Tine Visit, Madaba, Dead Sea, Mount Nebo, Jabal Qala, Ajloun

The past couple of weeks have been great. I've been lucky enough to be visited (Tine!) and therefore go on some cool trips. Ergo, there are photos. Full disclosure, Tine gets full credit for all pictures, its her skills not mine and one can likely tell by the results. 

Tine landed during the tail end of the snowstorm (photos in previous post). The shitty weather largely made trips impossible the first weekend, so we checked out other bits of Amman, like Rainbow street. We had a great time, as usual I love introducing new friends to old friends and watching what happens, so the weekend went well. Tine then left me for Jerusalem for a couple of days, when she got back we took off for Madaba which I remembered and reaffirmed as one of my favorite places in Amman. We got lucky with a good drive, a decent hotel, and by finding the big Catholic church in Madaba. A really nice guy working there told us about the Christian population of the city, which he quoted to be about 5,000 families. We hung out in the church, climbed the bell tower and looked through the mosaics and photos of its history. The church was established in the 1800s when several Christian families moved from Karak (in the south) to Madaba with the assistance of the Vatican and established a church and school. The photos include Ottoman officials, Polish and Italian priests, and simple insights to life over a hundred years ago. I also learned that there has recently been established a catholic university in Madaba, which for reasons has been named the American University of Madaba. Someone should look into establishing an Arabic program out of there. Definitely my favorite part of Madaba. 

We took the opportunity as well to get a cab and go to the Dead Sea and Mt. Nebo (where Moses saw the promise land, etc. and possibly is buried). The Dead Sea continues to be one of, if not my favorite spot in the country. I've said it previously, but its just one of those places that you hear about and doesn't disappoint. Check out the pictures of the huge salt rocks on the beach. I don't remember seeing so many when I went previously, but like any beach there are sticks and rocks washed up, but at the Dead Sea their encased in salt, so its a bit like its frozen in place. The salt breaks off in big chunks and generally just makes the beach beautiful. The feeling the salt leaves is definitely unique but I enjoy it, not everyone does. The sunset, however, I'm pretty sure is loved by all. 

Tine also came with us on a Middlebury trip to Ajloun. The castle in Ajloun is a crusader-era fort built by Muslim forces to defend the area. It's built on big hill, and is huge, it appears even bigger from within.  The views were great and the trip overall, long, but very nice. The north of Jordan is awesome and I haven't explored it nearly enough. I assume I'll have plenty of time this summer, when I'm in Irbid. 

The next day we did the mandatory trip to the Amman citadel, called Jabal Qala. It was the center of the Roman and Byzantine cities in Amman, and one of the sites preserving the vast age of the city. The views are beautiful and the monument setup is massive. We were very lucky with good weather. The pictures, again mostly Tine, show better than I can tell. 

The Catholic Church in Madaba

Really old mosaics in said church

Kids playing in one of the two schools attached to the church.

View from the bell tower

Again

Guy reading, as seen from bell tower (I thought it was a cool shot, don't blame Tine)

Another really old mosaic elsewhere in Madaba (I think Mt. Nebo)

Tine thought the view to the North of Mt. Nebo (not the promise land) was cooler. 

Me, at the Dead Sea

Salt rocks

Looking back into the hills. The Dead Sea is the lowest point in the world.

Dead Sea

BAM mandatory sunset photo

View from Ajloun

Inside the castle

In Ajloun we checked out a small community outside the city, took a tour of a work project where women from the community grow herbs, tend olive trees and make soap. 

View from the citadel. Note the huge flag, Amman.

The Citadel. Amman was once known as Philadelphia. 

Roman Theatre

Khalas

Salaam

Weather

I feel like the weather here thus far is worthy of a post. Right now its brightly sunny and in the low 40ºs. The past two days has been cold rain. In the two weeks before that however, it was also brightly sunny with highs in the low 70ºs. So far I haven't really gotten sick from the weather but everyone else in the program (and the city) seems to be. 

The weather obviously isn’t that cold, the problem is buildings really aren’t insulated at all and heating either doesn’t work in some of the apartments or in my case, is electric and costs ridiculously high amounts. Also, come the snow, the entire city basically shuts down. Snow driving isn’t a widely held skill and when I went out in a taxi on the biggest snow day, the driver would repeatedly swerve into the small snow banks on the sides of the road. The common past time seems to be to hang out on the sidewalks and throw snow balls at the cars passing, dangerous for sure and while most of the drivers I saw had a sense of humor about it, some didn’t. About six inches of snow closed everything down and I mean everything, small shops didn’t even open. Its much more understandable when you know that most people don’t have the appropriate clothing (boots, etc) and that the roads aren’t really properly plowed (although I saw plenty of bulldozers driving around scraping snow up). Most people have told me this is an unusual amount of snow and rain, but its very, very welcome because of the constant water shortage. Jordan is one of the most water poor countries in the world. 

It was also cool to notice the differences in weather from within the city. The multiple small mountains and hills Amman is built around means that it could be snowing in one part of the city and raining in another, with obviously more changes due to how north you are in the city and where the storm is centered around. Not unique, but cool to witness. 

Amman - Same City, New People

The travel blog is back! I'll be writing more frequently now I hope, with pictures to come. (Although unlikely as many pictures as Morocco/Egypt)

I've been in Amman for three weeks now. It's taken me a while to get to writing, my apologizes, but I hope to make this a better habit.

I came a week before the rest of the students were set to arrive because the Boren mandates that I spend exactly six months here, and my two programs combined were a week short. I set up a week of one-on-one Arabic lessons (with fantastic help from the Midd staff here) that proved to be really helpful. The professor was super flexible, set up lessons on the spot, and had innovative ways of thinking about the language that really helped me refresh my basics. I had class three hours a day and had not to much else to do the rest of my time.

It's been a lot better since the rest of the students showed up. We have a good group, the other students are fun and seem very dedicated. Everyone has their own experience traveling in the region or elsewhere, their own stories from home, their own views, ambitions, and backgrounds to share (in Arabic). I've really enjoyed some evenings out in cafes, (learning) and playing backgammon, etc. Orientation week was really well run, well organized and pretty helpful for learning how things work at the University. A better job probably could have been made to show us the city, as if I didn't already have an idea of where I was I don't think I would be situated at all. The administration is very hands off to say the least.

Classes started this week and my schedule is awesome, I have class Sunday-Wednesday from 11am-5pm. My modern standard Arabic class is at exactly the level I think I should be at, and its nice to study the language outside of the damn Al-Kitaab books.  My colloquial Arabic class is less helpful, there seems to be no good way to structure that class. I'm also taking Literature and Politics. All of the classes are only with other kids in the program, meaning the language pledge is followed and the classes are small (8-12). The language pledge is exactly what it sounds, from the moment I wake up and ask my roommate if he's made coffee or I have to make it, all of our conversations are in Arabic. It makes the days exhausting as there's no real break. I step out of Arabic class to go to lunch... in Arabic. It gets frustrating more with Jordanians who speak perfect English (there are many) than it is with other people in the program because we in the program will help each other while any random person just wants to talk to us, ask a question, interact and we're insisting on speaking a (very rough) version of their language.

The Literature course is a survey course of modern Arabic literature, read and taught in Arabic. It's hard. The professor just rattles stuff off about famous writers, the different structures of stories, whats a novel, short story, life story, and how their defined, the terms for setting, character development, etc. He talks a mile a minute for 90 minutes. It's tough but definitely helpful. I'm able to follow the lectures to a large extent and after staring at the readings for long enough, and with judicious use of my dictionary, I can get the readings too. This is the first week, so I expect both the class to get harder and my Arabic to get better, so we'll see.

The Politics course is a whole different beast. The professor is largely American educated, has taught and lived in the US for years and has worked as a political advisor for both this King and the last. The class so far seems to be oriented towards a history/discussion of politics in the Middle East and Jordan. He doesn't have all that much patience with this language pledge thing and sometimes rattles off a term or two in English rather than go through the pain of explaining it in Arabic. The first class was excessive English-wise, but the second lecture was great. We're starting with the Arab revolt (~WWI) and presumably going from there. The lectures aren't necessary organized, but they flow logically, and we're getting a lot of useful terms thrown at us as well as an insight to how Jordanian (albeit foreign educated) academics view their own history. One glaring example today was the focus on the British betrayal of Sherif Hussein and his sons Abdulla and Faisal. When asked about what role the Al-Saud family had during this time and all that, he pretty much just changed the subject. I'm looking forward to hearing this guy talk about politics and respond to our questions. Plus I'm with a sharp group of students who will definitely ask some good questions. The professor is also helping me out with my Junior Paper while I'm here, which (the plan is) for me to translate a long article written about a modern topic in Arab world politics. Depending on what the article turns out to be and how this goes, I might try to interview him about his thoughts.

It's been really encouraging over all to be back in Amman and feel that 1) my Arabic has improved since last time and 2) that my overall cultural/travel awareness is up from last time. It's like a whole new city without my people here. I really feel like I'm rediscovering it. It's also great to be able to talk to people and feel like a) I'm understood and b) they're not always messing with me. From my conversations, it definitely feels like the overall mood is much different. While everyone always talked (foreign) politics to some extent, the conversation always focused on and rarely departed from US/Israel/Iraq stuff. Now, any conversation immediately goes to the plight of the Syrian people. I'm finding utter empathy with the Syrian people against Assad here, and support for the Arab Spring (in principle) overall. While general support for the Arab Spring is widespread, some people make it a point to say they're against anything in Bahrain and afraid of Shiite ambitions in the region. After spending so much of last semester writing about Bahrain, this attitude definitely interests me.

Since getting here I've been able to set up what I hope will be a long term internship with an orphanage in Amman (outskirts Amman?). I got an email from the Idealist (best thing ever), sent in a message and got a reply from someone who signed his name as a Peace Corps volunteer. He brought me in, I met with him and the director and expressed my interest in working in the legal department with the resident lawyer, doing what I understand is legal aid work for people in need. It seems like I'll basically be a fly on the wall as the social worker and lawyer work, with opportunities to hang out with the boys and ask tons of questions at my desire, and all in Arabic. So I expect the first couple of visits to be really tough, but eventually very helpful inshallah. I won't be writing a ton about this part of my time here (publicly).

More posts to come, and more pictures. As the weather gets better I'll get better at bringing my camera along with me. If you're reading this, I probably miss you and would love to talk.

Peace,

Robert

Madrid

Was sick. I don't know why I stopped taking Spanish.

The Prada was the best museum I've ever been too.

This painting was my favorite. I bought a card of it for my future room walls.

The Reina Sofia was also awesome. All gorgeous.

I loved Spaniards people who inhabit Spain and carry Spanish passports (?) Pretty awesome people, very nice with my broken Spanish and all around a lot of fun.

Went out both nights 10pm - 6am. Night life was ridiculous. Totally amazing. I could live there in a hot second. (shout out to my sister's slang)

For some reason, these are all the pictures I can add now, and I've been at this for a while, so I'll try to edit later. 

Adios,

Jebel Zalegh

So. There's this big hill/mountain that overlooks Fez. We look at it everyday from our roof, and last week, we climbed it. 

Pretty Simple. 

It was awesome. 

Enjoy