"Haven't you studied Arabic enough?" 8/19/2014

I caught a bus from Amman to the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge at 7am. The trip to the border was less than 45 minutes and we spent much more time at the border crossing than we did on the road. We passed through countless inspection points and security lines. At this border crossing alone my passport was checked ten different times by ten different people. This was especially frustrating since I did not know which guards would be issuing the visa stamps, so every time I reluctantly handed my passport over to a Jordanian border agent, this was the conversation we had:

“Don’t put a stamp in my passport, okay?”
“Why?”
“Because I need to travel to other Arab countries and they won’t allow me in if I’ve been to Israel.”
“But this isn’t an Israeli stamp, it’s Jordanian.”
“Yes, but they will see that I’m at this particular border crossing so it’s obvious where I went.”
“You'll need to talk to the other guard about that.”

As a side note, I have a second passport. I asked the Jordanians to please put the exit visa in this passport so that I could use it to enter Israel without showing my original one. The problem is, without an exit visa, this second passport is worthless because it doesn’t show where I came from or if I got permission to leave. Arriving at a country with a completely blank passport is quite suspicious. Needless to say, the Jordanians did not stamp it but they did stamp a separate sheet of paper. So, when I came to the Israeli border, I had to show them my original passport, with my stamps from Lebanon and Yemen. This led to me being questioned more than anyone else in line, but it was not nearly as bad as it could have been. The questions were pretty straightforward: Why are you here, where are you staying, are you meeting anyone, why are you in Jordan, etc. The border agent asked me if I had been to Israel before and I told her I had. 

“So why are you coming back?” I thought it was a weird question.
“Um, I just really liked it last time so I decided to come back.” Lying was necessary for a lot of the questions she asked me.

“Where are you traveling?”
“Jerusalem.”
“Just Jerusalem?”
“Yes.”
“So why were you in Yemen?”
“Study.”
“What were you studying?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“What were you studying?”
“Uh, Arabic.”
“Arabic? So what were you doing in Lebanon?”
“Tourism.”
“That’s a strange place to go for tourism.” (It’s not).

Then she started to ask me how long I’m staying in Amman for and for what purpose.

“I’m studying there.”
“Arabic?”
“Yeah.”
“Haven’t you studied Arabic enough?”

I wanted to tell her that I ask myself that everyday. She called up her supervisor and told him about me living in Amman and going to Yemen. It ended up being fine and she gave me a card that acted as my tourist visa.

I exchanged some dollars and dinars for shekels and waited outside for the bus to Jerusalem. The trip from the border took no time at all, probably less than 30 minutes. I was dropped off at Damascus gate in the old city and took a cab to my hostel, which was located right next to Jaffa Gate and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus was supposedly crucified. All the rooms were built into the walls of the old city, about 600 years old in this location. It was a good attempt authenticity, but it really just felt like I was sleeping in a tomb. I walked into the hostel f0r the first time and the man at the front desk greets me, “Hi, Hannah!” I mentioned later that business must be pretty slow if he immediately knew it was me. He said that all but two of the guests had cancelled their reservations because of the travel warnings. He asked me why I wasn’t scared to come like everyone else and I told him I didn’t think that the West Bank would be too dangerous. Later that night we talked about the ceasefire which was due to expire at midnight and it’s possible extension. I went to use the hostel’s computer and five minutes later I see an update from Ha’aretz: Three rockets fired from Gaza, thus violating the ceasefire. 

I spent the afternoon of the 19th wandering around the old city. I was constantly lost, wandering in and out of all quarters (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Armenian) and, from the looks of some people, walking into areas where I should not have been. I wandered just outside the walls of the old city and sat down in the National Garden to do some people watching. There were many Orthodox Jews, tourists, and young Israelis. I saw an old man, apparently homeless, wearing a kuffiyeh and ambling down the path towards me. He stopped next to me and I greeted him in Arabic. Students of Arabic are often told just how awestruck and appreciative Arabs will be when you speak even a few words of their language. The truth is that is not often the case but in this instance the man’s face lit up and he gave me a big toothless grin. “Marhaba!” he said and I asked him to sit down with me. He told me all about his life in Jerusalem--about the British school he went to as a child in the 60’s, where he learned English, and about his uncle who stole his ID card and residency documentation so now he cannot prove his home is actually his. He certainly had some strange notions about other Arab countries. When I mentioned Jordan he said, “Jordan’s good! Everything is so cheap.” When I told him about studying in Yemen he said, “Yemen is a very rich country with a huge river running through the middle of it.” I wandered back inside the city walls into the Jewish Quarter and noticed this sticker on a lamp post. It says, in Arabic and presumably also in Hebrew, “Don’t even think about touching a Jewish girl.” It’s obviously a threat to Arab men from some Jewish organization whose Hebrew name I couldn’t read. 

I went back into the Muslim Quarter and came across Abu Shukri Restaurant, supposedly the best hummus in Jerusalem. I sat down and ordered hummus, falafel, and a coke and was immediately overcome with an intense loneliness. I was so happy to be in Jerusalem and Palestine, especially by myself, but I realized how far removed I was from anyone I really cared about. I think a huge factor in my loneliness was my lack of a computer or a phone. I could not carry my laptop with me since my backpack was already far too heavy, my phone would not work in Palestine, and I forgot to bring my iPad. I was able to use the hostel’s computer for a little bit each evening, but I still have not been that disconnected for a long time. Experiences like that make me never want internet on my phone. Always being connected to everyone I know-- it is comforting, but it is just not the way humans should be.

After a few hours in Jerusalem I was in full haggling-mode. I forgot what it was like because haggling is pretty scarce in Amman. It is so fun and so enraging at the same time. Like when the owner of a juice stand tried to charge me $4 for an orange and I told him he’s crazy and he explained that since he uses it to make juice, it is more expensive.  Most shop owners and taxi drivers in Jerusalem are incredibly bold when it comes to cheating tourists, regularly asking for at least five times the fair price. More on that later.

New Apartment

My three month lease is set to expire at the end of August. I am excited to move into an apartment in Weibdeh that I found yesterday. It is a really nice place that I will be sharing with a friend for the remainder of my time in Amman. When I went to give my deposit to the landlady, she introduced me to her mother, who lives on the floor below me in the same apartment building. She was your stereotypical older Arab Muslim woman. She immediately insisted that I sit down with her and she offered me coffee and other drinks as she was helping write out the directions and address. She emphasized that I should see her as my mother, presumably if I ever needed anything.

My friend and I returned the next day to sign the lease. Just as I finished signing both sheets of paper and handed them to the landlady, her mother came in the room and said, in English, "But NO boyfriends!"I looked to her daughter and asked her what she meant. She looked a little embarrassed and said that she didn't want male visitors. I told her that was something she should've told me before we signed the contract since that would have definitely changed my decision. I explained that half of our friends are males and they would be coming over. "But they won't spend the night." I told her they might and I didn't want this surprise addition to the rental agreement determining who could spend the night. She seemed to not have a problem and she understood and she took her mother aside to explain. We agreed that as long as it wasn't on a nightly basis that it wouldn't be a problem (even this final stipulation I agreed to not because of the gender issue, but because anyone staying over every night should be considered another tenant that the landlord would have a right to know about). I am still nervous that once her daughter returns to L.A. in a couple days, the mother's blood will boil anytime she sees us having friends over.

This interaction, and the impending awkward living situation, has been irritating me all day. Partially because I'm worried I'm in the wrong. The agreement that a single tenant cannot have the opposite gender over is quite common here. In fact, it is the situation that I'm living in now. I live with two girls, and we can have the occasional male visitor, but they cannot spend the night. The difference was that I knew of this arrangement before I signed the contract. I am still extremely bothered by the fact that I am paying rent (probably more than I should be) for a private residence where I am not allowed to live a private life. Of course, this is a reality of living in a Muslim country and in most other respects I simply adhere to any societal or cultural norms with minimal complaining. I have no problem with covering my head if the situation calls for it, I won't eat or drink in public during Ramadan, I do what I can to insure that I don't accidentally touch a conservative shop-keeper's hand when he's giving me my change, I sit in such a way so that the bottom of my foot is not facing anyone. All of these things I am fine with, and I enjoy adjusting my own behavior based on my surroundings but the difference to me is that these are all public. They're about my interactions with Jordanians and indicating that I respect their culture. Of course, another way I could indicate my respect is by not having male visitors but my immediate response to this is, "But I'm paying for a private apartment!" An apartment where I should be able to do what I want as long as it is discreet (no beer bottles left outside, no loud music, etc.) and as long as it does not damage the apartment in any way. But, of course, this idea of the home being a sacred, private space may itself be a Western concept that shouldn't be applied to life in the Arab world.

I guess when I politely nodded my head at the idea of her being "like my mother" I was signing up for more than I expected. Another large part of what bothers me about all of this is that it's being imposed upon me by other women. That's definitely a pattern when it comes to the shaming I've experienced in the Middle East. In Yemen, I found that it was not normal for a non-Muslim foreigner to wear a hijab everyday, so I stopped wearing one. The men looked at me just as they had before, but the women starting glaring and the more conservative ones would mumble insults to me as I passed by, one even calling me evil. Any mean looks that I have gotten here or in Morocco or, let's be honest, in the U.S., come from women. The looks that I get from men in these countries are disgusting in their own right, but are filled with misplaced sexual frustration and ignorance, rather than the animosity and disgust that I get from some women. Of course, I'm not equating dangerous sexual harassment with glares from women, but the latter is especially infuriating after experiencing the former. When discussing subjects like this, I always say that women contribute to patriarchies just as much as men do. I may need to change that to "even more than men do."

كل شيء ممنوع مرغوب

Well, CASA's new administration at Harvard finally made a decision and we will not be transferred to Cairo at any point during the program. No more information was given to us, but if we decide to go to Cairo on our own, we will need to sever all ties with CASA. I cannot say I am devastated by this decision. A full year in Amman sounds fine to me and much easier than a year in Cairo, but I am still missing out on a valuable part of the CASA experience, and Arabic-study experience in general, by not having the opportunity to study in Egypt, especially at AUC. But, I am just starting to become comfortable with the Jordanian dialect and it would have been frustrating to start all over again in Cairo, not only in terms of language but also all the day-to-day things that we take for granted-- an automatic understanding of the currency and reasonable prices, the layout of the city, knowing what restaurants most likely will not give you food poisoning, etc. Now that I know for sure that I will be studying in Amman for the year I feel like I will be more open to making real friends here and fully embracing a dialect-- something that I have been needing to do for a long time now. 

The program has been getting increasingly difficult and I have not been finding or making the time for many big adventures. But, I did visit a very interesting looking mosque in Ashrafiyya this weekend, Abu Darweesh Mosque:

And some Bashar Al-Assad graffiti I saw walking around Ashrafiyya (not sure what's in his mouth):

Beirut, part two

We caught a minibus from the airport bridge in Beirut to Baalbek. The bus was packed for the first part of the trip and altogether the drive took about two and a half hours. After only ten minutes in the bus, still in Beirut, we came to our first checkpoint. Passports were checked and we were waved along. This is about the time we saw an increase in the amount of pro-Assad posters, all saying things like "We are with you always" accompanied by the most flattering pictures of Assad they could find. The same area was strewn with the Amal Movement's flags and beyond that were some banners for the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in Lebanon. We were traveling east into the mountains but everywhere along our route was populated, either by small towns or a series of shops--everything from paintball ranges and german shepherd training centers to Starbucks and gun stores. 

Altogether we crossed about five checkpoints before reaching Baalbek. The last third of our trip was in Hezbollah territory and the checkpoints appeared increasingly makeshift. By the time we passed through the last one, there were only two other passengers on the bus. One a professorial man of about sixty sitting directly behind me and a slightly younger man at the back of the bus, wearing a beanie and baggy clothes, looking a little haggard. At our final checkpoint we were stopped by four men. The only indication that they were official was a black 'national security' vest and the AK-47s and MP5s that they nonchalantly waved around with their fingers on the trigger, reminiscent of young IDF soldiers. Other than that, they wore sneakers and jeans and short sleeves. We slid the van door open and they asked for our passports. Upon confirming that we were Americans, we got a warm welcome and they moved on to the other two passengers who faced a more thorough interrogation. The worst of it fell on the down-and-out man in the beanie. Standing at the door of the van, the guards were asking him for his ID and to explain the reason for travel. A relative of his was sick and he was going to help care for him. They weren't satisfied with his answer and took him farther from the van for a pat down and more questioning. It was too far for me to hear, and I was desperate to know what it was about him that made them so suspicious. Clearly, it was something specific about his appearance that I could never detect. We all waited in the van, the driver being surprisingly patient. The guards took off the man's shoes and emptied his pockets. They then told the driver to go. He was hesitant. They told him again and he said the man hadn't paid his fare. The newly-detained man walked calmly over to the van and gave the driver all the money he seemed to have on him, just short of the fare. We left without him and he returned to the interrogation. I turned to the passenger behind me and asked why they chose him for inspection. "I don't know." Yeah, right. 

These guards have good reason to be vigilant. About a week before we arrived, a suicide bomber killed one and injured 32 at one of the checkpoints on this route. 

As soon as we left the checkpoint our surroundings were dominated by Hezbollah imagery-- flags, banners, pictures. Along the median were massive cardboard celebrity cutouts of the Ayatollah and Nasrallah's picture plastered everywhere. Posted on every telephone pole was one of the 99 different names for God--The Forgiving…The Seer of All…The Expediter…The Delayer. The Shi'a mosques, especially the Khawla Mosque next to the Baalbek ruins, were striking. More flashy than the Sunni mosques I am used to, they are strewn with small, colorful flags and have pictures of various religious figures.

Finally, here are the ruins themselves:

This area was settled about 9,000 years ago, but the Roman ruins that we see today are mostly from 150 A.D.

This is the Temple of Bacchus. Once a Roman temple, and one of the largest remaining in the world, it was later converted into a church, then a mosque, and is now used for concerts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxru3jNV63s

Here is a sculpture of Cleopatra and the deadly snake on her chest, and next to her is the less well-preserved Mark Antony. Both of their sculptures fell from the temple in 1759 after a devastating earthquake. 

Here is the underside of the arch leading into the Temple of Bacchus, with engravings of the god and his beloved grapes:

We were lucky to run into a guide while wandering around the temple since he pointed out a lot of details that we never would have noticed. The engravings on the outer walls of the temple are full of symbolic imagery, both for good years (fruits, dancing women, symbols of friendship) and bad years (locusts eating the crops and birds drinking all the water that is left after a drought). The underside of these pillars has faces carved into them. The guide said that all of these faces were the images of wealthy locals who donated money to build and restore the temple.

Back in Beirut for our last day we wandered around the Corniche more and the intense heat and humidity made us jealous of the guys who were snorkeling and setting up fishing nets. Unfortunately, a lot the the areas around the Corniche are not conducive to swimming, especially not for women.

And finally, here is another piece that I came across by Yazan, defaced by religious fanatics who do not believe that humans should be depicted. It was a portrait of Mahmoud Darwish.

Beirut, part one

Finally getting around to writing my posts about Beirut. Things have been moving so fast here and so much has happened in the last few weeks. But, before I start in on my weekend in Beirut, here's a picture of my awesome language partner Muhammad (on the right) and his equally amazing friend Mahmoud. Our weekly three hour meetings have consisted of smoking shisha, watching the world cup, exploring the Jordanian University's campus and library, breaking fast with the staple Jordanian dish mansif, and having some fun but frustrating arguments about religion and homosexuality.  

So we arrived in Beirut around midnight Wednesday night. The humidity was stifling, but we wandered around the Mar Michael neighborhood for a few hours, passing the blue-domed Muhammad Al-Amin mosque which is located across from a Ferrari dealership which isn't far from buildings that look like this:

Parts of Beirut are still damaged from the civil war and the Israeli bombings in 2006. Just when you are being enveloped by the high-end condos and stylish cafes, you encounter buildings like this and they are, to me, a chilling reminder of everything that this city has endured and may continue to endure. It was amazing where I would find these reminders. Wandering around the beautiful National Museum, I was looking at a 5th century mosaic of animals when I noticed the hole about a foot in diameter. I commented, only half seriously, that it was probably remnants from the civil war. Turns out it was. From a sniper who shot through the window, gouging a hole in a 1500 year old mosaic and the wall that displayed it. This kind of contrast marked the few days in Lebanon. 

More pictures of the museum:

The majority of my time in Beirut was spent wandering around the Hamra district, near the American University in Beirut and along the Corniche, on the Mediterranean. The best part about walking around was seeing all of the graffiti. I was familiar with some of the pieces from an assignment I had done on graffiti in the Arab world, so it was nice to see them in person. 

My first full day in Beirut I visited T-Marbouta, a lovely cafe and library in Hamra owned by my former professor's brother. The food was delicious, especially the mutabbal.

Practically all of the food we ate in Beirut was amazing. The first night we ate at Le Chef, which was a simple, homestyle Lebanese restaurant. It was my first time eating molokhia and now I want to cook it myself. We also went to an Argentinian rooftop steak house. Again, delicious. A large amount of our time in Beirut was spent doing homework so we hung out at a few cafes, drinking lavender lattes and writing our weekly Arabic papers.

By far the best part of the trip to Lebanon was the day trip we took to Baalbek. I'll include all the pictures of that in part two.