Gethsamene and the Mount of Olives

My last entry on Jerusalem was a bit negative since I wanted to mention something that frusturated me. This one will focus on one of the more beautiful things experiences I had in Jerusalem since.

During my first day in Jerusalem, I did a lot of wandering around the Old City, I tried to sneak into the Haram ash-Sharif (Muslim area around the Dome of the Rock, not really allowed to do that), and visited the Western Wall. After soaking up what I felt was this incredible religious auora at the Western (Wailing) Wall, I went out and wandered around some more. I exited the walls dating from the Middle Ages that mark the Old City and walked around somewhat aimlessly. After five minutes of walking down this sidewalk running parallel to the Old City's wall, I decided to pull out a map and figure out what was around me. In front of me were the tombs of several Old Testament prophets, I can't remember which ones but it might have been Ezekial and/or Isaiah. Down the ridge (I was standing on part of Mount Zion) and to my right was the City of David (the one mentioned in the Bible, it's a specific part of Jersusalem and considered to be the oldest section of the city. I never figured out why it was not part of the Old City though). Behind the tombs of the Prophets was a massive Jewish cemetary. On my left, where the road was eventually going to take me, was the Mount of Olives. I saw the golden onion shaped tops to a Russian Orothodox Church, the Church of Mary Magdalene, and decided that there were probably some interesting things to be seen over there.

It took me about a 20 minute walk to walk to the base of the Mount of Olives where I found this beautifully decorated Romanesque style church. There was a tall gate around it so I had no idea how to get into the Church. I kept walking until I ran into the entrances to several different chapels. One of the them had some Latin but one word was pretty easy to recognize, Gethsamene.

I stepped into this chapel which was empty except for a man who I figured out later was responsible for locking the chapel up. Because the chapel was inside a cave, the chapel was dim except for the soft flickering light of a few candles. I noticed that on the ground there were a few areas that had transparent hard plastic coverings. Looking more closely at them I found they were protecting bits of Roman tile. Eventually the custodian stood up from his chair and gestured to me to go since it was closing time for the chapel. On my way out I read a sheet with information about this particular chapel which I found out was cared for by the Franciscans. I snapped a picture then went on to find the entrance to the church I had passed by earlier.

Looking around for that Church's entrance, I must hace traspassed on a Greek Orthoox monastary because I ran into this angry looking monk who was sitting in a chair by a nearby metal gate. This monk grunted at me loudly. I really had no idea what he was upset about so I asked him in English and Arabic what the hell he wanted. He just grunted louder and shook his fist. O Well, guess I wasn't supposed to be there so I walked around some more.

After about a five minute walk I ran into a 10 foot high stone wall that had clearly labeled signs. It was a Franciscan Monastary! I walked in to find a large and beautifully tended grove of Olive Trees. This was after all part of the Biblical Mount of Olives. Looking around at some of these olive trees, I found some of them to be as wide as eight feet which is huge for olive trees. (I have not mentioned this earlier in my blog but I've found olive trees everywhere I've been to in the Jordan and Israel/Palestine.

This enclosed olive grove had a path that led me to the entrance that I had been looking for earlier so I walked in. The name of the church that I had walked into is The Church of the Nations run by the Catholic Franciscan monks. It was built sometime in the mid 1920s (for Middle Eastern standards that's very new) and gets it name from the fact the funds used to construct the church came from all over the world. According to another imformation sheet that I read at this church, the Church of the Nations was built on the site of three previous churches the earliest dating to the third century AD.

Like most Catholic Churches, to the right of the altar there were small candles displayed so that visitors could light them as a prayer request. To the left of the altar there was a large ceiling dome with decorative mosaics. Right in front and partially underneath the alter was a 15 foot by 15 foot large stone slab. According to local tradition, it was by this rock that Jesus prayed on the Mount of Olives just moments before he was arrested. Without going into great detail, I will just say I was incredibly moved but this stone for some reason since I've aways found the Gospel accounts of Jesus before his arrest, trial, and death particularly painful. On a more rational note, I looked at this rock very carefully since I spent some time by it and saw cut marks or grooves. I remember reading somewhere that base of the Mount of Olives had been used in Roman and Byzantine times as area for making olive oil. That would make sense since you've got thousands of olive trees!

During this time some of the brown robed Franciscans were floating around talking to people about the Church. As I was sitting in the church, an in residence priest from India was setting up the altar for mass by lighting candles and preparing the chalice and unconcecrated host for communion. Seeing that I had been there for some time, the priest invited me to come celebrate mass with him by reading some scriptures. So... I ended up celebrating mass a few feet away from a rock that Jesus is thought to have (probably did) prayed by. After mass two Franciscan monks came to greet me and talk with me. Both of them ended up being Americans too. One of them was also a Washingtonian! Before heading out to walk around some more around the Mount of Olives, the the Franciscan monk from Washington D.C. handed me a prayer card with an olive leave from the Mount of Olives.

As I was leaving the church and the Franciscan monastary, I snapped a few pictures of these old tangled up olive trees that were at least eight feet in width. I continued walking up a slightly steep road that twisted its way up the Mount of Olives. On the way up I almost got hit by a few trucks since the road was pretty narrow at some points; less than ten feet. I ran into a pretty nasy thorn bush several times and took a few pictures of them. The thorns on this plant were between two to three inches long.

I got bored of the road after walking for twenty minutes up it so I climbed over this stone fence on walked around what might have been private property. Oh well, no one saw me except this large dog that was wonering around. I picked up a big sturdy looking stick in case it decided to come close to me. As I walked off the path, the footing became more challenging because the gravel like soil woul give way. It was about 6:30 or 7:00 PM when I reached so the sun was definitely starting to creep towars the tops of the hills. I snapped a few shots of Jerusalem's Old City from the Mount of Olives. The view from the Mount of Olives is the most famous view of Jerusalem with the glistening gold dome of the Islamic Dome of the Rock monument and the beige stone of the Od Cit's walls. It was very cool... well, the view was. Jerusalem was rather hot that day and I was ready for a nap.

Two Iraqis and a Syrian

The first days of the program it was hard to find a restaurant in Irbid whose selection was not limited to falafel, shawarma, hummus, or the multiple varieties you can get by mixing all three. After living off nothing but the said food items for slightly over a week, I finally found a restaurant that had more of a food selection than falafel, hummus, and shawarma! Jordanians typically eat their big meals like dinner or lunch at home so restaurants usually only sell what would be considered Jordanian snack food or light meals. For me this has been a pain since I wanted easy access to something that could be considered a traditional Jordanian meal (read food other than falafel, hummus, or shawarma).
About a week and a half into living in Irbid, I finally found what I was looking for! I had found a restaurant that had this traditional rice with spices and a slab of lamb or chicken; what I was told was pretty much the traditional Jordanian dining experience. The name of this restaurant is still a challenge for me to pronounce because of the arrangement of vowels, the name comes close to sounding like Ad-Da'aeeya.
Ad Da'aeeya is like any other restaurant in Irbid. Most Jordanian restaurants that I've been to have the feel of a gritty American diner; the customer just stumbles into the restaurant, says hi to an employee and sits himself down anywhere he pleases. Like the cafes, most restaurants have two levels, one for men on the ground floor and one for families and women on the second floor however western women can eat on the ground floor during the day when the restaurant is not as busy. Every table has a clean ashtray since most Arab men are heavy chain smokers, this creates a thick cloud of tobacco smoke in just about every building. My first time in ad Da'aeya I had jut woken up from my usual two to three hour weekday nap during the afternoon; early to mid-afternoon tends to be the hottest point in the day so most people stay inside away from the sun. After sitting down I was a man wearing the restaurant uniform blue collar shirt asked me for my drink order. This man's facial features remind me of an American Indian's, that was my first thought when talking to him. Placing the drinks on the table I began to have a conversation with this guy so I could practice my colloquial. One of the first things I learned he told me was that he was from Iraq, specifically a town an hour outside of Baghdad, and that his name was Hamid.
I've had an interest in learning about anything Iraqi since I bought this Arabic music CD with the Iraqi singer Ilham al Madfai. Needless to say, my ears flung up like a dog's when I heard that he was Iraqi. I began to excitedly bombard him about the most random things I had on my mind on Iraq… not the war but the culture or the people. Hamid and I clicked very well after that first meeting 3 weeks ago. Every time I pass by that restaurant and see Hamid there, he usually spots me and comes out for a few seconds to say hi and checkup on things with me before returning to work. Hamid is like a lot of the Arabs I've met here in Irbid who's very friendly and kind. Unfortunately I can't say that every Arab I've met while staying in Jordan has been kind.
Another afternoon three weeks into the program I decided to go back to ad Da'aeeya to get a hardy lunch of rice and chicken around two in the afternoon. For some reason, a lot of other people in Irbid were also pretty hungry at the same time I was so there were a lot of other men sitting down, eating, chatting, and puffing away at cigarettes. I sat myself down as usual and waited for someone to come by to take my drink order. There were about 15-20 people in the part of the restaurant I was in which could fit about 50. So it was somewhat crowded but not full. The waiter was a tall, stern looking man with a pronounced jaw I saw him going back and forth giving and taking orders for people. Assuming I would get served I just sat there watching this waiter. I sat and waited. After groups of Arabs sat down and got helped within two minutes I became slightly irritated. I continued to wait until a singled for one of the bus boys to get me a pepsi, he nodded and disappeared for about two minutes. I saw him come back empty handed. He took a glance at me then went to the tall waiter who said something to him. The bus boy went on his work of collecting plates from some of the tables noticeably avoiding my table. After another ten minutes a different waiter came into the area where I was and took my order. Very angry initially, I wanted to believe their avoiding me was just the result of forgetfulness or business.
I returned to the same restaurant the next but a little later for supper. This time there were probably less than five people eating there. The same tall, stern looking dude wearing the same blue collar shirt was there again. Again, I sat there for 20 minutes with my arms crossed over the table waiting for the waiter to come to give a hello, let alone a drink order. As I sat there two other Arab men came in and sat down to get something to eat like hummus (people tend to eat hummus in the Middle East). The tall waiter went over to them within a minute to take their order and placed two bowls of hummus and bread within two minutes. Huh.
As I was growing increasingly frusturated, I heard someone in perfect English ask me where I was from. I turned around and saw an Arab guy my age. He introduced himself as Mazhar and smiling, asked me to sit with him. I grabbed my backpack and moved to his table. Mazhar had already eaten but invited me over to get to know me. It turned out that Mazhar is a Syrian and a recent college graduate from another nearby Jordanian University and was staying in Irbid to study for med school exams. Last year, he told me, he had spent three months in Texas for something med school related since he hoped to study at an American med school sometime in the near future.
After talking with Mazhar for sometime I still had not gotten my drink or food order taken. I asked Mazhar to ask the tall guy to come over to our table since it was becoming obvious he was trying to avoid me. As the waiter was walking by to check for the third time on the other table with the men with hummus, Mazhar called him over. The waiter tried to ignore him but that didn't work out to well since Mazhar began to almost scream at him to come over. Embarrassed, probably because of the potential for a pleasent scene to erupt, the waiter walked over and rapidly and angrilly took my order.
Curious, I asked Mazhar where this man was from since I knew his accent was not Jordanian. "Iraq" Mazhar said. Mazhar told me an interesting Syrian idiom to describe people like this tall and blue shirted waiter; he's always got a finger up his head. Apparently it has the connotation of saying someone is "fucked up". I enjoyed that idiom a lot.

In Jordan I've had some many beautiful experiences with Arabs. This waiter's behavior really irritated me for some reason and is so weird and unusual here.

Nastiness... Courtesy of World Religions

Dear New York City, your reputation of shittiness towards people is rivaled by the manners of the three Great Religions in Jerusalem. Maybe that's an overstatement, however the most negative experiences of encountered here in the Middle East have been in Jerusalem, all in the same day!
I'm going to go more in depth in this in a separate post but when I was walking parts of the Via Dolorosa (the path in Jerusalem that tradition says Jesus took on his way to get crucified on Calvary) I got lost pretty frequently. Anyways, at one point I got very lost and had no idea where the hell I was. I knew I was in a Muslim section of the Old City since I read Arabic grafitti saying "I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God", "God is Great", "In the Name of God, the Merciful the Compassionate"... stuff like that. Isalmic grafitti. Anyways, clueless I asked a man who was walking past me in the traditional Muslim thawb (white gown for men) and skull cap... clothing a pious Muslim Arab male wears. I asked him in clear Arabic if he could tell me the name of the street. Followed by what I assume were his fully veiled daughters, this man put his hand up in a declining gesture. I asked again, "excuse me, what's the name of the street". This man continued to walk on waved his hand in a gesture of refusal. Furious, I screamed in clear Fusha (the elevated Arabic of the Qur'an) "Remember Allah, and remember Judgement Day!" In general my experience of Muslims in Jordan has been spectacular. The Qur'an has specific messages to help those in need and to be kind to the helpless and even the stranger. In Jordan, the kindness of Muslims is ever present and I was apalled (more so than I needed to be) by this apparently pious Muslims shittiness. Anyways... my own Catholicism had its own opportunity for shittiness.
I spent some time in the courtyrad to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the evening. As I sat there, I ran into a Palestinian woman wearing a Hijab (clearly indicating she was Muslim) carrying a baby. I saw her speaking to a Franciscan friar (Catholic order) asking him if he knew any Arabic. Hearing this, I walked up to her and told her in Arabic that I can speak Arabic and would like to help her. She pulled out from her purse perscription papers for her baby who was pretty ill and needed medicine. She told me that she came to the Church becasue she wanted to see if the Christians could offer some prayer for her son. Understanding this, I tried to communicate with the Franciscan friar about what this woman wanted. It turned out the friar was Italian so I spoke to him in Spanish that I could collect. Talking to this man was Italian tourist who actually knew English. Once it became clear the Franciscan Friar understood that the woman wanted a blessing for her child he just randomly got up and walked away without a further word. The Italian tourist turned to me and said in perfect English "I have no idea why he just got up. He understood what you were saying." Typing this two days later I'm still very appalled. I have great love for Franciscans because of their spirituality but this saddened me. I told the woman in Arabic that there were plenty of "khouri" (priests) in this church and that we could find one to say a blessing for her sick baby. Al Hamdu lil Lah, I found another Franciscan friar who said a few prayers over the baby.
Later that night, I ended up going with one of the girls and a group from the Hostel to Jewish Restaurant on Ben Yehuda Street in downtown New City Jerusalem. There I ordered a hamburger. I'm aware of kosher rules, however I thought it would be worth a try to see if I could get a slice of cheese for the hamburger (According to Kosher rules, anything dairy is not supposed to touch anything meat). Our waitress told me that everything's is Kosher so no dairy products can enter the restuarant since it's a meat restaurant. Realizing there was no way around the rules, I just nodded and ate my hamburger.
After dinner, we paid the bill, which for US standards was ridiculously priced and included what we thought was a good tip. I ended up being the last person to the leave the table when the waitress who had remided me about the Kosher rule glance at the money we had left. Snapping at me in anger she told me that was not 10% and that we needed to pay her more or else we were stealing. I went to the people I had eaten dinner with and told them our waitress was bitching at me for more money. We threw in some more shaqils than left.

Israeli Spiders... or Mosquitos... and the Western Wall

I'm not sure what it was, but Israeli spiders (or mosquitos) are viscious bastards. I have bites on the knuckles of some of my fingers and ankles. These bites itch and sting worse than anything of experienced in the US! Anyways, I woke up with them after my first night at our glamorous Petra Hostel. Having slept in much later than I should have, I set out to get something to eat around 11 AM. I ate a shawarma sadwhich at a nearby Lebanese cafe by the Citadel next to the Old City's Jaffa gate (in other words 15 feet from the door to our hostel). All the food I bought cost about 30 US dollars. This was not Jordan where I can eat a big lamb and rice platter for 3 US dollars.
Once I finished lunch, I headed down into the the streets of Jerusalem's Old City. These streets were unlike anything I had ever seen before. No cars could pass through them. A lawnmower could not even pass through them. Ocassionally a biker (as in "ding ding I'm Lance Armstrong kind of bike) would ride past us and it would be a tight squeeze between the souqs, walkers, and biker. Wallah (I swear), these streets never exceeded 12 feet in width at their widest points. This was the old City so I assume the layout of these streets hasn't changed much since the Middle Ages. Walking down these streets I felt as though I was inside a big building because the buildings often have balconies or canopies that cover the streets which makes them always shaded.
From what I saw and from what I've read, Jerusalem has always been a place of pilgrimage or religious tourism for thousands of years. All of the Souqs, or shops, were filled with Christian or Jewish religious stuff. Yarmulkes, manorahs, candles, crosses, icons, holy oil, holy water, holy dirt from Jerusalem, incense, and just about everything you can imagine. In addition to religious things, the souqs sold Arab crafts like decorative boxes, water pipes, jewlery, tin ware, and tin and silver coffee and tea sets.
The whole Jerusalem shopping culture was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. As I walked passed these souqs, the shopkeepers would shout to me in English "excuse me, come take a look at this" or "excuse, your mother might like a nice set of earings from the Middle East" or "excuse me, can you help me with this" or "excuse me, come take a look at this (state whatever the hell they wanted to sell you)". The first time I went into one of these souqs, I showed interest in buying a kippa (yarmulke) so I could go up to the Western Wall, the most sacred site for Jews. He began pulling out other things that I wasn't really interesting in buying and insited that I buy them so I could help him pull money out of his cash register (it didn't make sense) and he repeatedly told me he was giving me a deal on things. I bought the kippa and keppt walking down the street. After about 15 minutes walking down this same street I began to notice I was in a Muslim area since Islamic grafitti began to appear on the buildings. A group of boys sitting on the street (again, the word street is a stretch, these streets are less wide than a track and field track) asked me if I was Muslim and told me that unless I was Muslim I would not be allowed to go any further down the street because the entrance to the Al Aqsa Mosque was just a couple of yards down. I put my hand up assuring them everything was cool and kept on walking. They were right. 40 seconds later I walked into a security barrier and one of the security guards asked me to recite the Fatiha (The First 7 verses of the Qur'an and the equivalence of the Lord's Prayer in Islam) I smiled and turned around to go back. No Al Aqsa for me that day. I was very dissapointed because despite not being a Muslim I would love to see one of the Holiest sites in Islam just for the sake of saying I'd been there. I turned around and ran into the same group of boys that had been sitting by the street. In Arabic I asked them where I could find "the place where the Jews pray", the Wailing Wall. Within three minutes, I was at another security ceckpoint overlooking the Wailing (Western Wall). I waited about 10 minutes to get to this glass inspection room where Ethiopian Israeli security guard rumuged through my bags looking for nasty bombs and guns then metal detected me for more nasty things. No nasty things. I went through ans walked down 30 feet worth of stairs looking googly eyed at this mass of people praying before Judaism's ground Zero; where to Jew G-d'd Spirit dwells. The first 50 feet in front of the Western Wall is the area of worship. Before entering this sacred place I popped on my newly bought kippa (I looked like a Jewish dude at this point) and spoke with the nearest Israeli about proper behavior near the wall. "Am I wearing appropriate clothing? Am I supposed to read from the Book of Psalms? Is there anything I can't do". He just told me to wear the kippa since everyone's head is supposed to be covered before the wailing wall and to place a note with a written prayer request into the cracks of the wall. I told this Israeli that I was a gentile but wanted to show reverence here in this place. This Israeli smiled and told me that this a Holy Place for all. I quickly scribbled three things that mean a lot to me on a notecard and went on my way to the Wailing Wall.
When I approached the Western Wall there were easily 500 men before the wall (prayer sections are segregated for women and men). I slowly crept up to the wall slightly nervous and popped open an Arabic-English Bible and thumbed to a random Psalm. I read a few lines and realized I was not in a mood to read that one. I flipped to another Psalm. That one didn't work either so I closed the Bible and placed it back into my tearing backpack. Ahhh! The note to G-d! I pulled the now crumpled notecard from my pocket and looked for some place to put it. The previous prayers were good economizers of space. Every crevice of the wall was crammed with prayer requests. As the fully clothed in black frock, hat, and curls Chasidic Jew next to me bobbed his head up and down I scowered about 10 feet worth of wall for a crack to tuck my card in. Finding it, I placed the card in and made a quick and covert sign of the cross and prayed for only a few seconds till my mind began to wonder... S#@t! this is incredible! I'm standing where a community of people believe the Spirit of G-d dwells..." After slowly walking away from the face of the wall, I found some Americans guys from a church group to take a picture of me to prove I was here. I wodered around and walked into a synogogue that was through a door left of the Western Wall. I just walked through and soaked in the electric religious air. To my right were Jewish men of all kinds. Men wearing Tees and Jeans to Chasidic clothing draped with the White Jewish prayer shawls, Israeli soldiers with an M-16 draped over their left shoulder, young boys who were probably eight or nine to old men who were confined to wheel chairs. To my left there were shelves of Jewish prayer books in Hebrew and in other languages.I recognized some of the English titles, the Talmud and the Tana'im among others. With all the books and reading white bearded men I felt as though I was in a reverant library.
Having my fill of the Wailing Wall for the hour (I visited the Wailing Wall three times), I decided to go walk around and explore some more. (Since I had slept in, I was walking around alone because the girls I was traveling with had gotten up earlier and had gone to explor Jerusalem on their own). I walked out another way and exited the walls the mark the boundary of the Old City.

Going into Palestine/Israel

Our program gave us a four day weekend to travel and go wherever we wanted to go. I decided to go with three other girls to Palestine/Israel. Traveling into Israel/Palestine was definitely a bit of experience. We left Irbid to go to the Israeli border at around 3:15 in the afternoon via taxi. From Irbid (northern Jordan) there are two border crossings, the biggest one crosses the Jordan just west of Amman (King Hussein/General Allenby Bridge) while the other is northwest of Irbid and is smaller (Sheikh Hussein Bridge). We decided to take the Sheikh Hussein Bridge which was a 5o minute taxi ride from Irbid. The taxi ride was pretty uneventfull, we drove from down from hills around Irbid and Yarmouk into the flat and more noticably humid Jordan River Valley. As we approached the Jordanian border crossing post, we clearly saw the increased security presence. There were two checkpoints were our taxi was forced to stop and an armed dude looked over our American passports. At the last checkpoint, which was nicely decorated with machine Jordanian Army machine gun posts, our taxi driver was told he could go no further so we got out and took another taxi (I guess I taxi that had been already checked for bombs or something, security was bigger) for the remaining two miles.
Once we got to the Jordanian customs office, Jordanian security dudes went through our bags abd we got our passports processed and a Jordanian exit visa. Since most Arab countries aren't the biggest fans of Israel, I had the Jordanian visa handler stamp my exit visa on a separate sheet of paper, I wanted there to be no evidence that I had gone to Israel since that would prevent me from visiting most Arab countries who will not allow anyone to enter their country who's been to Israel.
After sorting through visas and customs checking we hopped on a bus to take us to the Israeli side of the border crossing. Driving to the Israeli side took us 5-10 minutes. We drove over the raging Jordan River which now is more like a creek about 20 feet wide. Our bus stopped for about 5 minutes in front of a security gate on the Israeli bank of the Jordan. There was a guy with a bomb inspecting mirror who examined the bottom of our bus to make sure there were no bombs attached then we went on our merry way to get dropped off at Israeli customs.
One of the girls in our traveling group was an American girl of Indian ancestry. No big deal except for the fact that she's a practicing Shia Muslim who a few weeks ago traveled to Damascus, Syria and had gone on the Hajj to Saudi Arabia last year. The Syrian and Saudi stamps on her passport immediatly gave the Israelis a red light. After getting our bags checked, everyone except her was ready to take a taxi to Jerusalem. We decided to stay in the Israeli customs area until they were done with our Indian-American friend. An Israeli border customs dude came out of his office to question her. At first we had no idea this Israeli was working for customs since he wore baggy sweatpants that barely covered his ass and a baggy t-shirt. He looked more like a college student who just woke up than customs officer at what should be the most secure border on the globe. Anyways, our Indian-American friend answered this customs dude's questions regarding her visit to Israel by telling him she came to visit and pray at the mosques in Jerusalem. Probably not the best thing to say if we wanted to get out ASAP. We ended sitting at the customs are for three hours. Relatively speaking, not that bad. I entertained myself by annoying the other custom dudes/dudettes (many of them wore very heavy makeup, lots of jewlery, and long painted fingernails) in asking them what the Hebrew signs said and asked them how to say certain things in Hebrew. I brought with me my Dummies Guide to Hebrew. After that got old I looked over the Hebrew alphabet.
Once we were cleared, we found a taxi minivan so we could get the Beth Shaen Bus station. Stupidly, none of us had any idea how far Beth Shaen was from the Israeli border crossing. We ended up paying what 150 Israeli Shaqils (about 50 US dollars) for a two mile trip. Needless to say we were thrilled. By the time we arrived in Beth Shaen, it was dusk and we were anxious to get to our hostel in Jerusalem. One of the girls walked a few yards to the Beth Shaen bus station only to find out that there were no more busses running to Jerusalem. We ended up chatting for a couple minutes with these cab drivers in front of a pizza restaurant. Saying he was from Jerusalem, one of the cab drivers agreed to take us to Jerusalem for 200 shaqils We agreed since that was a fair deal considering Jerusalem was an hour south of Beth Shaen.
Our cab ride was amazing since our cab driver, Aaron, sang along with the 1950s French Jazz music that he played in his CD player. After this CD was done, Aaron decided to sing whatever the hell he knew like "Oh Susannah!" and "Joshua and the Walls of Jericho". Sometimes he didn't know some of the English lyrics so he would just sing "ladidada" to the parts he didn't know. Since Aaron was originally from Morocco, he knew both French and Spanish. I spoke to him a bit in any Spanish I remembered from High School. Aaron dropped us off at the Jaffa Gate in Old City Jerusalem, just 10 yards from our Hostel. In front of our taxi were two Israeli soldiers and an Israeli policeman. Since I had never seen members of the IDF up close in person I wanted to take some footage. As I pulled my video camera out, one of the girls got really freaked out so I put my camera back in its bag. Since then I've actually taken a lot of photos of Israeli soldiers so I think she freaked out way more than needed.
The boring part o Israel was over...

Usama and the Fourth of July at the Dead Sea

Two weeks ago I went to one of Jordan's most famous touris attractions: the Dead Sea. The week before heading off to the Dead sea, about a quarter of the program was scrambling around looking for other people who were interested in going to the Dead Sea. Typically when we do independent travel it's bet to travel in a group of four people since that's the limit taxis can carry. Fortunatley I found a group and we decided we would leave Friday morning (Friday is like a Saturday here in Jordan). It wasn't till about 11:15 PM Thursday night that I was told the other people in the group had arranged to meet a private taxi and 6 AM Friday morning. I was thrilled. Ma Sha Allah, I got my ass out of bed at 5:30 AM and was on time for the taxi. It was so hard to get up up at 5:30 because I had stayed up till 2 talking with some Arab friends in the cafe the night before. In addition, the 4 AM call to prayer was noticably louder and longer that morning. I think they must have read from Surat al-Buqara (the longest Sura or chapter of the Qu'ran) since the Friday morning recitation lasted for about 45 minutes.
We got on our way around 6:15 AM to Amman. Our private taxi driver dropped us off at this bus station in Amman because we had a bus ticket to go from Amman to a beach on the Dead Sea. At the bus station we met a group of women from California. We talked to the for a bit and found out that it was a mother and her two thirty year old daughters who were traveling together with their dad to Amman. Their Dad was an Iraqi American who had immigrated to the States thirty or so years ago but he had a lot of family living in Jordan. We ended up talking to them about grape leaves and other kinds of Arabic food and Iraq during the 45 minute bus ride from Amman to the Dead Sea. The daughters didn't know any Arabic (even though they were half Iraqi) so I told them how to say what's up in Iraqi slang (Shako Mako), when I said that one of the men sitting behind us smiled. I started to talk with him and found out that he, his wife, and his daughter were all Iraqis who had fled from Baghdad to Amman because of the Iraq war. His wife spoke excellent English since she had studied English literature at a University in Baghdad. I assume Baghdad University. That would make sense. I grew very fond of this family from Iraq because when it was time for us to get dropped off, our bus driver proved a bit impatient and did not understand where we wanted to go. The Iraqi man helped us work directions out with him.
After working through some initial confusion on where we wanted to get dropped off, we ended up at one of the Dead Sea Resorts that we had planned on going to. Even though we had no plans spending the night at this resort, we paid them some money so that we could use there private Dead Sea Beach and pools. Ths was a good idea since we had access to restaurants (however horribly overpriced), a bar (the other guy and gals in the group were dying for a beer), and umbrellas. By this point it was 9:30 AM and my mood was rapidly declining since I had eaten little that day and the Sun at the Dead Sea was the most intense I had ever experienced. I went to get something to eat and drink at one of the bars then returned to make preperations for a 50 yard descent from the pool area to the Dead sea.
Having broken two pairs of sunglasses I was sans sunglasses. This was unpleasent because of the sun's intensity. I came up with a brief and failed attempt to solve this problem by wrapping my red and white kuffieh around my head in terrorist fashion (i.e. the way the terrorists wrap their scarves around their heads showing nothing but eyeslits). That worked for 30 seconds. We walked out of the pool area, which was rapidly filling up with screaming children, and made our way to this resort's private Dead Sea shore. We placed our towels and shirts on this bench by the water and stepped in.
Approaching the Dead Sea is like stuffing your nose into pile of salt. Salt has a very subtle yet distinguishable smell which I smelled. That would make sense since the Dead Sea I think has the highest concentration of salt anywhere on Earth. I walked in my first twenty steps. I didn't like the feeling of the loose sand and gravel so a plunged in after those few steps splashing one of the girls in the group. The Dead Sea feels like the world's largest baby pool; it has this strong warm feeling like you're sorrounded by a bunch of little kids all peeing at the same time. That was my first thought when I plunged in. All of us went out from the shore a couple yards and lost touch with the bottom. Because of its incredibly high salt concetration, it's impossible to sink in the Dead Sea. I tried to touch the bottom a few times but the water always strongly pushed me back up.
After the first five minutes of discovering the water, we went back to shore to lather up in the famous blackish Dead Sea mud. All lather up, we took pictures of each other and then went back into the water to float around. I had put a lot of mud on my face since Dead Sea mud is supposed to be very good for your skin. Hoping to maximize its benefits to my skin, I began washing my face with the Dead Sea's salty water. Not bright. Some of the water began to drip into my eyes. To give you an idea of how salty the Dead Sea's water is, I tasted a little on my finger. The water is so concetrated with salt that it tastes corrosive. Well, some of that gut in my eye so I couldn't see. I decided to swim back to shore so that I could wipe my eyes off a bit, having my eyes closed I actually began to swim further out. One of the girls named Lynze pointed me in the right direction which helped at first but I eventually got off track again and began to swim parallel to the shore. Seeing my dilemma, Lynze took my hand and walked me back to the shore and the showers 200 feet away, hand in hand the whole time while I stumbled around. A bit humbling.
We experienced the Dead Sea then walked back to the pool area to sit under umbrellas. The other guys drank beers which are impossible to find in Irbid. I slept, lulled by the ever growing chorus of screatching kids.
We stayed at the Dead Sea until 5 PM when we had arranged to have our bus pick us up and drive back to Amman. Once we got to Amman we arrived at the Hotel Farah, which is a popular hostel with our group, got changed and headed off to this bar that one of the guys on the program had recomended; Amigos. Unlike Irbid which because of its more conservative and Islamis identity has no bars, Amman is more liberal and western influenced so finding bars there is not hard. Just sitting and listening to people in Amigos revealed this difference between Amman and Irbid since Muslims were drinking alcohol and Muslim women were sitting and talking with men while smoking; all of these are forbidden or taboo in Arab Islamic day to day practices. Everyone in the bar was speaking English. I was shocked while waiting to use the bathroom. The Men's room sign had a picture of a man holding out his penis over a toilet while he took a piss. Definitely not the most conservative peice of art in Jordan. Ranging from slightly buzzed to mildly wasted , a bunch of us went to a roof top cafe-restaurant nearby. I went with this group and ended up smoking a lemon-mint flavored argeela. The feel of this cafe was also completely different from a cafe in Irbid. Like the bar, women and men were open flirting with each other at a table next to us. The wide screen TV screen on the wall flashed images of celebrity women wearing sexy dresses and college girls dancing in bikinis. In Irbid, the small, slighlty staticy TVs play soccer games and Arabic music videos. My Argeela was six dinar in Amman while in Irbid I can buy an argeela for two dinar. Contrasts were apparent everywhere.
Once I finished my argeela, a bunch of us walked around Amman to get to another popular cafe called Books at Cafe. Initially I was puzzled about why a cafe would have a name like that but once I got there I realized why; the cafe's first floor was an English language bookstore. I tried to speak Arabic to the woman behind the counter but she replied in perfect American sounding English. The Jordanian elementary school kids who were leaving as I walked in also spoke American sounding English. I asked them if they had ever been to the States, they said no but told me they went to an American school in Amman. It was actually challenging to get the Jordanians here in Amman to speak in their Arabic!
I went up to the cafe's second level which was where people from the group were hanging out and chatting. There were some Arab men chatting away with some of us. A bunch of us had wanted to go clubbing to celebrate the Fourth of July. Apparently these Arab dudes had connections that could get us in for free into one of Amman's night clubs. I introduced myself to one of them, he told me his name was Usama, Usama bin Laden. I didn't take the bin Laden part seriously since this guy had a cross dangling from his neck. I knew that Usama is actually a pretty common Arab Christian name since I had met an Egyptian Coptic back in the States whose name is Usama.
Usama ended up driving a bunch and showing the rest of us where this popular night club was. Till about 2 AM we ended up dancing to Arabic dance tunes. The singing to these dance tunes had been dubbed over with kareoke since it was kareoke night at this nightclub. That was our night in Amman.

The Spider

I haven't gotten much of a chance to see Jordan's wild life other than camels and the desert lizards we see a lot of around campus. This Wedenesday, as I finished eating my falafel sandwhich and sat down to look at vocabulary words for my next class, I saw a spider the size of a quarter chilling on my right leg. It scared the crap out of me. In fact I screamed rather loudly. I think I scared the spider since it wnet to hide in my backpack. In the heat of being icked out I tossed my backpack around and threw things out to get this big spider out. The spider bounced around the floor. Unfortunately, I decided to kill it. Looking back I regret it. I'm sure he was offended by seeing the bottom of my shoe.

Music

I really should go to bed now. It's 1:30 AM Jordanian time and I have to get up in 4 hours to catch a ride with four other people so we can get to the Dead Sea tomorrow morning. I am thrilled we are leaving so early. It's amazing how many people are still chatting and smoking sheesha in this cafe. One of the most useful things I've found here in Jordan has been some knowledge of Arabic music. Knowing some basic words to songs, popular Arab singers, and where Arab singers are from has proved to be an amazing conversation topic in class and with people around Irbid.
Before coming to Irbid, I had grown to love a few Iraqi singers who are relatively popular here in Jordan; Kazem al Saher (who's sung songs with Lenny Kravitz and Sarah Brightman) and Ilham al Madfai. My mom knows these singers too since I tend to play them a lot in the car and drive her nuts. Here in Jordan Kazem is very popular since he puts to music the poems of the famous Syrian poet Nazar Qabani. Sitting in the cafe, I've just heard the songs of Fairuz who is a legendary Lebanese singer. I know the words to a couple popular Arab folk tunes which has been entertaining when I talk with Arabs since to us Americans it would be like having a foreigner go up to you and recite the words to "Uptown Girl".
There's this music store I've gone to a couple of times. Like most Jordanians here they are very friendly. Everytime I pass the store one of the men who works there sings some song in English: "We welcome you... we welcome you... we welcome you to Jordan... Welcome... welcome". This guy has a daughter and son who I gave a stuffed Micky Mouse to. Really traditional Arabic music from the 1960s and 1970s is very good chill music, that's probably why it's often played in the cafes while men smoke sheesha and relax.
I'll bring back some Arabic music since it's pretty cheap... a CD costs about 3 U.S. dollars.

Religion

I have been dying to write a post about religion here in Irbid and other more conservative parts of Jordan. Religion and its role in every day life and the way people view it are very different from in the States. I realized this 10 minutes before our plane's takeoff from New York, on the TV screen in our isle, before the seat belt video, the video had verses from the Qur'an moving accross the screen.
Walking around Irbid and looking at the shops really illustrates how different religion is viewed here. The entrance to about 80% of the shops have "Bismi Allah ar Rahmani ar Ar Rahiim" (In the Name of God the Merciful the Compassionate... the first ayah (verse) of the Qur'an) or "ma sha Allah" (what God wills). Thus everytime you enter a store you have to step under Qur'anic verses. I can honeslty say every store I've been into here in Jordan has Qur'an displayed by the cashier or some place visible.
Often times there's Islamic memorabalia in most of the stores. Store's walls often have posters or tin plates decorated with suras from the Qur'an. In addition, I often find paintings or pictures of the Ka'aba in Mecca or the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (two of the holiest sites in Islam). In about 50% of the restaurants or stores, I've found TVs playing Qur'anic recitations with the verses flashing on the screen. This is just the stuff you see, conversations with Arabs about religion is also completely different from the way we go about conversing about religion in the States.
Religion is a very common of conversation with people, that's something I experience just about daily. After meeting someone and conversing with them for five minutes, I've found it really common for the Muslims here to straight out ask me if I was Christian. Surprisingly I've found that no one has ever argued with me about religion. Perhaps that's because I usually talk more about Islam and avoid Christianity altogether. Taking a class on Islam last spring has proved unbelievably helpful. I've been able to talk about Muslim theologians from the 8th century (one of the security guards I've had tea with had written down some famous quotes from the Iraqi theologian al Shafi') and the five pillars of Islam. Knowing stuff about Islam has I also think given me the chance to reduce prices on some things.
To Muslims here in Jordan, the Qur'an and the Prophet Muhammad are beloved. In some Arabic songs the name Muhammad is used to mean beloved that's how revered he is. When refering to Islam's prophet, all Muslims here say "Salaat Allahi wa 'alihi salam" (God's prayers and peace be upon him). As I've said before, I find the Qur'an constantly displayed publically in with great reverence.
I'll comment more on this in other posts... Islam is incredibly important here in Irbid.

Close Encounter of the Arab Kind

Since our apartment has no internet connection and since the University computer lab is only open during class times, we our often forced to go to internet cafes to check our email or to do stuff online. Like now, most of my blog writing I've done in cafes. Last Sunday, as I wrote a few blog entries, I did a big no no in Arab culture.
I spent probably around four hours in the same cafe drinking Arabic coffee, tea, and smoking an argila (sorry mom) as I composed and poted online blog entries. Unfortunately I'm going to have to go slightly off topic here to explain how Arab cafes are different from American ones. First off, Arab cafes are the center of social activity here in Irbid like they are in much of the Middle East. Bars are nowhere to be found in conservative Islamic towns. Despite their name, the main thing Arab cafes serve are water pipes (arghile is apparently the Jordanian name, sheeshah is the Egyptian name. No one calls it hookah here in Jordan. Sorry. In America we get the name wrong. Hubbly Bubbly in a very thick Arabic accent is also a popular name). Typically, the cafes have a lower and upper level. The lower level is reserved for only men while the upper level is where women are permitted to sit. During the evenings, women do not usually go out that much so the upper level becomes another men's level. Right now I'm typing this from the upper level of one of Irbid's cafes at 12:40 AM (people stay up late here) and around me are men smoking sheesha and playing backgamen.
Back to last Sunday's close encounter... I was getting uncomfortable and tired after about three hours typing and sitting in the same position. To get more comfortable, since I was sitting at a couch, I put my feet up on a nearby ledge and typed laying on my back with my lap top on my stomach. Naturally, I was exposing the soles of my shoes. If you know anything about Arab mores, I was unintentionally setting myself for a cultural disaster.
After about 15 minutes laying in the way described above, four local people came upstairs to where I was sitting; two sets of couples. One of the spoke to me in very rapid colloquial which I understood absolutely none of it while the other spoke to me in excellent English asking me where I was from and blah... blah... blah... then they sat down and smoked sheesha with their wives. The one who spoke colloquial sat directle in front of me. My feet were poited at him so he could see the soles of my shoes.
After about 5 minutes, the shit hit the fan. The man sitting in front of me got up, visibly angry and tense and barraged me with a cocophany of angry colloquial that he, again, spoke ridiculously rapidly. The man who spoke to me in English (a different guy), seeing all this and looking akward, walked over to me and said: "Hi. I'm very sorry. This man thinks you are Arab for some reason. Please put your feet down. I know you don't know how we Arabs do things since things are very different in America. I apologize for his rudeness." More enlightened, I responded with about twenty apologies to the angry dude. Suprisingly, he smiled at me and said "mish mushkilah", no problem. His wife laughed a lot.
If any of you remember the famous video back in 2003 of the Iraqis tearing down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, the Iraqis took their shoes and repeatedly struck the statue with the soles of their shoes. Exposing your sole is a huge insult to Arabs. Now I know first hand.

Weekend Trip Number Three: Um Qais (Part 2), Ajloun, and Jaresh

On our third weekend here in Jordan, as an entire group all of went for a day trip to three of Jordan's famous historical sites, Um Qais, Ajloun, and Jaresh. If you've been following along with my blogs, you've probably already read that I went to Um Qais the first weekend of the trip. This second ride to Um Qais lacked the character and juiciness of the first ride since we took an airconditioned bus provided by Yarmouk University as opposed to the dirty cab and minibus that we took the first time. It was comfortable, but there were no locals to chat with or to talk about life in Jordan, just the other 30 American students from the UVA program.
We arrived in Um Qais and looked around the same sites that I had seen two weeks ago. The Sea of Galilee, seen that. The Golan Heights, one of the tenseness locations on Earth, seen that too two weeks before. I think my lack of enthusiasm for this visit might have been attributed to this pomegranate juice that I had been drinking for a week. I'm not sure it was made with the same sanitary conditions that we have in the States (it was also in a cardboard container), needless to say I was not feeling too well so one of my first priorities was to look for a bathroom. The only bathroom I knew of was of course closed. I was thrilled.
After walking around one section of the site we went to the Um Qais museum which I would describe as an open courtyard with Roman stone things. The objects they have there are very fascinating actually and I took a lot of pictures of them. I'm not sure I mentioned this is the other post but the first time I went to Um Qais with the three other guys, we went to this same museum and drank one of the best cups of tea of had with the museum's two very bored employees who were thrilled to have visitors. Of course, the same two very bored employees were still there two weeks later so we had a friendly conversation to catch up with them. For the sake of recollection their names were Zhuhur and Muhammad. I asked them where I can find a bathroom and they directed me to an outhouse like building. I stepped into it eagerly and then my heart sank, it was literally a hole. That was the bathroom.
We left Um Qais and went on a two hour trip south east of Um Qais to Ajloun, a famous site dating to the Crusades. In terms of the modern state of Jordan, this drive was very fascinating. For about 45 minutes we drove close to the Syrian border (at Um Qais you are literally less than 5 km from the Israeli and Syrian borders... from Um Qais you face the Golan Heights). Our bus was forced to stop at about 6 or 7 Jordanian military checkpoints. Each time about two or three Jordanian soldiers toting assault rifles would question our driver.
I slept the second hour on the bus. Some people on the bus were yelling at each other in a heated political discussion... haha.... I was out of it then. I got fully to my senses once we arrived in the town of Ajloun which in all honesty did not look that much different from Irbid except that it was more hilly. We saw elderly men walking around the streets wearing the traditional kuffiyeh and thawb (long goan like dress men wear since it's loose and comfortable in the heat). Billboard signs for Shawarma popped up every 5 yards or less and peering into every other shop we could see the hunk of hunk of spinning meat that is the source of the shawarma sadwhich.
We could see Ajloun castle (which was where we headed) a top its looming hill from about five miles away. The road that ascends the hill Ajloun castle is situated on is very steep. Steep enough that we could tell the grade was putting a considerable amount of strain on the bus as it treked up. Ma Sha Allah (it was "what God willed) we reached the parking lot close to the hill's summit where Ajloun castle lies.
Let me present the history behind Ajloun... the site was thought to be originally a monestary from around the 500s (maybe) and the head monk dude who founded the monestary was named Ajloun. The castle, which was what we were visiting for, was built 12th century by the nephew of the famous Kurdish Muslim Saladin who fought the Crusaders during the second (?) Crusade. From its position, Ajloun offers an excellent view of the region. This allowed the Muslims to protect communication and trade routes between Arabia and Damascus from the Crusader Latin Kingdoms west of Ajloun.
At Ajloun we climbed around the rocks, took pictures and looked at the many different views the site offers. Ajloun is a castle. It looked and felt like what I thought a castle would feel like. Stone walkways and halls that were lit only by the openings in the wall that 12th century Saracen archers would have looked out through to aim at oncoming Crusaders. As we were leaving, we passed by a few stores that sold touristy things. What caught my attention the most were various key chains with Saddam Hussein on them. Apparently some people still like him.
After Ajloun we drove 45 minutes to the old Roman city of Jerash. As a group, we stopped off at this restaurant (I can't remember the name now) that Khaled (the program administrator from Harvard University) said is one of the most popular in the region. My experience there definitely explained its popularity. We ordred a massive selection of Middle Eastern Mezzeh (appetizers that Arab food is known for). Included in the appetizers were hummus, baba ghanoush, multiple varieties of lebneh (a very thick yogurt that's often eaten like cheese... it's one of my favorite foods here) with spices, french fries, salad, and cucumber yogurt sauce. The bread that was served to us with these mezzeh was pulled freshly from the oven. It was spectacular. After stuffing ourselves with mezzeh, the waiters placed plate fulls of grilled lamb and chicken kabobs in front of us. After eating, the restaurant's manager greeted us. He spoke English with a slight southern accent since he had lived in the states for 25 years. He was great to talk to. He introduced himself as Sam but explained that his real name was Saleh but Americans can't pronounce the end h sound.
I took many pictures of the Roman ruins of Jerash. According to the exibits that we went through in the Jerash visitor center, Jerash is the best preserved Roman site outside of Italy. From what I saw of Jerash I can definitely believe that. We walked to this very large Roman amphitheater and hung out there for about 45 minutes. What amazed me were the still visible seat labels throughout the amphitheter. Just like going to a baseball stadium or theatre today, the Romans marked each seat with a row and isle letter all of this was still visible after 2000 years. There were these two men dressed in traditional bedouin outfits playing a bag pipe and a drum. We chuckled when they played yankee doodle and a painfully out of a tune amazing grace before going into Bedouin dance tunes.
I took lots of pictures of the ruins outside the amphitheater, what struck me the most were the mosaic remains that we could find everywhere. At what I believe was once a Roman temple, we bought some water, and got I got my picture taken with two very bored looking Jordanian security guards with frightening looking assault rifles. Another bored shab (Arabic word for dude basically) took some of us aside and showed us how to shake the old Roman collumns. Shake as in they sway back and forth (slightly). After Jerash, I was so wiped out by the heat that I went to bed at 7:30 that afternoon.