Another Shooting in Jordan

OK this is ridiculous another shooting in Jordan also targeting the cultural scene. In today’s paper the headline is about a shooting that stopped filiming of show in Mt. Nebo. A car pulled up and opened fire. What is going on? Why the violence? Why the guns? 

Is this due to the economic crisis in the country?

Is it the disenfranchised people?

Is it the indifference or apathy that exists in this society?

 

WHAT IS GOING ON? I am disturbed by all these “random” acts of violence.

 

Sensless Shooting in Amman

After a concert was concluded in downtown Amman a man opened fire and shot some of the musicians as they were leaving the location. Four Lebanese musicians were shot with varying degrees of injuries.

Tomorrow perhaps will bring clarity but right now the only facts we have are 3 vicitims in Al Khalidi hospital , 1 in AL Basheer hospital, and  the shooter is dead. The victims are all lebanese musicians who have preformed earlier that evening in the Roman Theater. Everything else is speculation and hearsay so far. The source a Jordanian musician checking on his friends in the hospital.

Why this has happened no one knows as of yet. My reaction is two fold OUTRAGE and sadness. I am outraged at the sensless violence taking place. I dont know the reason for the shoot and I dont think there is a justifiable cause no matter what anyone says. The shooter is dead so we really cant ask him. I am sad for all the victims in this incident including this poor country held hostage to every violent whim as it struggles to get on its feet. I am tired of all these random or not so random acts of violence.

Is it going to be safe to go to concerts now? What about downtown can you take people there now? Is it safe to walk? are we going to over react to this or brush it under the carpet?

 

THE ONE

I was chatting with a friend about commitment and change. The context of course was meeting people and being with someone. Now if you’ve read my previous post Tarnib vs. Tricks you know I am a Tricks player. To go a bit farther and explain myself a bit more, I am afraid. I am afraid of commitment. I am afraid of change. I am afraid of losing myself. I am afraid of losing my freedom, which I have struggled hard to achieve. I am also so comfortable in my life and so used to enjoying being single that I do not want to give up this happiness for something completely unknown with someone unknown. I know that there are those people who are in relationships that will now rush to tell me I am missing out on the best things in life because of my singlehood. That being with THE ONE is incomparable. Well I’m going to go at this from two angles: the first is the concept of THE ONE, the other is THE ONE.

The concept of THE ONE is so depressing to me. To think that in this whole wide world of six billion people there is only one person for each of us is just unfathomable. The odds of meeting that one are so miniscule that you have to be one lucky bastard to find that person. What if my one was in Timbuktu? How do you go about finding this elusive ONE? Where do you start? How do you start? How do you know its THE ONE? How do you recognize THE ONE if they are standing behind you in the line at the bank? What does THE ONE look like? Can you see why I don’t believe in the idea of THE ONE?

I am a firm believer in multiple partners throughout life. I believe this for many reasons not just the odds of there being just one. I think that every relationship has a beginning and an end. Even if two people are together faithfully until death parts them, then that is the end of that relationship. And so others may form. Another reason is people change, and grow. With that growth your needs change and your needs aren’t always met by the first person you meet. So you move on to someone else. Yes, yes there are those cases of two people being together and growing together and being able to spend their whole lives with each other, and lovingly so. But call me a cynic, I somehow don’t believe in Hollywood endings. Or as Fergie sings “Fairy tales don’t always have a happy ending.”

I want to come back to the question of “what does THE ONE look like?” Well I know that as a kid me and my friends always had these lists of what Mr. Right would be like. I even carried it around in my wallet for a while. I now have no clue where that list is but I can remember a few of these desirable traits: good looking, funny, a good dancer, makes me laugh, strong shoulders and has a jeep. I know the list was a lot longer but the rest eludes me. I smile every time I think of that list because, well it’s a funny teenager’s list. Today if I were to even try to compile a list of desirables then it will be very different. Secure would be up there on the list, as is challenging, someone who can be in a relationship autonomously and give me my space and autonomy without begrudging them. Someone with a full life that complements mine, not completes it ,or competes with it. Someone who has shared values and similar goals. These are a few qualities that would top the list; And from my teen list I would keep good looking, funny and I would tweak good dancer to loves to dance. The jeep and shoulders negotiable !

Putting the list aside though, people are important to me. Relationships are important too. I don’t think they are easy, especially romantic relationships. I know that I like invest the tiem and effort in building friendships, and learning about someone, one layer at a time. I thrive on this. I take these relationships seriously. My life is full of wonderful people that I have gotten to know and am getting to know. Romance and love is usually not on the agenda when these relationships are forming. My take on that is if it happens it happens if not… oh well no worries nothing has to change, and hence I don’t have to jump. That doesn’t mean I don’t have the willingness to face those fears; I know that I am willing to jump. However, when I jump, I want a parachute, or I want to jump in tandem with someone I know I can trust to pull the cord when we need to. Until then Tricks anyone?

 

I am an Arab Woman

One of my favorite reads in the past few years is Amin Maalouf’s book On Identity entitled: In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong. The book discusses how our identity is made up of multiple facets and “it is built up and changes throughout a person’s lifetime.” The book was a response to 9/11 and was trying to answer how murderous identities are born. But I won’t go into that now, you can read the book if want to learn more. But the question begs itself, Who am I?

The idea that we relate to many identities and react to the various criticisms or praises to a part of our identity and it comes to the forefront was fascinating and understandable. It made sense that when a part of you is under attack, misrepresented, misinterpreted then you want to change that and you react or act. But I’ve never really took an in depth look into who I am from that sense. I always introduced myself within a context. Until now. So with out context and for the sake answer the question this is my Identity.

Two identities come to the forefront of my mind: I am an Arab, I am a woman. Both have been the strongest identifiers for me. The first comes from two places, assumptions people make about me, and pride. I am constantly told I look nothing like an Arab and so I am addressed as and treated as a foreigner in my own home. Here I constantly correct that assumption by asking “What does an Arab look like?” When someone speaks to me in English despite being spoken to in Arabic my response today is “Ana Ma fhimet, Ma ba7ki Englizy”. This translates into I am sorry I don’t understand, I don’t speak English. Yes I know this piece is in English and I’m always using English ,I will explain that in another post.

I am proud of being an Arab, I am proud of being Jordanian . This pride comes from constantly representing my culture, my heritage and explaining it to westerners. My first experience at being a cultural ambassador/ translator was a visit to America six years ago. The trip lasted about two months and it was such an eye opening experience. I never knew how Arab I was until I had to speak up about my country, my region, my language, my traditions, my society …etc. It is hard trying to break stereotypes and presenting a positive spin on years of negativity and misrepresentations. But it is so rewarding when you succeed in changing fear into understanding.

The other part of me is my womanhood. I love being a woman. I have struggled very hard in a man’s world to be. I grew up amongst three brothers, in a misogynistic home with gender stereotypes constantly being reinforced in the simplest of daily chores and activities. I worked in male dominated fields early on in my career, in which I had to be tough and masculine in my attitudes. I walked in streets where I am made conscious of my status as a female, made sexual with a look, a comment, and sometimes even a touch. My early conditioning was to accept apologetically this placement in life. To accept that men will always be superior. Ha ha ha… yeah right. They are more than welcome to think that, but I will not apologize for being a woman, and I am not inferior. And if anyone has a problem with that I am more than happy to set them straight! I love being a woman and I enjoy my mind, my body, myself.

There are other parts of my identity that I used to relate to strongly but not anymore. I think that I have grown enough that I no longer need to validate those parts of me by making them important and constantly wearing them on my sleeve. Not that I need to validate being an Arab woman. But I am secure enough to know that I don’t need to showcase all my facets. It also makes for interesting discoveries of oneself by others.

 

The Elastic List

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a list of things I wanted to do before I die. The list is not static in any way with things being added constantly, things being forgotten, and things not on the list even being done. The list is organic with a life of its own. It is ever expanding and retracting. It is elastic.

Thinking about all these unfulfilled desires I noticed that a lot have to do with travel and seeing the world. I remember being in my early teens and saying I will die happy when I see Victoria Falls. I also want to go live in India for 6 months, a goal I want to fulfill within 5 years. I want to live by the sea again. I want to see Turkey, Oman, Yemen, Iran, Cuba, Brazil, Indonesia, Australia, Vietnam, Nepal, Chile, Prague, South Africa, the Maldives, and every ocean, not in any particular order.

But there are other things I want to do. I want to relearn how to ride a bike. I want to buy an SLR camera. I want to fly a kite. I want to make a kite. I want to learn to ride and own a motorbike. I want to swim naked in the ocean and go topless under the sun. I want to shave my head at least once in my life. I want to go up in a hot air balloon (I’ve planned this twice and never succeed). I want to go to Wadi Rum and Finan Lodge with someone special. I want to do Petra by Night too. I want to hike down from the High Place in Petra the back way. I want to lose the last 10 KG that have been haunting me for the last 7 months.

I also want to find my passions in life and never get bored working again. I want to open an B&B with a little restaurant called Mama Sally’s. I want to work on my photography. I want to work without having to worry about money. I want to go back to school just for the hell of it. I want to be a philanthropist.

All these desires are waiting to be fulfilled and their time will come. Even if they don’t it’s OK. I have also accomplished a lot and fulfilled a lot of desires. I’ve had a very good life, with its ups and downs, and for that I am grateful. So whether I actively plan for some of these desires and get them done, if they just happen or if they don’t, I’m a happy camper.

 

Two in one or One in Two?

In my recent travels across the bridge I was able to visit what the world knows as Israel and the Arab world recognizes as Occupied Palestine. The wall, the checkpoints, the languages, the religions, the ideologies all split what was historically one into two. It’s jarring, it’s visible, it’s disturbing, and it’s all in your face. It is a border within a border.

What is really striking though is not the checkpoints, or the wall. You expect those, and even become intimate with them as they are everywhere in the West Bank. They are accompanied by soldiers, guns, barbed wire, cameras, questions, and they are EVERYWHERE. What is striking is the difference in lifestyle and surroundings not minutes from the wall. Even amongst Palestinians living within Occupied Palestine.

The urbanscape quickly changes from one of the familiar Middle East to that of the concrete and steel of the west. It is very evident that the West Bank is frozen in time, with little or no development taking place. It is paused in time, the roads, the buildings, the architectural styles, the farms, the people and their clothes even. I have been visiting in the past 30 years and it hasn’t changed much that, at least, is something I can count on. It is comforting, in a sad way, to know that I can see the same things, in the same place, in the same context, without fail.

On the other side of the wall it’s another story all together. It’s a modern scape with roads large and wide, highways, tall buildings, concrete, glass, and boulevards. They all look shiny and new in contrast. It is so different that you forget that you are in the Middle East and instead memories of Europe come to mind.

That is not the case In mixed cities though. Mixed cities are ones with both a Jewish Israeli and a Palestinian population. These communities “live” side by side and coexist. But the values, the histories, the languages, the spaces, the stones, the thoughts are contradictory. You see beautiful old Arab homes boarded up, waiting to be remodeled for use as offices or apartments. You see old homes dwarfed next to new modern buildings standing tall. You hear Hebrew spoken all around even from the mouths of Palestinian babes. Menus, signs, billboards all speak to one segment of the population. The oppression is all around in architecture, in the street planning, in the neighborhood segregation, in the food, it is omnipotent.

I may not have been surprised by all of this but there were things that saddened my even more than all of that. I’d like to share two: It saddened me that my friends found it easier to use Hebrew amongst themselves and with their children. It also saddened me that Palestinians were afraid of the West Bank and of being with Palestinians on the other side of the wall. When you can’t find the words to express yourself in your own language but rather in the language of the oppressor and you are afraid to cross to see your brothers and sisters then you know the end is near and the wall was there a long time ago only now its made of cement. Is it making what was one two or is it making two one?

 

On Freedoms

Freedom of movement is a topic that has been on my mind for a while, especially when put in the context of checkpoints, borders, airports, security checks, bouncers and doormen even. . But a conversation with a friend put it in a slightly different light. We were talking about walking and how I take late night walks here in Amman, Jordan , whereas in her neighborhood in the U.S. that is impossible.

We always think of our freedoms on a large scale and where and how we can exercise them. Passports, identity, self expression, representation, politics, religion and so many other grander things we want freedom in. But this conversation brought to head the simple freedom of walking in the street, late at night, with a sense of security and safety. Being able to make that decision and executing it is not something I think twice about. Nobody stops me, nobody bothers me, I fear no one in doing this. On the other side of the globe in the “free” world my friend can’t walk out on her own at night without risking bodily harm. No one will stop her from going out but the uncertainty of what happens after dark does.

Our perceived freedoms are so different. Our social fabrics and constructs mean that we have different ways that our freedom of movement is impeded or facilitated. I don’t think one of us has more freedom than the other, just different expressions of freedoms.

Living here I have seen, and experienced discrimination, especially along lines of gender, that took away some of my freedoms. I fought them slowly but surely. I worked the system to my advantage and made it happen for me. I believe in being here and slowly gaining ground. Being a part of the change and the solution. I don’t want to, or feel the need to, move to another country to gain freedoms. I should be able to live, to be in my own country.

Going back to the freedom of movement issue, I thought about trading places with my friend. I quickly came to the conclusion that I would much rather be rejected for a visa than be held hostage in my own home at night unable to walk in my neighborhood freely.

 

Smelling the Jasmine

 

Last night I took my first walk of the summer. I have been meaning to do that for nearly two months but I finally found the time and energy last night. My route is in Jabal Amman. I love the area. I love how pedestrian friendly it is, how familiar it is, how cozy it all is. But this was my first walk after the renovations of Rainbow Street have been completed. Walking in my favorite streets I noticed the difference.  

 

Rainbow street now has wider pavements, seating areas and in general more pedestrians. People are now walking, sitting, playing and using the whole street. It has brought some life back to the area. But I do hate how there is too much lighting in the street every few meters there is a big bright yellow light bulb. I am someone who likes light but this is too much. I enjoy walking in the dark for many reasons including the privacy it offers, especially since I sing and talk to myself during my walks. Now I feel like there is a spot light following me whenever I am walking down Rainbow Street. And don’t get me started with how eco friendly this all is! The explanations I have heard are that this way immoral behavior can not take place on this street. Laughable no?

 

But back to the walk, the neighborhood should be renamed Jasmine because of all the lovely jasmine trees planted in just about every house. The streets all have their own smells but the small delicate flower of the Jasmine and its heady scent somehow manage to over power these smells and it makes my walks all the more pleasurable. So come walk with me and smell the jasmine in Jabal Amman.

 

 

 

Do you think about your trash?

We never think twice about throwing out stuff, or do we? Last night I was walking home and I saw a man meticulously going through the garbage dumpster in the street. He was taking every bag out, opening it and riffling through. Looking back at the scene all I could see was a man bending down over a bag with lots and lots of other opened bags around him. I got to thinking about this man, his life, his occupation. I didn’t get far before getting sad.

 

What I saw got me thinking about my trash bags and what I throw out. Its stuff I wouldn’t want to go through again, yet here is this man who is not just going through my bags but the whole neighborhoods bags. I wonder what he is looking for? Clothing that can still be worn, household goods that can be salvaged, old perfume bottles that can be refilled, recyclable materials? Probably all that and then some. What does he do with them? Is there a parallel world of garbage collectors that buy all this junk, polish it off and reuse it? Probably! They may even resell it back to us!

 

Thinking back to the scene from last night, one other thought struck me. He is working late and into the middle of the night. I know it’s not because of the midday heat, even though that could be part of it. But I have a strong feeling it is because he is ashamed of what he does. He doesn’t not want to be seen in broad daylight rummaging through other people’s trash!

 

It is a sad existence, like a parasites, living off of others in such a dirty way. But this is what the existence chain is like. The weak feed off of the strong. I do not pity him because that implies arrogance. I am a privileged person knowing that I do not have to live off of other people’s discarded trash, but I do empathize with him. I know I will give more thought to how and what I toss out in future so that his pickings may be easier.  

 

Watch Out There Are Feet Out There

The Middle East is known for its aversion to feet. We find them filthy, disgusting, and dirty and we hate them. Because of this I know that a lot of us are fascinated with them. We look at them all the time, especially in the summer when sandals, flip-flops and bare feet are all over the place. I personally always sneak a look and stare at feet. On the flip side of that I try to keep my feet clean and my toes well manicured. My feet aren’t the prettiest but I have come to respect them, love them and be comfortable with them.

So why am I talking about feet? If you read any guide book or etiquette book about the region one of the things you can count on being there is feet and how you should never put them in someone’s face when you cross your feet, or put them up. Also in there is how you should keep them clean at all times and wear slippers in the house and such. But with prolonged exposure to other cultures my attitude towards feet, especially my own, has changed. I no longer get annoyed if bare or covered feet are in my face, if someone is walking around barefoot (I enjoy that from time to time). I don’t mind putting my feet up either. I still keep my soles away from peoples’ face, but I no longer shy away from sitting comfortably with my feet poking out, instead of tucked away neatly and away from the public sphere. So today when a gentleman tried to joke about smelly feet, trying to get me to conform to social norms of feet tucked away I just smiled sweetly and thought “I love my feet and it’s your problem not mine that you can’t deal with there being some red toes showing!”

Feet are feet, it doesn’t matter who they belong to. We would be off balance with just a toe missing so can you imagine if you took a whole foot away. Respect them, enjoy them, look at them, play with them, massage them and celebrate them. You’ll have a hard time walking without them!