightly larger, Egyptian version of a gondola, complete with built-in picnic tables, another respite from the constant traffic, pollution and constant motion that characterizes life in Cairo. I think I would need many, many months to see all there is in Cairo, let alone Egypt, but insha'allah I will return very soon. I'm now back in Amman for yet another week of class, where I'll be finishing up my research project on the Performing Arts  in the Jordanian educational system, before taking off on one more organized trip around Jordan to see Petra, Aqaba, and Wadi Rum. Following that, we'll have a final week of classes, and then our ISP period begins--funny how time flies. After a week of Cairo, Amman is a complete breeze, I feel very comfortable here, though I continue to discover new things, like an amazing organic restaurant yesterday afternoon that is part of a foundation supporting nature preservation and ecotourism in Jordan. I will also be celebrating my 21st birthday soon!

Homework calls.....ma'salaama

al-Kheema al-Ahmar (The Red Tent)

Just a few days ago, I returned from a week-long rural home stay in the Badia region, in a quiet Bedouin village adjacent to the Syrian border known as Der al-Kha'if. While I have been in Jordan for the past month or so, the majority of the host families in my program, as well as the majority of the population of the capital, is all Palestinian, so this week was an opportunity for me to become acquainted with the minority Bedouin community that constitutes the native Jordanian population. In many ways, my program continues to surprise me with their high expecations for their students--we barely discussed the trip until the day before departure, during which each student was handed a slip of paper with three pieces of information: the name of their host family, the name of their village, and the name of the bus station in downtown Amman from where we were to depart from. While we were expected to travel in groups and check in with our director once safely arrived, I, as well as many others, were still feeling a bit flung into oblivion--while we have grown familiar with the streets, taxi routes, and general social customs and expectations of Amman, going into the Badia is a completely different ball park. Needless to say, while it wasn't absolutely mandatory, I had no reservations about donning the hijab our teachers suggested might be a cultural overture (post-trip, I couldn't stand wearing it, it was incredibly hot and annoying!). While sitting on the side of a small, rinkety bus, the 10 or so Bedouin men having squeezed themselves into the front section so as to make room for the inexplicable group of 6 American students in the back of the bus, I saw a sign reading "50 km to Iraq", and began to question exactly which life decisions had brought me to the edge of this godforsaken desert, and how exactly to function in my new surroundings. As a newcomer to tribal society, it was a bit hard for me to grasp that if I told the bus  driver the name of my host father, he would know exactly which house to take me to, but nevertheless, after a few hours, we pulled up to a small clustering of houses by the side of a sandy road, and a tiny, ancient Bedouin woman with faded green barbed wire tattoos emanating from the sides of her mouth appeared from behind a tin gate, and gestured for the three of us--myself and the two other girls in my village--to follow her. Once inside, we were ushered into a long, narrow sitting room with an iron stove in its center, and brightly colored cushions lining the floor--no furniture to speak of, and thus began the multiple founds of bitter shots of coffee contrasted with large glasses of disgustingly sweet tea. Wanting to ingratiate myself with my hosts, I accepted their suggestions and began downing the cups of hot liquid, only to  become nauseous after about half an hour due to the severe sugar crash combined with the heat of the radiating furnace--clearly I was going to have to learn to set some dietary boundaries while staying within the realm of politeness. Definitely easier said than done in the Badia.

Though I had the opportunity to visit the few points of interest of the village--the boys and girls schools, the Roman ruins, etc., most of my time was spent in the company of the women of my family, whose lives revolve, more or less, around raising their children and serving their husbands. While a devoted parent is certainly better than a negligent one, the prominence of children as the sole purpose of their lives often manifested itself in negative ways, as their eagerness to fulfill their child's wants and needs came at the expense of discipline. In America, even most stay-at-home mothers have other priorities or responsibilities, and so they may be a situation in which the child's desires cannot always take precedence over everything else--not so in the Badia. Aside from the responsibilities of cooking, which was almost always a group activity, the mothers would often sit idly in the house, waiting for the next child to start crying so they could begin accommodating their needs. On top of the noxious tea, multiple forms of candy and junk food was served throughout the day--whenever a child started causing trouble, the reaction was usually either a showering of chocolate or a slap on the face. Not surprisingly, the kids had tons of cavities--my first reaction was that this was just irresponsible parenting, but upon discussing this with my host family in Amman, I acknowledged that they may not have been exposed to the same level of education as I had had, especially by way of nutrition (though to be fair, this may apply to the entire country as far as I'm concerned.) I tend not to be too big of a fan of my Amman host father, Ra'ed, but he occasionally has spurts of wisdom, the latest of which was: 

"Alysha, you can't blame them if they don't know; that is lesson number two. You know what lesson number one is? They don't want to know. Now you see what the real Jordan is really like"

Despite the apparent infrastructure for the assimilation of new ideas into their lifestyles--schooling until the age of marriage, television, cell phones with internet access, etc., Ra'ed's last comment resonated with me because it did seem, in many ways, as though this small community was resisting many forms of change, and many of its residents seemed to be from another time altogether. The elderly patriarch of the doctor's family, husband to the grandmother  who had greeted me the first day, was known throughout the village as the Hajji, due to his multiple trips to the Ka'aba. During one day, the women had all congregated in a hut adjacent to the main house, where they were all drinking tea and chopping vegetables in preparation for the midday meal. While all the women were very insistent about modesty--I was once chastised for revealing a few inches of leg while I put on my tennis shoes under my long skirt (ankle socks appear not to be done there)--they were also always asking me to take off my hijab among the women so they could see my hair. This occurred at the very same moment that the Hajji opened the door of the hut, and upon seeing my locks of hair, immediately got a scandalized look on his face and quickly shut the door. A mere bit of hair, something that would raise no attention in most places, takes on an entirely different connotation. 

While the older generations were aesthetically different, many of the younger generation looked like they could easily be walking the streets of any Western city, yet their attitudes remained similar to those of their elders. Given his access to a vehicle and retired army status, an uncle of the family, Zeid, was recruited to escort us on all our out-of-the-house excursions. Though I think he meant well, the immense favoritism that is given to male children throughout their upbringing was clear  in his misogynistic comments and behavior--he treated all the women in his family like servants, snapping and yelling at them to do his bidding, including his 8 year old daughter, who was at the beck and call of not only her father, but three year old brother, the apple of Zeid's eye, who also accompanied us on all our outings. At one point, the three of us were in his car, and Zeid stepped out to pick up something from the post office, leaving the son behind. With a snide grin, he turned around while getting out of the car, saying, "ok, he's in charge." Alhamdulillah, we were ever so glad to have this brave strong three year old looking after us helpless women!

Zeid developed a routine for introducing the three Americans in his tow, which he used when he brought us to his father's home, which went something along the lines of: "This is Kristen, she grew up in Saudi Arabia, this is Alysha, she's Armenian, this is Becca--she's all white and speaks horrible Arabic" (poor Becca, who was staying in his house, become very discouraged very quickly). After many of the women commenting that I had an "Arab nose", Zeid has asked me about my ethnic background, but only after verifying that it was my father and not my mother who was Armenian, did he go on to include that tid bit of information in his introductions--in Jordan, women are not allowed to pass on their citizenship to their children, so if a Jordanian woman has a child with a man of another nationality, she cannot pass on her citizenship to him or her child, often forcing her to leave the country, or worse, to stay in an abusive relationship abroad for fear of  being unable to b ring her child from that union into Jordan. I suspect if I had said my mother was Armenian, he would have continued to just introduce me as American. There does exist somewhat of a double standard regarding how foreign, especially American, women are treated--after three days of watching Zeid treat all his female family members like servants, he confided in me that he thinks Hillary is far better than Obama, and he hopes that she wins. On the other hand, I'm unsure if his favoring of Hillary had anything to do with the latent racism (to be fair, the Badia is not exactly the height of education/cultural sensitivity) towards those of a darker skin color--in another student's house, the movie "US Marshals" was playing one night, and apparently the entire family was screaming "Get the black face! Get the black face!" I suppose the concept of civil rights and race equality has never been fully embraced in such an ethnically homogenous country, Palestinian and Bedouin differences aside. Regardless, Zeid's father was another man who seemed to be stranded in the wrong century--dressed in simple gray robes, the bright red and white checks of his kafiyeh contrasting deeply with his dark, leathery skin the color of tree sap, the patriarch sat in a raised chair in a parlor room surrounded by other men all in lower chairs around the perimeter of the room--he seemed to be holding court. After Zeid made his usual round of introductions, I was gestured to sit next to the old Bedouin, who after ponder the information Zeid had presented, turned towards me, and in a stern tone, asked:

"Anti muslimeen?" (Are you a Muslim?)

"La, Ana Massreehiyah" (No, I'm Christian)

"Taslahee?" (Do you pray?)

While not wanting to create a fictional representation of myself, I realized at that moment that to explain my wayward observance of Christianity (Christmas Eve services, once a year, sometimes) and my enthusiasm for religion as an academic subject rather than a spiritual practice, would perhaps not go over so well. I quickly answered that yes, I did pray, sometimes--an answer that appeared to not be good enough for him. After discovering that my two other fellow students were also not Muslim, he more or less dismissed us, and that was that.

One thing I found particularly troubling within the household dynamics was the complete acceptability and self-perpetuating cycle of  violence in the family--within my first few hours of being in the village, the youngest girl, Sajida, was viciously sticking her mother in the back with a hair pin, merely because she had ceased to become the center of attention. Despite the pain she was clearly feeling, the mother did nothing to discipline the girl, just looking at me with a resigned smile in between winces. Her eldest brother, however, saddled over to her, grabbed the pin, and proceeded to slap her in the face, 5 times, hard. When her screams became deafening, the mother finally pulled the brother off. Similarly, on the last day, Sajida was engaging me in hand slap game, completely harmlessly albeit relentlessly, as company was over to meet me before I left the next morning. While I couldn't get her to stop altogether, it was easy to hold her off, but her father looked over and told me to just hit her to get her to stop altogether, it was easy to hold her off, but her father looked over and told me to just hit her to get her to stop--I told him absolutely not, because if I hit her, that would send the message that hitting was an appropriate way for her to try to get others' to change their behavior. It seemed that rationale wasn't registering with him, or anyone else in the family. Not only was everyone hitting each other all the time, but they had all become so desensitized to that kind of behavior that it held no real significance anymore.

On our last day, Zeid decided to take us out into the desert to see a great uncle's sheep farm. However misplaced I may have felt in the village, the farther our Jeep crept off-road over the cracked brown earth riddled with rocks, the more I felt as though I was going back in time. For anyone who has read "The Red Tent", the scene that  greeted me twenty minutes later seemed as though it could have come straight from that book. Truly in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but empty space on every horizon line, no electricity or running water, sat two huge tents about a quarter mile apart, each surrounded by multiple sheep corrals. The animals were hastily tied together at the neck in long lines and were being milked, one by one, by the daughters and wives of the family while the men continued to shepherd the new animals into the service line. We entered one of the tents to find an ancient blind woman, her eyes sealed shut, who talked in a law,raspy voice, and seemed as though she must be over 100. Naturally, we were invited in both campus to sit down for tea and coffee, and while sitting on a ragged, dirt stained carpet, it struck how small these peoples' world was--their entire existence was geographically confined to the walls of this tent and the herds of animals outside of it. I tried to fathom the tiny amount of people they have been, and will ever be, exposed to, especially the women, as the men typically drive the thirty minutes into the village for whatever supplies they may need. It was truly humbling to see the simplicity of their lives contrasted with the complexity of my own--traveling places, interacting with so many people, seeking and digesting so much information and knowledge on a daily basis--I forget that for many people in the world, their way of life has not changed so much over the past hundred years.

Now, back in Amman, I am relishing in my newfound appreciation for indoor plumbing, and am preparing for another week of classes before our trip to Egypt. We celebrated our return from the Badia with a wonderful afternoon at the Dead Sea, but were greeted with rising political tensions when we returned to the capital that evening. As I assume/hope that are reporting in America as well, IDF operations in Gaza over the past week took the lives of around 130 civilians, which is causing significant resentment and anger among Amman's Palestinian population, to the point that our program directors forbid us from attending any political demonstrations that were to happen yesterday after the Juma'a prayers, and recommended we lay low in general. If the demonstrations occurred without the consent of the King, I would not put it past the police to use excessive force to quell the protests. Of course, the news of the Jerusalem seminary shooting came late Thursday night--I felt as though I was living through one of Shai's lectures about violence derailing the peace process (shout out to the CPME crowd). Nonetheless, I am hoping things smooth out over the next week, and I continue to go about my business as usual, albeit cautiously.