[sic]

For the last three days I have been basking in the summer-like heat of the Dead Sea, drinking free champaign and rubbing elbows with representatives of North and Latin American travel operators, agencies, associations and media publications. It is really not as exciting as it sounds (does it sound exciting?), except for all that glorious, complementary booze.

And while not in my inebriated haze or wolfing done free food like its my job, I did have a chance to witness a unique cultural microcosm where Brazilians, Mexicans, Americans, Canadians and Jordanians were either outrightly or inadvertently insulting each other. Intercultural communication can be so fun.

The pinnacle of this spectacle came during a question and answer panel session. Representatives basically told Jordan: "You won't be a one-stop tourist destination, ever. So get over it and start riding the Egypt and Israel gravy train." Some of the more loaded arguments involved the Jordanian Visa requirement, which Americans dubbed a psychological obstacle for inexperienced travelers. A Brazilian made a remark that Israel didn't require a Visa, which prompted a Jordanian to shout at him to go to the border and see how long he waited there as compared to the Visa line at the Jordanian Airport. And at one point a Jordanian's plea to hear more about the positive aspects of their Kingdom that they could promote was, perhaps due to some sort of language barrier, fulfilled by a Mexican who told him that Jordanian service workers smelled.

But the very best was from an impassioned elderly American woman who sanctimoniously lectured the crowd about how for a long time North Americans had a negative view of the Arab world, and with good reason [sic]. But that thanks to Jordan's Israeli friends [sic] more and more people were returning to the region for peace tourism [sic]. And all Jordan had to do was show these tourists their renown hospitality and use those magical Arabic phrases Shoukran (thank you) and Ahlan wa Shalan (welcome) to galvanize the world into a paradigm shift of loving your brother (obviously not sic).

On Fair Trade, Pro-Poor and Inclusivity

I went on an unexpected field trip this Thursday. I interviewed a woman from a local non-profit, a task that I thought would take up maybe two hours of my day. She is one of those higher-ups who has so much energy you start sniffing around for the crack pipe. Somehow, by the end of my day I had been fast-talked into an adventure. At 5:00 pm, I was miles outside the city near a flock of grazing sheep and a screaming donkey, out 50 JD and worried five Bedouins might jump us.

So the deal with the non-profit: they are a leading non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting rights-based sustainable human development in Jordan and in the region. They specialize in the rural sectors of Jordan, which tend to be the poorest. This year they started a farmer's market in an attempt to allow some local farmer's market access and to promote their products and services. The farmer's market would love to be Fair Trade, i.e. no middle men or big business (among other issues), but in Jordan, upholding the tenets of rigorous Fair Trade philosophy can be next to impossible. But I'll get in to this later.

The project director and curiously (but not uncommon) white, westerner, wanted to visit a local glass blower (one of the only in the region) in order to check out his work and possibly sell it at the market. The director, myself and a Jordanian native piled in to my car and navigated our way to the dilapidated shop, with broken windows, a rusty slab of metal serving as the roof and curious children giggling behind garbage cans. Peeking inside through the filthy glass, we could see piles of trash and general disarray, as if the stove had exploded. When we were finally able to meet the glass blower, an aging man with no teeth, swollen feet and hands, who required a cane to walk when he could bare to stand, it was revealed that he didn't have the key to the pad lock denying us entry.

It turns out the glass blower has been locked out of his shop for over six months. Due to the instability of tourism in Jordan, his sales had declined. It probably didn't help that his shop was in the middle of nowhere. The glass blower had been unable to pay the landlord the 120 JD per month rent, which had accumulated into 2,200 JD. Getting the landlord, a Bedouin decked in a long black robe and white head dress, to unlock the door was a family affair where five of his sons eventually stood watch while we chose different pieces of glass to buy and sell at the market.

As we prepared to leave, a fight broke out between the glass blower and the owner of the store, who was demanding the rent be paid. The owner started kicking the boxes we had collected, and only surreptitiously were we able to get them into my trunk. The fight escalated as the brothers began to encircle and the old glass blower appeared as if he were gathering his energy for a heart attack. I really believe the only reason the situation was diffused was because of the non-profits's Jordanian representative, an amazing, petit and eternally good-humored woman who sweet talked the fuming old man into the car, which we immediately locked and started.

On many levels, this is a typical situation in Jordan. The landowner was a Bedouin, the merchant a Palestinian refugee. The good samartins swooping in to help were demanding Westerners who didn't speak a lick of Arabic and knew very little about the background of the situation. The merchant was from Hebron and fled in 1983. He had a 5 year passport with no national number. So there again is our generalized condition of homelessness. This man has no rights in ANY country. He is not a citizen. This is true for around 7,000 Palestinians in Jordan and approximately 500,000 Iraqi refugees. So this man has no recourse for getting locked out of his shop, fair or unfair. I sympathize with both men. The situation is just crummy.

Two days later, this man's work was sold at the farmer's market. Through the director's marketing, almost everything was bought. However, during the market, a forum was held where passionate internationals and development agents, many Jordanians, discussed fair trade and its limitations. Technically, had this market been fair trade only, the glass blower most likely would not have made the cut. He probably uses his kids to help with his work, which violates child labor standards. And most likely his work isn't environmentally friendly. But it becomes a question then of inclusivity and pro-poor, because the glass blower could be further marginalized for his inability to meet Fair Trade standards. So this non-profit's philosophy is that first you have to elevate people to a point where they can even meet Fair Trade standards.

Anyways, I'm digressing and I don't even have a poignant way to finish this story. I just have questions. For example, when we dropped the glass blower off at his house, which was multi-storied and well-kept, I heard the director gasp from the backseat "he's not even poor." It didn't seem like the non-profit truly knew the background of the situation. The glass blowing could easily have been the old man's hobby, although his enfeebled condition bore the markings of a hard life. As well, the situation was directed by the Westerner. The Jordanian representative mainly served as a translator and both the glass blower and the shop owner seemed intimidated to stand up to the Westerner....Oh the complexities of "development".

Reality Check

The cost of living is raising in Jordan. I have not had time to properly research the causes. My colleagues say the origins stem from recently unsubsidized oil. Once again, I'm not sure why the Government has suddenly hefted this burden onto citizens. Both of these issues will be research for another day. However, I was given a quick reality check while talking with two of my colleagues about the growing concern over the matter.

One of my colleagues earns 250 JD a month. This is the equivalent of what I earn in a month for teaching five one-hour aerobics classes a week. For another comparison, his salary is a little more than half my rent. Granted, my colleague's salary is lower because he only has a high-school education, although he has many more years of experience. He also works longer hours than I do. All of my colleagues work six days a week while I only work five. My colleague spends 50 JD a month on transportation alone. He lives in Zarka with his family, which is about an hour away. I'm assuming he works in Amman because job opportunities in Zarka are lacking.

My other colleague, a graduate student the same age as myself, also lives with his family. They live in East Amman (considered the seedier side of the city, however as always, this merely translates into the more impoverished side) in a rented apartment. He has 11 family members, several are his younger siblings still in college. All of my colleague's paycheck goes to support his family. He has another job on the side where he earns approximately 100 JD a month. Basically he subsists on this extra cash. In some ways, it's good that Islam discourages drinking because there is no way he could afford it. A beer costs around 4 JD. This is an expensive city, even by American standards.

However, in Jordan, people are encouraged to spend lavishly in order to display their wealth. My colleagues told me most of the nice cars on the streets have been bought with loans the drivers cannot repay. Extravagant weddings can also lead to extreme financial difficulty.

In 2010, in the tourism sector at least, the markets will be opened to outside investors. This is due to the regulations of the WTO. Around the world, from Mexico to Russia, we've seen the disastrous effects of free markets. I can only imagine how hard this will be for the struggling tour operators in Jordan, let alone, other small entrepreneurs who may face the same challenges in different markets.

With so much seeming wealth in Jordan, its easy to forget that this is a developing country that investors seem to be sinking their money into. Many Jordanian's are beginning to wonder how they will survive the price inflation and the lucky ones are leaving to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Western countries. Even with remittances, it's a scary reality.


*Pictures of Amman souk taken from Internet

"A Generalized Condition of Homelessness"

In Beyond Culture: Space, Identity and the Politics of Difference, Gupta and Ferguson discuss the contemporary difficulty of qualifying space. Diaspora and deterritorialization (whatever their causes) demands a restructuring of our archaic notions of a "neutral grid on which cultural difference, historical memory and societal organization are inscribed."

Besides many pertinent and fascinating analysis throughout the paper, I thought this paragraph was an interesting follow up to my previous post and a comment on the lasting effects of the Palestinian migration to Jordan where approximately 40% of the population is Palestinian, having fled the Mandate of Palestine in the wake of the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars: "The irony of these times however is that as actual places and localities become ever more blurred and indeterminate, ideas of culturally and ethnically distinct places becomes perhaps ever more salient. It is here that it becomes most visible how imagined communities (Anderson 1983) come to be attached to imagined places as displaced peoples cluster around remembered or imagined homelands, places or communities in a world that seems increasingly to deny such firm territorialized anchors in their actuality. "

Survivor's Guilt

Towards the start of my contract, I interviewed local artists for a magazine article about an outdoor exhibition in Amman. I wrote this of the project: "Public art as a social intervention or public art intervention attempts to intervene with “real life”, redefine and challenge the existing notions of public space and augment the status of the status quo. For many artists, the new medium has provided an outlet in what they consider the confining and regulating world of gallery and museum art."

The project was interesting, however interviewing the artists who are attempting to confront and examine socio-economic issues in the kingdom was eye-opening. One artist in particular intrigued me by her honesty about the Palestinian Occupation, it's effects in Amman and her future work influenced by her concerns and observations. She mentioned that most artists are inspired by a question or an idea that becomes a theme in their pieces or a driving force for their work. For her it was about a person's longing to live somewhere else. Unfortunately, she refused to let most of our interview regarding Palestine be printed. I'm posting part of what was omitted from the magazine because I am curious about other's thoughts on the issue and I would like to explore the idea for a thesis paper. As well, since the artist is a native, I feel it provides a more legitimate and thought-provoking perspective about Amman than I could.

"Influenced by her Grandmother’s obsession with Palestine, an obsession she considers present in many Ammanians that is responsible for the transient mood of the city, she plans to conduct a series of interviews with people who lived in Palestine for twenty years and were forced to migrate to Amman. She will ask them to describe their homeland. As well, she plans to record people talking to a psychoanalyst about Palestine. In both instances she hopes to capture a citizen’s obsession with Palestine, which serves as an example of humanities inability to let go. “People here have a guilty feeling,” says the artist. “They have a sick relationship with this place.”