Welcome to my blog. My name is Lizabeth Zack. I am an assistant professor of sociology at the University of South Carolina Upstate. I am spending this academic year (September 2006 – June 2007) as a Fulbright Scholar in Jordan. The Fulbright grant allows me to do a number of things: live in the capital city of Amman, teach at the University of Jordan, conduct research on the subject of political protest and social movements, and travel within the country and wider region. This blog is a record of those experiences and my reflections on issues related to living in Jordan. Feel free to respond to any of the entries by contacting me at: LZACK@uscupstate.edu

I can go home now…

I arrived in Algiers, the capital city! It sits on the Mediterranean coast, built on rocky hills that grow up from the seaside. Bright white buildings with blue shutters paper the cityscape. A large industrial seaport, and a small fishing port, stretch along the coast. The city is a jumble of neighborhoods -- the old Jewish quarter, the Ottoman Casbah, the working class neighborhood of Bab-el-Oued, and the shi-shi district of Hydra. Some of the mosques have lived many lives, as mosque, as church, and synagogue. I walked along the waterfront for a while taking in views of the beach, the boats and the houses built up on the hills. It is as beautiful, if not more so, than I imagined all these years.

It was thrilling every time I encountered a square or street corner or building that I remembered from my research—the police reports I read in the archives had so much detail about the city that I developed a pretty good image of it in my mind. It was actually useful to know the city in my head and to know what I wanted to see. Algeria isn’t set up for tourism, at least not in the capital city, and they aren't used to having many foreigners around. I had trouble finding a map of the city, and the official tourist office, which took a day and a half to find, wasn't much help.

I relied a lot on the kindness of strangers. Algerians were pretty friendly and open; they are tough because of what they've gone through but warm and responsive nevertheless. I spoke French the whole time. People sometimes stared at me, but no one bothered me like they do in more tourist-friendly Morocco and Tunisia. Without a map, I had to ask people in the streets and hotels and shops about what I was looking for and how to go about it. Many offered to help. The receptionist at the hotel, for example, drove me to the other side of the city after work one day, stopping off on the way to buy bread for the family and a sweet for me.

I was interested in seeing evidence of the Algerian independence war from the 1950s, the subject of my research. I visited a giant Martyrs Memorial and the Museum of the Mujahadeen underneath it that traced the history of resistance to French colonialism. I had a coffee in the Milk Bar café, one of the places where the women of the FLN planted a bomb at the beginning of the Battle of Algiers, something you see in the famous movie. I spent hours shopping for books. One afternoon, I was taking pictures of some plaques of revolutionary leaders that were tacked up along the fence of a pretty road winding downhill. Two police officers approached me and asked to see the pictures on my camera. What I didn't realize was that the building in the background of my pictures was the Prime Ministry where a large bomb had gone off in early April.

The civil war of the 1990s pitted the Algerian military against armed Islamist groups. It started after the military canceled elections in 1992 that the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) was poised to win. More than 100,000 people were killed during the 1990s. In recent years, Islamist groups turned in their arms in exchange for amnesty and the government has since been promoting national reconciliation. One armed group rejected the amnesty offer and remains at war with the regime; earlier this year they announced their affiliation with al-Qaeda. In the last few months, they have taken responsibility for several bombs in Algeria, most aimed at government installations, including the one that exploded in the center of Algiers at the Prime Ministry building. Foreigners, including Americans, are advised to be extra cautious.

I also spent a few days in the western city of Oran, the location of an academic conference I attended. Participants were from the US, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Turkey, and Kyrgyzstan. Everyone speaks at least two languages. Some of the Americans live in the Middle East, in Beirut, Tunis and Algeria. They speak French and Arabic fluently, conduct research and talk to people and read novels in three languages. A few of us spent an afternoon with Mohamed, an Algerian professor/writer/filmmaker, who showed us around the city of Oran, and took us to his house to meet his wife and her friends. I spent an evening with the family of one of my students, a young Algerian woman, who is studying here in Jordan. It was really an embarrassment of riches, the way they treated me to everything.

As a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Arabs were forced to flee their homes in Palestine (present day Israel) and scatter throughout the region. Believing that the situation was temporary, many families took little more than the keys to their houses. In 1949, the UN created the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) when it became clear that the refugees wouldn't be able to return home. UNRWA provided assistance in the form of food, shelter and clothing to many of these refugees. Over time, camps with tents turned into more stable communities with sturdy housing. UNRWA began to provide services such as schools and health care. Ten new camps were set up after the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Today, there are 4.4 million registered Palestinian refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and Gaza Strip; 1.3 million of them live in 58 official UNRWA camps. Jordan has the highest number of registered refugees (about 1.9 million); more than 300,000 of them live in 10 camps in the country.

We took a couple of city buses from UJ to Baqa'a camp, which is just outside of the city of Amman. Inside the camp, it is very crowded, the streets are narrow and the housing is dense. The shops are selling food and other goods but it is clearly a poor community with inadequate infrastructure. We went to see the Director of the camp and had a briefing on its history and current successes and challenges. We asked lots of questions. We toured the health center and a few of the schools. They are clean and professionally run but understaffed and overcrowded. Below is a photo of the whiteboard in the director's office. The statistics give you some idea of the difficult living conditions in the camp. For example, there are 8 doctors, 2 dentists and 25 nurses for the 100,000 people living in the camp. The schools operate in two shifts due to lack of space. On the other hand, UNRWA has done an amazing job, given those conditions, in providing pre-natal and post-natal care for families; every child is fully vaccinated.

We walked into Maha’s classroom with her. The children greeted us with a chorus of "Good Morning Dr. Tim and Dr. Lizabeth. Welcome to our school." There were about 50 small children, mostly girls and a few boys, in blue uniforms. Normally, boys and girls go to separate schools but severe overcrowding at the boys school led administrators to send some of them to the girls' classrooms. At a few of the desks, three children shared what were supposed to be two seats. Some of the little girls wore headscarves, most did not. Posters and kids' drawings were taped up on the walls. We sat in the back while Maha started the lesson on 'the body'. The kids stole glances and smiles at us. Maha danced around touching her head, nose, and knees while the kids yelled out the words in English. It was adorable.

I went on to Tel Aviv, a very modern, European-style city on the Mediterranean. There are sidewalk cafes everywhere and young guys on skateboards. The shops are full of the same funky shoes and clothes you see in New York. I arrived just in time for the city to be on edge as the Winograd report came out, the one that condemned Prime Minister Olmert for his handling of the war in Lebanon last summer. My friend in Tel Aviv, an expert on the Israeli military, was busy doing interviews for the television, radio and newspapers. Major demonstrations were scheduled for the next day.

Back to Jerusalem for a few days. We stayed in a guesthouse right in the Old City, at the edge of the Christian and Armenian quarters near the Jaffa Gate. The Old City is divided into four quarters: Christian, Muslim, Armenian and Jewish. Many of the famous sites -- the Wailing Wall, the Dome of the Rock, Al Aqsa mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre -- are located in these quarters. Even after seeing pictures of the city – of the walls, domes, shops, markets, streets and churches -- for so many years on the news and in books, I was still awed by it. The old city is also pleasantly confusing, where it's hard to tell (sometimes) Jews from Arabs, Christians from Muslims.

Outside the old city walls are East and West Jerusalem, the newer parts of the city. East Jerusalem has been predominantly Arab and is supposed to be the capital of independent Palestine. It has some of the Palestinian Authority institutions and some beautiful old houses. It also has the lovely American Colony Hotel and the British Council. West Jerusalem is Israeli. A local coffee shop was packed with young Israelis and, I think, a bunch of American Jewish teenagers. Three or four soldiers stopped by for coffee. It is common to see them around the city. All Israelis, men and women, except those with orthodox religious exemptions, serve in the military. I still can't get used to seeing them everywhere, with machine guns strapped around their shoulders and pistols in their pants. In and around East and West Jerusalem, Israeli settlements continue to grow.

Bethlehem is just outside of Jerusalem but it is complicated to travel there because of the separation wall. You take a taxi to the wall, walk through a maze of hallways and security checks, pass by the anti-wall graffiti, and exit out on the other side where taxis wait to usher you into the city center. The wall is grey, tall, thick, and imposing. It looks a lot like the Berlin Wall, or a prison wall, with the intermittent look-out towers at the top. It cuts right through olive fields around Bethlehem. I can’t imagine having to pass through it every day for work or for an emergency. Bethlehem is a sad little town now because of it, as the wall has cut off many economic ties for the town.
As much as I enjoyed this trip to Israel-Palestine, I must say that I came home with a heavy heart, a real feeling of heaviness hung around me for a few days. There is something about the constraints, all the borders and checkpoints, and regulated movement, and enforced separation of people.

The UN estimates that about 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes since the start of the US war in Iraq. About two million are displaced within Iraq and another 2 million dispersed throughout the region. Most are concentrated in Syria (more than a million) and Jordan (about 750,000), two countries that share a border with Iraq. These numbers are remarkable in relation to the host country’s population. For example, the number of Iraqis living in Jordan now is equal to about 14% of the country’s population.

Iraqis came in waves. Wealthy ones left Iraq as the war broke out, using Amman or Damscus, as a comfortable base to wait out the war. With money in the banks, it is much easier to secure stable visa status. In Amman, some have built mansions in Abdoun, others have invested in the real estate market. When living conditions deteriorated in Iraq, and doctors and teachers were killed and kidnapped, middle class Iraqis started leaving. I’ve met students at the university whose parents were threatened and kidnapped. I met an Iraqi man in Syria, a dentist who had fled with his family when threatened by a militia. His clinic was bombed a few days later. He was filing papers to move to Canada or Australia. Working class and poor Iraqis have relocated as well, enough for Iraqi enclaves to form in various neighborhoods around Amman. Iraqi kids sell candy and toys at street corners. But prohibitive costs and visa restrictions have made it increasingly difficult for them to enter Jordan.

Iraqis are refugees in the sense that they have sought refuge after fleeing Iraq because of poor living conditions, general lawlessness and insecurity, and specific threats on their lives. Few Iraqis, however, have managed to acquire the official refugee status that would give them some internationally recognized privileges and protection while displaced. Instead, they are living in places like Jordan with temporary resident visas or as “illegal immigrants”, as the Jordanian government describes them. The government fears that the mass of official “refugees” might end up staying in Jordan long-term as was the case with the Palestinians several decades ago.

With this irregular status, Iraqis can’t work legally and have difficulty acquiring basic health and education services. Many work illegally and invisibly, as taxi drivers, construction workers, and in small shops and restaurants. Many are in danger of being deported. It also puts the government in a difficult position. They cannot access UN funds specifically designated for refugees but have to rely on other forms of international aid. They have to spend more money on border security and cracking down on immigration violations. And they risk being criticized for human rights violations and betraying their Arab neighbors if they deny the Iraqis food, shelter, school and medical care.

The situation is complex and accurate information is difficult to come by. A lot of stories and speculation, and sometimes even mean-spirited xenophobia, circulate around Jordan these days. The Iraqis have become a scapegoat for a lot of problems in Jordan. People blame everything – from bad traffic to the rising cost of living – on the Iraqis. Alongside complaints about high rents, you often hear stories about Iraqis with suitcases of money poised to buy the first available apartment building. Others worry that Iraqis are driving down wages or stealing jobs from Jordanians.

The influx of refugees is just one of the “quiet” ways that the war has impacted Jordan and other countries in the region. The war has also scared off tourists who bring in important revenues. It’s done damage to the natural environment and hindered regional efforts to protect critical resources such as water. It justifies channeling scarce state resources into security instead of social services. And it contributes to the declining confidence that people in the region feel toward the United States. This is what the war has done to the neighborhood.

My friend Kathleen took charge of the first part of the trip – getting from Jordan to Syria – since she’s been there a few times already. The typical way to travel to Syria is to take a “serveece” from the Abdali bus/taxi terminal in Amman. In a matter of a few minutes, dinars were changing hands, passports were moving here and there, and we were ushered into a large, yellow American-made car, the three of us Americans in the back and a Jordanian couple in the front seat with the driver. It was evening and dark so I couldn’t see much as we made our way to the Syrian border, about an hour and a half ride north of Amman.

We must have stopped 2 or 3 times on each side of the border, for customs, passport control and duty free shopping. Apparently, it was very smooth and efficient, without any of the routine delays that come up (e.g. the extra person in the car happens to have the same name as someone on a security watch list). Finally, we passed through the last checkpoint into Syria, passing by a large billboard with a picture of the two Assads – father Hafez and son Bashar -- and a "Welcome to the Syrian Arab Republic".

We stayed in Damascus that night at the City Hotel, just around the corner from the famous Hejaz train station and about a 10 minute walk to the Old City. The hotel takes large groups of Iranian visitors, so the lobby and dining room were full of Iranian families (even the small girls wear headscarves). Damascus is about 5 million people. It's much bigger and livelier and substantial and modern than I expected, and more familiar as a city, with sidewalks and demarcated neighborhoods and large old buildings and parks. In its basic shape, it reminded me of a gritty southern European city like Marseilles more than Amman. Up close, as we walked from the hotel to the old city for dinner, you could feel the buzz of activity and noise around the small shops and restaurants. The restaurant, Leila’s, was inside the old city; we walked through the famous covered souq (market) which was closed and empty for the evening, and wandered along the wall of the famous 8th century Umayyad mosque. The food was good at the restaurant, standard Arabic mezze style food, but the lemon mint was outstanding!

We left Damascus early the next morning for the ancient ruins of Palmyra (our plan was to visit a few other places in the country and then return to Damascus). We took a bus from Damascus into the eastern desert where the landscape starts to look a lot like southern Jordan. In fact, the 3 hour ride reminded me a bit of the boring Desert Hwy route from Amman to Aqaba! There isn't much to the modern town of Palmyra today but in the past it was an important caravan town and prosperous trading center for the Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans. A famous Greek-Arab queen named Zenobia ruled Palmyra until it was routed by the Romans. What’s left today is a gorgeous array of ruins – of temples, baths, arches, theatres, roads, and tombs -- sprawled out across a landscape that seems to change every hour as the sunlight shifts. We spent hours wandering among the ruins, guessing what inhabitants used to do in the various rooms and rock piles. Perched next to a set of 4 story tombs, we watched the long, pink light of the sunset fall over the ruins.

The next morning, we took a private taxi from Palmyra to Aleppo (Haleb, in Arabic), Syria’s second largest city (4 million) in the north of the country. This ride was much more interesting; we passed through towns and villages and saw factories and farms. Syria seems to have much more industry than Jordan and probably more land under cultivation, which might explain the apparent abundance and variety of food stuffs and other products in the shops.

Aleppo is also a large, vibrant and bustling city with a long history as an important commercial center. Much of the older architectural cultural wonders, such as the mosques and markets, are in the Old City and come from the period (8th century) when the Umayyads dominated the Islamic world and, later, when the area was part of the Ottoman empire. There is also a New City which isn’t new at all by American standards, where many of the restaurants and hotels and “new” shopping districts are situated. We stayed in Dar Halabia, a small charming hotel in a converted 18th century house in the Old City right next to the crazy maze of the souk.

Aleppians are friendly and warm and helpful. Few people speak English in Syria so we have to use our infant Arabic more often. We didn’t meet any other Americans along the way, only European tourists. People here seem to have lighter skin and I actually saw several people with red hair. Many Armenians have settled in Aleppo. We saw posters of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah party, but we didn’t see evidence of any anti-Americanism, no burning of American flags or “go home Yankee” comments. Rather, people were curious about us or eager to show us what a nice country Syria is.

We spent a good part of the day wandering around the Aleppo souqs, shopping for soap and jewelry and scarves, and visiting small sites in the area (a former mental hospital, the hammam, etc.). The markets of the old city are flanked by a giant and well-preserved Ottoman citadel on a hill and a grand mosque that was very important in the Umayyad days. From the citadel, you have a gorgeous panoramic view of Aleppo, with its hundreds of mosque minarets, rooftop satellite dishes, roaming cars and taxis, and factories off in the distance.

In the evening, we ventured into the "new city". We had a drink at the famous Baron Hotel, where Agatha Christie stayed and where wealthy Europeans used to stay during their oriental tours. It's run down now but it must have been really something grand in its day. For dinner, we headed back out into the Thursday evening buzz, down a small alleyway, broken up by construction, to the Beit Wakil hotel/restaurant, indicated only by a tiny sign above the door. Inside, however, was a covered interior courtyard restaurant in a restored old house, full of white-linen tables, a circular iron staircase, lush green plants and beautiful old Syrian-style furniture. The menu was simple, and seemingly standard with the Arabic mezze of hummous and salads, but the flavors and quality and small twists make it possibly the best meal I've had in the Middle East. Try to imagine a delicate oregano salad and kebabs basted in a thick cherry sauce! The wine, the plate of sweets, the fruity hubbly-bubbly, and the top-notch service topped off the meal.

We took the train from Aleppo back to Damascus where we planned to spend two days. We decided to save the Crac des chevaliers (famous crusader castle) and the coastal town of Lattakia for another trip. It was strange being on a train. Except for one short trip in Spain, I haven't ridden a train in a while. Jordan is so car and bus-oriented. Again, the landscape was much greener and fertile than Jordan. We stayed in the same hotel in Damascus again, the City Hotel. We arrived late in the evening and grabbed something quick to eat in a nearby "Parisian bistro style" restaurant. Afterwards, we went for coffee to an "art cafe" with paintings and sculptures by local artists.

I didn’t feel well during the night and woke up a bit weak. Possibly a stomach virus, or something from the restaurant; it’s hard to tell. I had enough energy to tour the Umayyad mosque and to have tea with an interesting Syrian man who had worked in media and translation, and now owned a small workshop that makes mother-of-pearl inlay furniture. By late morning, however, my trip to Syria was pretty much over. I was feeling awful and headed back to the hotel where I spent the rest of the day. What an absolute drag. We left Damascus the next morning. It was raining. I was still weak, but a little more stable. I really wanted to come back.

A small herd of goats just passed through my back yard. I was sitting at my computer this morning, at the dining table that looks out on the garden, when I heard the "baaahh". I got up to look out the window just in time to see three or four goats, a big fat sheep, and a sheep dog go over the hill. A man with a red kaffiyya, possibly the shepherd, followed them down the hill. They came through again a little later. This time, they stuck around to eat, so I took several pictures. I had to laugh. Mind you, I live in the middle—smack dab in the middle—of Amman, a city of over 2 million people full of modern stuff like Hummers and air pollution and wireless internet access. The funny thing is that it’s pretty common to see this around the city, wherever there is open space. You can be traveling in a taxi along a major thoroughfare such as Mecca Street and there on the side of the road in a vacant lot are a hundred goats having breakfast. It’s a sign of how quickly, and perhaps chaotically, the city has developed and sprawled outward onto open land normally used for grazing.

It's great to have friends come and visit when you live far, far away from home! Carol arrived last week carrying all kinds of gifts from home, including tennis racquets, books, sweets, and gossip. She was tired but ready for the grand tour of Jordan.

The first night, we went for dinner in the 'balad' (downtown), to a famous restaurant called Hashem. It's located in an alley between gritty streets where you dine al fresco on plastic tables and chairs. They serve the traditional Arabic 'breakfast' of falafel, hummous, and foul (fava bean dip); a man comes around with a tray of sugary mint tea. Late at night, it’s mostly men. The next morning, we spent a few hours in Jebel Amman at the Turkish bath, the perfect antidote to jetlag, according to my friend Erika. Rejuvenated, we spent the afternoon visiting the downtown markets, the Husseini mosque, the Roman forum and the citadel which offers the most amazing views of the hills of Amman.

The next day, we started the grand tour of Jordan. The Roman ruins of Jerash. The eastern desert castles. The Azraq nature reserve. We spent the evening back in Amman, in a neighborhood called Swefiyeh, buying scarves and smoking hubbly-bubbly. Then we were off again, to the Dead Sea, the Baptism site on the Jordan River, Mt. Nebo, and Madaba (important Christian sites in Jordan).

Carol and I rented a car—yes, I have been driving in Jordan!—and headed down the King's Highway, what used to be the major road in Jordan a few decades ago. It winds south of Amman near vineyards, past the spectacular landscape of Wadi Mujib, through the city of Karak (crusader castle), and into the village of Dana where we watched the sun set over the hills of the Dana nature reserve. At one point along the King's highway, we followed behind a pickup truck with a couple of camels in the back, one of whom stuck his head out to watch us for awhile.

We spent the night in Wadi Musa, the tourist town next to Petra, and headed into the famous site the next morning (my third tour of Petra). The weather began to turn cold and grey that night; forecasters were predicting snow. We caught some of the bad weather by the time we arrived at the Beit Ali camp in Wadi Rum the next day. Poor Carol—we could hardly get out of the 4x4 jeep to take pictures of the desert because the sand storm was so bad! Staying warm that night—in the little camp chalet—was certainly a challenge.

By the end of the week, we were both exhausted from the grand tour of Jordan. We didn't mind; it was worth it. Carol was sure to sleep on the plane on the way home. It was quiet again at my house, too quiet really, but at least I felt a little closer to home.

This semester, I am teaching a course called The American Social System, another class in the American Studies graduate program. The structure and content is pretty wide open so I decided to organize the course around the theme of equality and inequality in American society. I figured it would be an interesting adventure to discuss these themes with students who generally take it for granted that the US is the land of opportunity and equality, even if they are critical of other aspects of American life, most particularly foreign policy in this region. Much of the semester will be devoted to looking closely at three dominant forms of inequality in American life, namely class, gender and racial inequality, and the ways structured inequality shapes the lives of individual Americans.

I’ll be able to draw on lectures from sociology courses I have taught at home but I am also going to assign a new book, Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich. It’s a journalistic account of the author’s attempts to survive in the world of the working poor in Florida, Maine and Minnesota, as a waitress, a Wal-Mart employee and house cleaner. She learns that low-wage workers in the US are under an enormous amount of stress, and that they actually can’t get by unless they are willing to forgo some of the basic “social goods” like decent housing, healthcare, free time and self-esteem, things that middle and upper class Americans take for granted. It’s the kind of book that can wake up American students to the plight of hard-working Americans trapped near the bottom of the class structure. I wonder how my Jordanian students, most of whom come from middle class and upper class families, will react to this unattractive and depressingly unfair side of American life.

I have about a dozen students in the class, all female this semester, something that delights them when we discover it on the first day. I’m guessing that it makes them more comfortable, especially when it comes to speaking up in class, to be around other women rather than in mixed company. Most young Jordanians spend the early years of school in mixed company of boys and girls, and then they are separated for the later years, beyond about 9 or 10 years of age. When they move on to university-level studies, they return to a classroom of mixed company, perhaps out of practice. It might also be the case for some of my female students that they do not spend much time in the company of men who might be their peers, but only those men who are family members or necessary authority figures, such as professors or bosses. In general, I think, the amount of experience that young Jordanians have in mixed-gender company varies a lot depending on one’s family, religiosity, class, and where one lives. On campus, I see young men and women socializing and talking, or sitting on the floor together in the crowded coffee shop/campus store near our building. But there are also small and seemingly exclusive clusters of male or female students on benches and walking through campus.

Half of the students were in my class last semester. Some students I have met on other occasions. The new ones are quickly caught up in the excited and energetic atmosphere created by the “regulars”. Five of the students cover their heads with the hijab, but most of them wear stylish street clothes otherwise. One student who was in my class last semester appears every week with a different headscarf – always a striking color, never white, with a design that ranges from blue stars to sequins, and matches her equally stylish clothing; she has a tiny but sparkling earring on the side of her nose. She keeps a popular blog (http://www.tololy.com) that is read around the region and speaks several languages, including Hebrew. Most of the students work full or part time jobs. Four of them are elementary school teachers in English-language private schools. They savor the intellectual stimulation of the university graduate-level courses, and worry that they are losing their English skills after spending so many days with 6-year olds. Three of the students are married, two of which have small children. I don’t know much about other graduate programs across the University of Jordan, but it might be correct to classify the American Studies students as “non-traditional”.

I went with a friend for a tour of East Amman today. East Amman is the less developed and poorer part of Amman. It is mostly residential and crowded, and more conservative than West Amman. It extends out from the traditional downtown area of the city. There is little new construction in East Amman, unlike West Amman where new buildings go up every day. When people say Amman, especially foreigners and middle class Ammanis, they are referring to West Amman, the part of the city that contains the tourist attractions and major hotels, the government buildings, banks and shopping districts, the wealthy and middle class neighborhoods, and pretty much anything referencing western culture. Some refer to it as the rougher part of town, the slums, an area where westerners wouldn’t be comfortable living. Like poor neighborhoods in other major cities around the world, East Amman is invisible to those who live outside of it. Few people I know ever talk about going there. Guide books and some city maps don’t even bother to include it. It’s like talking about New York City and leaving out the Bronx.

My friend is the best person to take me because she has studied and worked in the neighborhoods of East Amman. Her organization conducts research for city planners and others who have an impact on the physical and spatial environment of Amman. She is well informed about current urban development projects and is involved in the long-term planning process that the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) has launched. Her organization has also reached out to a few East Amman neighborhoods to help them solve some local environmental problems.

When she drove up to the house, I could hear noise across the way, up behind the King Abdullah Park, as I got into her car. We agreed that it was probably the protest, organized by the professional associations, against the digging near Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem -- Palestinians are suspicious that the digging is a pretext to destroy the mosque. I coaxed her into driving through Shmeisani to see if we could catch a glimpse of the protest, but it looked like it was breaking up by the time we arrived. There were lots of police directing traffic and men walking in groups of two or three along the streets.

We headed toward downtown. We passed the new Raghadan bus center, which is one of the first of the downtown redevelopment projects (paid for by Japanese aid money) to be completed, although it is not yet opened for general use. We headed up a steep hill to Jebel al-Qal’a, one of the oldest areas of the city, and stopped at an overlook platform, also paid for by Japanese aid money, from where we could see the new bus center, the Roman Theatre and the bustle of the downtown core. This is the better part of East Amman, according to my friend: the buildings are historic, the views good, and the housing stock a little stronger.

A little further up the road, we got out of the car again to take a look at something my friend wanted to see. We walked through a small passageway in the wall between the buildings along the street. Kids were playing marbles on the stone steps as we descended. Women were hanging clothes out to dry on a rooftop below. The object of our attention was a small plot of land full of stone rubble. Just the other day, my friend told me, the city tore down the abandoned and dangerous buildings on the spot and were cleaning it up. They wanted to rebuild something in its place, something useful to the community around it. Community needs were to be assessed the next day at a charette and a design competition launched. What’s interesting and experimental about this kind of project in Amman is that community residents participate; they articulate their needs, offer suggestions and actually work on the implementation. If it works in this tiny plot of land, it is a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

We moved on, deeper into East Amman, where the streets are narrower and wind up and over the hills. Small shops sit at the bottom of a dense collection of four storey buildings. The buildings are drab, dirty and dusty, the basic infrastructure crumbling in many places. None of the signs have English. Only men are out in the streets, except for a few older women doing some shopping. Kids play in the sloping streets and empty lots where they are in danger of running into scorpions and snakes or broken glass. There are no playgrounds or parks. A little further away, the streets widen, there is a school or some official building. We passed through the neighborhood where my friend worked with residents on solving parking and trash problems. The walls there are painted a rusty red, another one of the neighborhood improvement initiatives. They have new sidewalks which, when you compare them with the absent or completely mangled sidewalks in many parts of the city, really make a difference in terms of the way the street corner looks and how people might navigate along their walks.

After awhile, we headed back toward downtown. We stopped off at Habibeh for some kanafe, the favorite sweet of Jordanians.

I just came back from a hiking-and-biking weekend trip to the Dana Nature Reserve. Dana Reserve is located between the Dead Sea and Petra, just west of the King’s Highway. It is the most successful large-scale conservation project in Jordan, spearheaded and managed by the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature. The Reserve is unique in Jordan and in the whole of the Middle East because its showcases the possibility of combining scientific research, social rehabilitation and sustainable tourism. Some local residents continue to live in tents in certain parts of the reserve while others have relocated to newly-developed nearby towns. Dana village, the small town that has been rejuvenated by the RSCN project, is the starting point for walks and hikes through the protected area of the reserve.

This trip was organized by Sa’ad, another Jordanian outdoor enthusiast, and his team of avid cyclists. We left Amman on Friday morning about 8am, on a bus with about 25-30 other people, including the guides and a couple of their kids. We traveled for about two hours along the King’s Highway, one of the most scenic roads in Jordan. I couldn’t believe my eyes but there were actually patches of unmelted snow on the ground; this was a month after the snowfall that hit southern Jordan. The break in the scenery came as we passed the Rashidiyyeh Cement Factory on the approach to Dana. The bus pulled into a tiny street in Dana Village where we took a bathroom break and had some tea.

From Dana, we headed down through a valley of the reserve along an easy walking trail. The terrain was greener than I expected at first. It wasn’t lush and wet like the other wadis I had hiked in but there were plenty of juniper trees, scrubby bushes and blooming flowers. It reminded me of southern France in the dry, rocky area around Mt. Ste. Victoire. It gave way pretty soon, however, to more desolate and open-faced jagged rocks. The trail was easy enough to get a chance to talk to some of the other hikers. Most were Jordanian, with a handful of Americans and Europeans. Almost everyone has an interesting story! They work for the UN, they are architects, olive farmers, software designers, urban planners, and a former diplomat. Though they all speak English very well, I heard more Arabic on this trip and learned some new phrases. We stopped a few times along the way, for tea and snacks and conversation with local Bedouin residents.

After 5 or 6 hours, and 14 km, of hiking we arrived at the Feynan Eco-Lodge in the late afternoon. It is a strange sight as you approach it from the rear. The two-story building is painted in a light yellowish-ochre color and has white bubbles and glass and metal equipment sprouting from the flat rooftop. The Eco-Lodge is another part of the experiment in environmentally friendly and sustainable tourism; the rooftop equipment collects solar power and rain water for energy. The lodge is small and feels like a rural hostel. The rooms are spare and take shape in stone and tile. There is no central heating or electricity except in the bathroom; we get by with candles and thick blankets. Downstairs, the lodge accommodates guests with a roaring fire in the “family” room. Dinner was a delicious buffet of locally produced foods. Wine and candlelight added to the romantic atmosphere. We all went to bed around 9pm; I slept like a rock until 7 am.

In the morning, we geared up for the biking part of the trip. I was sore and could have easily stayed at the Lodge with a book and some coffee for a few hours, but I didn’t want to miss the experience. The first part of the ride was along a rocky and difficult desert road, the kind of trail that seasoned mountain bikers love but I was worried every second about wiping out. We stopped a few times to see ruins from different eras, stones from the roman era and evidence of the ancient copper mines. A few kilometers further, the dirt road turned into pavement and I could finally look up at the sky and surroundings. The sky was so blue and clear for the most part but a slight haze in one direction made the mountain ranges seem like a dream. We turned around in one of the Bedouin towns and headed back to the Lodge where they served a typical Arabic brunch of hummus, olives, flat bread, boiled eggs, yogurt and tea/coffee. We rested in the sun for a while – I could have stayed there forever -- and then loaded our stuff onto the bus and headed back to Amman.

It all started in late November, as it does in the US. Christmas decorations began to appear in small amounts in a few shop windows. By mid-December, you could hear Christmas music in elevators and supermarkets, and the major hotels seemed to be competing with each other for the largest Christmas tree and kitchiest scenes of winter wonderland. Baba Noel is the Jordanian version of Santa Claus. Christians, who constitute a small (4-6%) but influential minority and are concentrated in Amman, Fuheis, Madaba, Karak and other cities around Jordan, celebrate the Christmas holiday. But, apparently, so do many other Jordanians. According to friends, Christmas has become for some westernized middle class Jordanians a kind of secular holiday with some of the same commercial trappings associated with gift giving.

I have to admit that I wasn’t sure what to do about the holiday season. I had figured that I could cruise through it without much notice considering that I was in a predominantly Muslim country. I knew I would miss friends and family – this would be the first Christmas ever that I had not spent with my family – but I didn’t really miss the overly commercialized and high-stress American Christmas season and was actually relieved to escape it. But with all the reminders of Christmas, I wasn’t sure whether to hunker down and ignore it or dive right in.

I decided to leave town with some friends. On December 23, we headed south on the bus to Petra, the glorious ancient Nabatean city carved out of the sandstone. As we neared Wadi Musa, the town around the entry point to Petra, the rain intensified and heavy fog rolled in, the worst possible weather scenario for touring the natural wonder. The fabulous panoramic view promised from the hotel was totally opaque. Tourists came into the lobby soaking wet and miserable. Fortunately, we stuck it out for the evening and were rewarded the next morning with the most spectacular clear blue sky and bright warm sunshine – a perfect day for trekking through the rocky terrain of Petra.

We walked into the site, for about thirty minutes, along a wide path offering views of rocky cliffs, scrubby vegetation and some of the caves carved into the sandstone. The path narrowed as we approached the Siq gorge and the entrance to Petra city where the famous sandstone building facades, carved around the first century BC, are located. The first one, the Treasury building, is impressive. It stands about 5 stories high and is strikingly well preserved. A little further on is the massive Petra theatre, numerous tombs, and a city center. If you are willing to climb, on foot or on the back of a donkey, the awesome Monastery sits near the top of one of the mountains, beyond which are the heights of Wadi Araba and a view of the Negev desert in Israel. Throughout Petra, you meet local Bedouins selling souvenirs and tea; these Bedouins, from the Bdul tribe, used to reside in the caves and tend their goats and small fields inside Petra but they eventually agreed in the mid-1980s, after years of struggle, to resettle in a government-built village nearby. We walked back to the entrance along the same route. Exhausted and exhilarated, we stopped off for something to drink at the equally ancient Cave Bar.

The next day, Christmas Day, was just as beautiful, so we left for Wadi Rum with a guide in a 4x4 jeep. Wadi Rum is a vast desert expanse about an hour or so south of Petra. We must have gone in the back way because the guide, all of a sudden, turned off the highway and headed straight into the desert. For the next few hours, we moved through what looked like a lunar landscape, fairly level terrain with giant, clunky striated rock formations that jutted straight up toward the sky. About midday, the guide called us out of the jeep for lunch. A couple of Bedouin camel trekkers joined us. My friends took a short ride on their camels. I declined; my first (and last) camel ride in Morocco was extremely uncomfortable. We topped off the lunch with Bedouin tea and a couple of songs. I remembered it was Christmas, and realized that a Bedouin lunch in the desert was exactly what I needed to get through the holiday season. I don’t think our guide ever led us to the traditional Rum sites in the protected area, based on what I was reading in the guide book on the way home, but I didn’t care – what we saw was so stunning anyway it didn’t matter.

Back in Amman, a few days later, it snowed. It was the first snow of the season in Jordan. It melted quickly in Amman and left some cold weather in its wake. In the south, however, the snow was much heavier and more unexpected. The news reported that roads were closed, people stranded without power or supplies, and that tourists had to be airlifted out of Petra. Residents leveled heavy criticism against the government for poor management of the crisis.

We’ve also entered another major Muslim holiday, the Eid Al Adha (Feast of Sacrifice). This four day holiday marks the time when a few million Muslims from around the world complete the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the pillars of Islam. Families share a slaughtered sheep together and give some away to the poor. I wasn’t sure how it worked until I passed an open field near the Holiday Inn that was full of sheep waiting for their end! Everything has shut down for these few days and no one works this week. Some people have gone south to Aqaba for the vacation.

The mood is more subdued for this year’s holiday because of the execution of Saddam Hussein. He was killed in the early morning of the first day of the Eid. The Iraqi government’s hurried move to execute him seems like Shiite revenge against the Sunnis, some people say. Executions are not supposed to take place during the major Muslim holidays. Why couldn’t they wait a few days? Also, most people here in Jordan don’t recognize the Iraqi government as legitimate, or its legal system and the court proceedings for that matter, since the country is occupied by foreign (primarily American) military forces, so it is assumed that the verdict and death sentence were handed down from the American government. And finally, despite his crimes, Saddam Hussein is a hero to a lot of Arabs in the region because he stood up to Israel and the US, and supported the Palestinians; he was a strong ally of Jordan and sold them lots of cheap oil for many years. Overall, the execution seems to be another reason for people to criticize American foreign policy in the region. So far, no one's burning American flags in the street, but a rather muted anger and disappointment permeate.

What does one do for New Year’s Eve in the Middle East? I went to a Fulbright friend’s house for dinner. We were a mix of Americans living in Jordan, Jordanians living abroad, and a few others coming and going between the two countries. No ball, no beef stew, no Dizzy Rascal, and very little champagne. Rather, we had an abundance of chocolate, cigarettes and silly cross-cultural jokes. And we counted down in Arabic.

I spent the weekend in Aqaba, the southernmost city of Jordan. Aqaba is a port city on the Gulf of Aqaba, which opens into the Red Sea. It is the only piece of Jordan with access to the sea. The city is situated between the Israeli and Saudi boders, so close in fact that you see signs for Saudi Arabia (just kilometers down the road) and you can actually see the Israeli town of Eilat from my friend’s apartment window. It was here in Aqaba that Lawrence (of Arabia) and Faysal surprised the Ottoman forces during the 1917 Arab Revolt (the famous movie “Lawrence of Arabia” was actually filmed further away in Wadi Rum). Today, the economy of Aqaba is driven by its major industrial port and the stream of tourists coming from the Gulf and from Europe. The Jordanian government has designated Aqaba as a duty-free “Special Economic Zone” to encourage economic development in this area of Jordan.

The best part about Aqaba is the weather! It is mid-December and the weather is warm enough to swim at the beach, if you can believe it. We decided to go snorkeling to see the famous coral reef just off the shore on the outskirts of town. My friend who lives in Aqaba knows a diving instructor, so we went to his club for advice and gear, and assistance getting in and out of the water. I snorkeled once in Hawaii so I had some idea of how it works. The instructor suggested that we wear wetsuits, to stay warm in the water but also to cover up. Everyone on the beach, including men, women, and children, were fully clothed, the women in headscarves and long burqas, the children and men in long pants and jackets. Modesty and conservatism prevailed, not the weather, and no one wore a skin-baring bathing suit. We weren’t going to either.

he hardest part, I swear, was getting the right sized wet suit. It's very difficult to peel off a dry wet suit that is too small. The other difficulty was trying to walk into the water with flippers. I fell a couple of times on the coral, which came right up to the shore. Once we made it into the water, all I had to do was put my masked face into it to see the fish and the greenish-brownish-yellowish coral wall that extended straight down about 6 feet. I swam slowly along the reef, enjoying the quiet under the surface of the water. But I didn’t last too long. The water was a little rough so the waves kept coming over the air pipe and depositing salt water in my mouth. Getting out of the water was even harder. I flopped around and fell down on the coral again because of the flippers. The water was fairly warm so the air temperature now felt much cooler. I began to shiver as I stood at the edge of the water waiting for the instructor to get a towel. I quickly became the object of intense curiosity and piercing stares by the families picnicking near the edge of the water – I must have looked like some exotic sea creature that had just washed up on the shore.

Fuheis is a small town nestled in the hills about 30 kilometers from Amman. The old town center has small shops and a few notable restaurants while newer districts have spread out in the nearby valleys. Olive and peach trees surround the houses of Fuheis. The town is mostly Christian, with large Christian families having resided there for generations. After living in a city full of mosques for the last few months, it is strange to see the large crosses and statues of the Virgin Mary around town.

One of the most famous landmarks in Fuheis is the cement factory. It is located right along a major street connecting the older and newer parts of town. When it was built in the 1950s, this was bucolic countryside far outside what was then the small city of Amman and the tiny farming community of Fuheis. Over the decades, residents have occasionally complained about the dust and noise from the factory. Just a few weeks ago, I saw an article in the Jordan Times about a protest at the cement factory in Fuheis. Apparently, a crowd of a few hundred people, which included residents of Fuheis, about a hundred school children, members of various environmental NGOs, and some government representatives, had gathered to protest against the environmental damage caused by the factory. At the rally, organizers demanded that the factory adhere to basic environmental standards; they criticized the government for not enforcing them. Ultimately, they insisted that the factory be relocated to the desert, that it “Move by 2010”, as one of the banners stated. The crowd blocked the flow of trucks to and from the factory gate as a symbolic gesture against the dust and noise the increased truck traffic had created in the town. Traffic police watched from a distance. A few news media outlets, namely the English-language daily The Jordan Times and Al Jazeera, reported the event. The demonstration ended peacefully after about three hours.

I took notice of the protest and started asking around about it. I managed to find one of the main organizers, a long-time resident of Fuheis. He filled me in on some of the history. He also invited me to attend an anniversary party for the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature, the largest environmental organization in Jordan, where I met some of the leading environmental advocates in the country. The more questions I asked about the protest, the more interesting the story became.

In important respects, the event in Fuheis defies the typical patterns of collective action in Jordan in recent years. In general, formal and organized public protests are very unusual in Jordan where the government keeps tight control of the political environment. In fact, when I tell people that I study protest and political movements, they laugh about the “one paragraph” I could write on the subject. From time to time, the government gives permission to groups to conduct formal, public demonstrations, such as the ones that followed the November 2005 hotel bombings or the more recent street march in downtown Amman condemning the execution of Saddam Hussein. Other kinds of less organized and unauthorized collective action have occurred as well. Civil unrest has erupted in recent years in the southern city of Ma’an in response to economic distress. Radical Islamist opposition groups have operated through underground, informal networks to try to destabilize the Hashemite regime. If protest does occur in Jordan, it is most likely to revolve around economic and regional political issues; the natural environment is rarely the topic. The Fuheis event deviated from these typical patterns in that it was a formal and well-organized public gathering, dedicated to cleaning up the environment, it proceeded and ended peacefully, and was never authorized by public officials.

Sorting out exactly how and why these ordinary citizens defied authorities and took to the streets of Fuheis over the issue of environmental pollution makes for a potential research project. The single case of protest in Fuheis is interesting in and of itself, but it is a compelling story in other ways as well. It seems to be connected to some of the broader developments in Jordan over the last fifteen years. Political liberalization in the 1990s helped open the way for ordinary citizens to organize in the public sphere. Interest in the natural environment is also correlated with economic liberalization, with the privatization of large industries and a push to expand the tourism market in Jordan. The rapid growth of Amman in the last few years has pushed the demand for cement way beyond the current supply. And when talking to Fuheis residents about their campaign against the cement factory, one hears the distinct and regular theme of a community under threat. It may be the case that a study of environmental protest could tell us a lot about some of the most important struggles in Jordan today, struggles over the direction of political reform, urban economic growth, and Jordanian national identity.

I started taking Arabic lessons recently. I wasn’t able to enroll in a class so I found a private tutor who lives near the University. I go to her house for the lessons, three times a week for two hour sessions. I took an introductory Arabic course about ten years ago, where I learned the alphabet and some vocabulary and small phrases; so I am pretty much starting from scratch, I told her. I want to learn conversational Arabic and to be able to read and write enough to decipher signs and follow the news. She assured me that I could easily develop some competence if I kept to our intensive schedule and practiced what I learned in the lessons.

I am proficient in French after studying it for many years and living in France three different times. I’ve studied some other languages as well, some Spanish, Russian, and Polish. Arabic is by far the most difficult of the languages I’ve attempted to learn. It is further from English than the others and challenging in several different ways. Arabic is a Semitic language, like Hebrew, and uses a different alphabet than that of the Romance, Germanic and some Slavic languages. Although there are some parallels – for example, the alphabet begins with A- and B-sounding letters (‘alif’ and ‘ba’) – you have to learn all the letters before you can read and write. Moreover, Arabic text flows from right to left, from the right side of the page to the left in the case of a book, not left to right, the way that I have been reading for decades, the way that seems so natural to me.

Also, there are some sounds in the Arabic alphabet that just don’t exist in English. There is the ‘h’ sound that comes from down in the chest and diaphragm that is difficult for foreigners to say. I practice the sound by repeatedly muttering ‘halib’ (the word for milk) under my breath as I walk through the city streets. The ‘ayn’ letter is guttural, from the throat, and gives some words a rise or emphasis that makes me think of a muted duck quack. It is the first letter in the word ‘ Amman’ which means that I’ve been pronouncing the name of the capital city incorrectly all along. The name of my neighborhood has the ‘dha’ sound in it. Every time I get into a taxi, I have to repeat it over and over until they understand where I am trying to go. It’s really embarrassing.

Arabic is also a root-based language. This means that all words, including nouns, verbs, and adjectives, derive from a root word of three or more letters. You add different prefixes and suffixes to the root, or insert vowels in between the root letters, to conjugate verbs and make nouns and adjectives. Sometimes the connection between a root and its derivative is obvious, as is the case when the root word for ‘work’ can become the adjective ‘busy’. Other times, however, the link is more indirect and you have to know something about the culture to make the connection. For example, the root word for ‘gather’ can be made into the word for ‘Friday’ because people gather at the mosque for Friday prayers.

Up until now, Arabic was mostly squiggles and noise to me. I could say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’, and ‘right’ and ‘left’ for the taxi rides, but otherwise I relied on the kindness of people’s English to get by. Jordanians start learning English in school at a young age, and they are so used to speaking English to foreigners that it’s rare to find someone who speaks no English at all. At the first lesson, the tutor asked me a couple of questions in Arabic to test my comprehension – zero! But already, after just a few lessons, I can see some progress. The lessons are actually helping me recall some of the sounds and words from ten years ago -- it’s amazing what you retain in your brain after years of not using it! I can already say some simple phrases and read a few street signs; I can even decipher some of the dishes on the university lunch menu which is all in Arabic. I recognize more words when I overhear people talking. All this gives me motivation to keep working on the language even though I often feel incompetent, childlike and timid as I practice in public. The reward for trying is often a big smile from Jordanians and a delightful offer to ‘call me anytime you want to practice!’. Learning the language is like painting colors into a black and white sketch, or turning a still picture into a 3D film. Things come alive in a way you hadn’t noticed before.

This evening, I went to a poetry reading and book signing by Mahmoud Darwish, the most famous poet of the Palestinian people. It took place at the Masrah al-Balad (City Theatre), in Jebel Amman, near the First Circle, the older part of the city. The taxi followed the series of switchback streets down to the theater where people were already milling about in the entry. Inside, piles of Darwish’s poetry books were on sale on various tables. I looked for a copy of his work with English and Arabic on opposite pages, so to understand the poems but also to learn some more Arabic.

The main room of the theatre was painted brick red. It had a stage with a small table on it and about a hundred orange chairs on the floor. Three large video cameras were set up amidst the chairs. We arrived early enough to get two aisle seats but the chairs filled up pretty quickly. People were lined up in both aisles and along the back, and spilled out the door into the stairwell. The crowd seemed to be primarily in their late 20s to 40s. Many dressed like artists and intellectuals; few women were veiled. The atmosphere was electric. Many people held Darwish books under their arms; others had flowers. He’s clearly a celebrity. People clapped and pulled out their digital cameras and camera phones when he entered the room and walked up the aisle to the stage. The introductions were hard to hear and impossible to understand. Darwish read a handful of poems in Arabic, each of which received a warm and enthusiastic response from the audience. When he finished, most of the crowd moved toward the stage for the book signing. We hovered in the back and watched the spectacle.