I always get excited to see one of our promising youth. However, the moment I said hello it hit me that something was not right. To start with Sami was not supposed to be in the street that hour of the day. It was 11 AM, he was supposed to be at school. “sami, keefak?” I asked. He answered smiling, “good”. “Why aren’t you at school?” He showed me his left hand “well” he said, “I am going to the hospital”. The smile immediately left my face. His finger was in a weird position,  I asked unthinkingly “is it broken?”  He said “yes, my Arabic language teacher broke it!”

Nothing could have prepared me for that moment. I felt the anger forming in my stomach. “why? What happened?” I asked very seriously now. “He was angry at one of my class mates. He asked me to put my book on the desk. I turned my head to remove it from the bag. At that moment I saw my pen at my neighbor’s desk, I took it. Before I blinked, he hit me.”

I looked at sami, who was explaining to me a perfectly disturbing story with an embarrassed smile, feeling that he was the guilty party. It was a critical moment; a moment when one of our youth could learn that he mattered, that what happened to him was, as a matter of fact, important. Sami is the product of an educational system that strips children of their dignity.  Teachers peel off the first layer of children’s dignity because their mothers did not go beyond 6^th grade. They peel off the rest slowly over twelve years of pain because they have the wrong origins or religions, because they come from the wrong backgrounds, because the teachers themselves are not happy with their paycheck, because they are not pleased with their socio economic status.  The result is a broken generation that suffers of severe low self esteem.

I decided that I needed to do something, this was a rare opportunity that was presented to me for a purpose. I took Sami to my office and called the school.

One the supervisors picked up the phone. I told him that I had a child whose finger is broken because his teacher hit him. The supervisor said “oh, yeah, I saw him half an hours ago” I asked “and what did you do about it?” he answered  “I asked him what was wrong and he told me he fell and broke his finger.”  Sami explained to me later that the teacher was around therefore, he was afraid to say anything in front of him.

“Why didn’t you take him to a healthcare center to take a look at the injury?” I asked and he answered “Lady, I have 800 kids, I don’t have the energy or the time to run after each one of them!”

 This sentence summed it all up. It represented everything that is wrong with our educational system, actually it was a manifestation of the era of degradation that our world has sunk into… We are simply too selfish to care. It said it all… I could not remember last time I felt this angry… I decided to do the undoable… I pulled a string.

I called the most important person that I knew, explained to her what the situation was and begged her to do something about it… luckily, my wasta’s heart is in the right place…

To cut a long story short, a few hours later, Sami’s mother called me, she wanted to thank me, now that she was informed of all the details…She told me that the whole staff went to visit the family’s house to drink a cup of coffee… a “atwa” of sorts… Aparently my wasta managed to put them in their places. They felt they needed to do something to redeem themselves… or maybe they simply thought that Sami’s family knows people and therefore should not be touched…

 I laughed!

I am so terribly amused by the whole thing. I wonder what would have happened if I did not talk to sami, I wonder how many Samis are out there in Jordan… I wonder why the system fails…

 Why didn’t I believe in the system? Why did I need to call my wasta?

 Let me briefly mention another story here, hopefully it will shed the light to why we don’t believe in the system.  

A couple of years ago, we had a problem with one of the schools. It had snakes living in the walls. A colleague contacted the Ministry of Education. They sent an angry inspector. She took him around and showed him the size of our predicament… he asked one question.. “did the snake ever bite any child?” he asked…”No” answered a baffled teacher… “Then this is not a priority!”

I would only say  thank God for new media… at least today an inspector would think 5 times before he dares say something this horrid!

• كان الإعتصام بإدارة مجموعة من شباب الجامعات، و بدأ الناس ينضمون لهم. بعكس ما ادعاه رئيس الوزارة المحترم. لا أحد يحب التعصب. أتمنى ان لا تكون اللحية دلاله على ان الشحص اخوان مسلمين، لأنه في عمري اللحية تعتبر كول! .

• كان المعتصمين خليط من جميع الأطياف و المنابت. و ان ما يقال ان الإنقسام كان فلسطيني\اردني غير صحيح. كان هناك مسلمين، و مسيحييين، يساريين و يمينيين، شباب اردنيين من جميع الأصول تمثيل عشائري، ارمن، شركس….فيحبطني انه هناك عناصر تحاول خلق نزعات و فتنة في وقت يجب ان نوحد صفوفنا لنتأكد من ان مستقبل الأردن واضح لأولادنا في ظل الأطماع الإقليمية لإسرائيل و في ظل نزاع البقاء على الماء و الذي يهددنا بكابوس قريب.

بدأ الإعتصام بأدب و باحترام، و كان الشباب منظمين بأغاني وطنية و دبكات. كان جميعهم ينادي بحياة الملك و يطالبون باصلاحات. بدأت المشاكل عند انضمام البلطجية كانوا يسبون مسبات سيئة جدا على المتظاهرين. و بدأوا برشق الحجارة و الحق انه عناصر الأمن لم تتدخل و لم تؤذي. بالعكس كانت هناك محاولات مساعدة

المشكلة بدات عندما قررت قوات الدرك الإنضمام الى البلطجية الذين كانوا يصلون للميدان بالرغم من اغلاق جميع المنافذ و عدم السماح لأحد بالدخول. بدل الدفاع عن الشباب المعتصمين الذين كانوا يمارسون حقوقهم الدستورية بشكل حضاري(بالرغم اني اعتقد انه الأعتصام عطل مسيرة دوار الداخلية، وهو عصب مهم في عمان، من الممكن ان اختيار المكان لم يكن موفق). كان هناك هدف واحد للدرك وهو فض الاعتصام.  هل كان هناك تواطوء من قبال الأمن مع البلطجية؟

• انا لست متأكدة و لكن بدأ عندي تشكك ان البلطجية لم تكن حركة عشوائية. بل وراءها اشخاص معينين يستفيدون من الإنقسام الأردني. لأنه من المستحيل ان ينظم هؤلاء انفسهم بهذه الطريقة بدون منظم وراءهم. و اتساءل اذا كانت الحكومة وراءها؟ و اذا لم تكن الحكومة فمن اذا. اعتقد ان السؤال الذي يطرح نفسه هو من المستفيد من ابقاء الوضع كما هو؟ و خاصة ان الملك بنفسه يدعم و يشجع الإصلاح؟

“I am not creative, I just have access to a lot of creativity” ~ Mais Gamoh, one of the most creative young women I came across.

I have been trying to write this post for a while, but was not sure what I wanted to say exactly. Since I traveled to Spain, I wondered why the “taste” in Spain is nicer than in Amman… and by taste, I mean furniture, clothing, jewelry…etc. I know that the answer might seem intuitive for a lot of people, but it was not for me.

A few days ago, I came across this picture at some weekly newspaper, and since I am in the process of furniture shopping it caught my attention… I am one of those who don’t mind looking around before deciding to buy something that would stay with me for a long time. (by the way I hate shopping)

I am not sure what brain came up with this embodiment of chic!

Even though there are more furniture shops in Amman than I care to count, only a selected few have nice things. Unfortunately, they are super expensive. Majority of the shops that have affordable furniture, Like the one in the picture, sell furniture that looks cheap in the best cases and hideous in the worst.  Most of them show similar color themes and designs. Never a variety of tastes. These designs become so familiar that after a while, people would actually like them.  At that sad moment they become the standard.

Shop owners claim that they import or manufacture things based on the local taste, but I think it is the opposite; people buy what is available and affordable, and in our case, shop owners impose their own taste on everyone else.

The same happened when I was in the process of buying the engagement ring.

I visited the gold market in Swefieh. I wanted the most basic style. I did not worry much then because I thought that what i was looking for was the standard ring.

I was wrong.

The market was flooded with this one particular style. A thick ring that has 3 to 4 different shades of gold, each one with a different hew.  I called it the noble ring!

Let’s just say that I did not like it.

I decided to go to Jabal Hussein to look for “simple”…  Jabal Hussein was worse… basically what was available was an inferior version of the noble ring!

Khalas, along the way someone had decided that this was going to be the trend for rings in fall 2010 and everyone else followed suit. Nothing and I mean NOTHING else could be found.  We, eventually, ended up going to one of the big gold stores at Um othainah and bought a simple ring for a slightly more expensive price because “simple” was not in.

I bet that every woman who got engaged at that point is wearing this particular ring. Not because it is brilliant, nor because they love it… but because it was the only thing that was available then.

I leave you with another picture of what is available in the market, note that prices have increased when furniture became a bit more creative(i.e. differnt colours and shapes were introduced…)… no comment on the taste. 

It would be nice to have more choices in the more affordable bracket.

شو اللحظة اللي تحولوا بياعين الجرايد من اصحاب مهنه لشحادين؟ وقت غلاء الأسعار اللي ضرب الأردن ب2007 و 2008؟ ولا الأزمة المالية ب2009؟ ولا كانت الأممر دائما هيك، بس انا ما كنت منتبهة؟

“Food’s sake buy from me” said Mohamed, the guy that sells newspapers at the traffic light near my house. “Buy from me, let me buy lunch for my children, I swear, I have not sold anything yet and you see these floods”

When was the moment that newspaper sellers were transformed into beggars? Was it the rise in prices that hit Jordan in 2007 and 2008? Or was it the financial crisis that hit the world in 2009? Or this is how it always have been, but I was oblivious?

I wonder what was going on. If it is really the mall… I wonder if opening a mall is worth messing up a whole city?  (it kind of reminded me when McDonald’s opened a few years ago, and the street closed for three days)

If there was a fear of a terrorist act, I truly would like to know what we are facing here.

Does anyone know?

At this point my post starts suffering an identity crisis. The post is about two completely different ideas, but they are intertwined in a way that makes it complicated for my, already, complicated brain to choose which idea to go with.  The first one is about unlived adolescence in Jordan, and the other one is about the dating scene in Amman.

What I would do is explore one idea today and defer the other one to the next post. Hopefully they will converge eventually in something that makes sense.

 Women’s Juvenile expressions

A few years ago, I was working on a women empowerment project in East Amman.  The project involved asking a number of adult women to write their own short bios. They loved the exercise. I mean, it is seldom that anyone gets interested in them as persons.  We worked slowly on developing the information, and when they were finally done, they handed me hard copies of the bios.  I found a common feature in all the documents that sort of confused me.  These women used colors to draw small hearts and flowers around their documents… some of them even went as far as sticking cartoon characters and I love you stickers on their bios! 

The pattern used was familiar to me… it was that of 11 year old girls!

These were the expressions of adult women, who had never had the chance to express themselves when they were 11. At that age, they were expected to be women and house wives.  These women lost their freedom to go out and make friends and be juvenile when they hit puberty. At that age, they started learning how to cook and clean and take care of younger children… they were no longer children… and were expected to let go of their childhood earlier that they needed to.

What happened to them?  Well, their unfulfilled desires stayed with them through their adulthood… leaving them emotionally immature and unfulfilled, which means unable to fulfill their husbands’ unfulfilled emotional desires.

I soon realized that this was a lifestyle and not random expressions… the way they carried out their lives had something childish about it… they behaved childishly, the language they used, and their decisions were based on childish basis as well. 

Men’s juvenile expressions

I imagined that men are better off… but actually I realized that it is not at all the case…look around, a lot of men end up spending their Thursday nights driving around Duwwar Abdoun..    Men in their teens, twenties driving around, chatting up girls and acting idiotically! Older men would probably be found in night clubs doing exactly the same… <madas’ comment> I am not saying everyone is like that… but a good number is </madas’ comment> 

For many complicated reasons, these men were not allowed to explore with their sexuality at their adolescence years… and they ended up exploring that when they are older… only at this age it is no longer innocent.

My whole point here is that these two people in the car… would not sit in a car in the middle of the night, if they had the chance to do that when they were in their teens or early twenties… khalas they would have already got it out of their systems by this age…

However I don’t think that this is the only reason why men and women in Amman end up making out in cars.  … I think there are other reasons including  not having places to do that in…

Which takes me to my next question… what are the features of the dating scene in Amman?

… A guy drove by in a fancy car, slowed down and stopped at some 100 meters in front of me…

I was tempted to cross the street, but then decided that I should not let him intimidate me.

So I kept going…

He opened his window, and started shouting numbers… 200? 300? Ok 500… I soon realized that it was JDs he meant!  This guy either thought I was a prostitute and was offering money in hope of service, or he simply was acting like a jackass!  Which probably was the case.

I kept going without even giving him a second glance. I know how cruel it is not to acknowledge the existence of a human being… and this guy, certainly,  did not deserve to be acknowledged.

He kept following me.

I turned left to a side street and he drove back and forth at least ten times in that street, till I reached my destination….he waited a bit, and then realized that I was not going out any time soon, and so he left, probably to bug another girl…

Ohh.. the car had a Qatari number.. It really is upsetting, that some people from abroad come to Jordan, thinking that girls who walk in the streets are  free game… I am not saying that our local guys are better…… but still, when you go as a guest somewhere, the minimum requirement is to practice some self respect….

Our local guys… akh from our local guys…they have succeeded into turning the experience of walking in our lovely Amman into a very unlovely  experience….I can almost swear that any Jordanian girl, regardless of her dress code or background can share horror stories related to her experiences in walking in Amman…. girls get exposed to men’s dirty words, and pathetic sexual frustration at a very early age…and they never share their stories, because they know that their families will only practice more control over them…. so they internalize their bad experiences and move on…. moving on is their silent resistance to things they can’t control

Actually… I am tired of writing about this … so will go watch Dance with me instead!

October 2008

We have finally joint the 70,000 Jordanian families that have foreign live-in domestic workers. Irani, is 23, smart and ambitious. She started her studies in economics at the university, and is here to save enough money to be able to go back to school…. I picked her up when she arrived…

And for a split of a second, I imagined myself going into a new place… where I know nothing at all… I don’t speak the language, and where I am supposed to move in with some completely random family … lets say I can understand why she looked bewildered.

October 2009

Rani is still here; we managed to become friends during this last year. By now I know her life story. She still impresses me with her intellect, intelligence and her subtlety. I also know that her mother is here in Amman, she does not live far away from us… she is a cook at some wealthy household.

Today, Rani told me a very strange thing about her mother… she mentioned that even though she is the cook, her employers made her sign a very strict contract that stipulates she is not allowed to taste or eat any food at home. They give her 5 JDs every week to eat!  FIVE JDs  for the whole week!  While  these fat, ugly pathetic excuses of human beings spend extravagantly on their meals… Rani has mentioned several times before the kind of  meals her mothers cooks, the luxury items her employers export from abroad…Salma spends her entire day cooking! Literally!

Does anyone knows how much cooking this is?!

Salma laughed embarrassed as she explained how she  sometimes desires the food she cooks… but since there are 2 other maids there, one of them works as a spy… she actually can’t eat any food… so she has been feeding on Tuna cans, Endomy Noodles and other crap from the supermarket… she obviously does not want to spend her salary…. understandably, she travelled thousands of miles with her daughter  in order to save enough money so that her 3 kids  (including the daughter) can go to university and don’t have to clean people’s toilets for the rest of their lives!

I know it sounds horrible, but I found myself hoping this family will suffer from high cholesterol and high blood pressure, so that they start eating non-tasty food and desire things they can’t eat… maybe then, they can understand what they have been making this human being go through every single day last year.

Apparently Jordan is so known for our creative abuse methods when it comes to domestic help, that someone went ahead and wrote an article about it on Wikipedia….  Human trafficking in Jordan…

Yup this is how we want Jordan to be known on the world’s map! Fabulous, eh?

Eid brings many thoughts about the way we celebrate it in this part of the world.

Usually, my dad goes to Salat al Eid with my uncles. And as soon as they finish, they start what I call “the door to door ritual.” This involves strong coffee with cardamom and ka3k il eid dates cookies… they visit their father’s grave and then go from house to house. They start with the eldest of their five sisters; they go through the rest of them and then visit their uncles and aunts.  They might visit one or two distant relatives and end their tour by visiting their married daughters.  Usually they are back home by 9:00 AM!

The very same people they visited in the morning return the visit in the afternoon! And while this seems useless, it has been done in my family for as long as I remember.

This thought brought to my mind a very warm Christmas memory in London. That year, I could not go home, because tickets were disgracefully expensive, so I stayed in London. I convinced my flat mates to have a proper Christmas, and they agreed. We did not buy a tree but decorated the big plant that we had and ended up having a very funky tree.

This was not the highlight of my Christmas. We ended up spending Christmas day with my flat mate’s family. In their house and after going through the beautiful meal. We engaged into the ritual of opening the gifts.

Apparently every year, they buy each other many gifts (that was surprising and embarrassing, because I bought whole family one gift! but left their house with several gifts!) in their case, a lot of thought goes into those gifts. They buy each other nice gifts, but also useless gifts that would make them laugh. For example, the lady is a very sensitive human being who cares about her house and what gets displayed. So her husband bought her a 1X1 meter book to display on her coffee table! The book was about human anatomy and had gruesome pictures and illustrations!! I did not know these people well, but one look at the book was enough to make me laugh… it really was funny in their context.

The point is, buying gifts, looked simple from the first view, but the more they went into them, the more I realized how difficult it was. It could not work, expect in families that have strong awareness of each other… I am not talking about good relationships, but strong in the sense that family members are unafraid to confront each other and are very honest about their feelings, their power dynamics and their issues. Not only that, but they also have to know each other well…. They have to know what makes them tick, what makes them laugh and what would be appreciated…. needless to say; a lot of internal jokes were unearthed that day.

I truly felt that the ritual was both enjoyable and engaging, it was much deeper than the cold ritual we have in my family… seeing people that we only and literally see from Eid to Eid… where they come in for ten minutes, drink coffee, eat cookies, exchange fake social pleasantries and then leave….

Maybe I should start the gift exchanging ritual with my own family, especially that we have 4 young boys now in the family… I would like to bring some fun back to the Eid, make our boys enjoy it and love it…

On that note…Happy Eid everyone.

However what I found really amusing was Salamu Alaikom followed by a jolt to find a woman beggar sitting there with her baby, waiting till the men finished praying in order to get a few JDs….

Grizzly’s stories are some of many stories I have been hearing lately about people taking their children (ages begin from a few months on) to the mosque.  A friend was telling me that while she was trying hard to focus on meditation and humility, her mind was taken over by one thought; how she wished she could slap the 3 little girls, who were standing behind her back, watching the praying men from the window and giggling excited! The girls were settling world’s affairs, while worshipers were trying to listen in the most absolute silence.

 In other words    فاتحين دواوين

In yet another incident, my sister was commenting on a woman who was at the mosque with her toddler. The baby was, rightfully, upset being out of home at that late hour and so she started crying … my sister expected the mother to leap immediately out of the mosque in order not to disturb the other women … but the lady sat there  بكل نياطة as if annoying every single woman there was a perfectly respectable thing to do!…  some women  eventually got fed up with her and told her off… she resisted a bit, but then took the baby and ambled out of the mosque so slowly, oblivious to all the women who were waiting patiently for her highness to leave in order to start praying… Her actions almost sound blasphemous!

I wonder why she had to wait till someone gave her a piece of their mind in order to do the decent thing? Is it lack of common sense? Is it selfishness? Is it bad manners?

Since it is Ramadan… I would like to cast my cynicism aside and think that parents take children to the mosque only because they feel it is important to raise children with a strong attachment to their religion.… and not for any other reasons… but part of me still finds it selfish, completely tasteless and an indication of ignorance to take children and leave them unattended.  I mean if a parent insists that their children have to go to the mosque, the least they should do is make sure that they pray next to them so that they behave and not distract those who are actually there to pray.

And then…at that point, when people stop being selfish, even in practicing religion… maybe then, we could become a better nation.