Wrapping Up

My time in Senegal is drawing to a close. I must admit I'm ready for a change. Especially if that change is New Orleans. I've never felt so tired in my life, physically and emotionally.

I recently completed my last round of traveling in West Africa with a close friend from college. We hit some relatively isolated beach areas in a separatist region of Senegal (Casamance) and stayed in a Serer village with a Peace Corps friend. It brought the usual joys and difficulties traveling in West Africa has always entailed. Somehow though, my brain conveniently suppresses the memories of any trouble until met with all the glorious forms of stress.

There's the never knowing what is happening, the waiting, the dangerous car rides, the sickness, the dirty food, the waiting, the discomfort, the aggressive men, the stink of burning garbage and human waste, the holes that acts as toilets, the lack of electricity, the waiting, the day long travel excursions to a location that should only take an hour, the heat, the bamboozling, and the fact that we are walking money-bags in the eyes of most Senegalese.

Most of this I can handle. In fact, most of this I love. This is real life. Away from a computer. Out in the world. Experiencing it. Not everyone gets to eat the oysters they watched being hacked off a mangrove root by a petite 40 year old village woman. Or play the jambes while the rhythm of the collective pounding accompanies the setting sun over a long stretch of deserted beach.

It's the hustling that gets to me. Senegalese men hustle us to buy trinkets, force us in to conversations, follow us down the street, surround us while we're sitting on a beach in our bikinis. I have no way of knowing if this is because we are white, because we are women, because they think we have money, or because it's simply cultural. I wish I could travel as a man to see what annoyances they encounter. If they feel a constant threat, a physical struggle for dominance and assertion that is like a losing battle when you're pitted against so many.

I know much of this hustle is a direct result of poverty. I've never been bothered by a wealthy Senegalese business man. At least not followed down the street (the bar is another story). I also know this hustle is a direct result of the disrespect this country pays to its women. Whether it is because of Islam, because of cultural tradition or because when you're at the very bottom you want to feel like your on top of at least something, so you choose the most vulnerable and powerless to force into supplication (don't get me wrong, America pays women its fair share of disrespect). I also know that the situation in general is a result of colonization and globalization and this time I'm on the winning side:

"Today, national independence and the growth of national feeling in underdeveloped regions take on totally new aspects. In these regions, with the exception of certain spectacular advances, the different countries show the same absence of infrastructure. The mass of the people struggle against the same poverty, flounder about making the same gestures with their shrunken bellies outline what has been called the geography of hunger. It is an underdeveloped world, a world inhuman in its poverty; but also it is a world without doctors, without engineers, and without administrators. Confronting this world, the European nations sprawl, ostentatiously opulent. This European opulence is literally scandalous, for it has been founded on slavery, it has been nourished with the blood of slaves and it comes directly from the soil and from the subsoil of that underdeveloped world. The well-being and the progress of Europe have been built up with the sweat and dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs, Indians, and the yellow races. We have decided not to overlook this any longer. When a colonialist country, embarrassed by the claims for independence made by a colony, proclaims to the nationalist leaders: 'If you wish for independence, take it, and go back to the Middle Ages,' the newly independent people tend to acquiesce and to accept the challenge; in fact you may see colonialism withdrawing its young State the apparatus of economic pressure. The apotheosis of independence is transformed in to the curse of independence and the colonial power through it immense resources of coercion condemns the young nation to regression. In plan words, the colonial power says: 'Since you want independence, take it and starve.' " (The Wretched of the Earth, 96-97)

While Fanon published this in the early 60's during Algeria's struggle for independence, his words are still relevant today. Resources are still exploited by the West, economic sanctions and political strong-arming are rampant.

I believe it is the struggle between my upper hand of being a Westerner and my lower hand of being a broke white woman that is causing me so much inner turmoil. And I'm finished.

I met a man on my travels, a Senegalese engineer and sanitation expert who had started an NGO to help the poorest of the poor in Senegal by bringing them clean drinking water, working infrastructure and education. Women and men like him are Senegal's future and while they might need our help for a little bit, they won't for long. When we can meet each other on equal footing, then perhaps my anger will recede slightly and my energy will return. Someday, but not today.

The Temptress

"While Anada was begging in orderly succession, he came to the house of a prostitute named Maudenka who had a beautiful daughter named Pchiti. This young maiden was attracted by Anada's youthful and attractive person and pleaded earnestly with her mother to conjure the young monk by the magic spell "bramanyika." This the mother did and Anada coming under the spell of its magic became fascinated by the charm of the young maiden and entered the house and her room." (A Buddhist Bible, edited by Dwight Goddard).

This is from one of the most famous buddhist sutra's titled the Shurangama Sutra and according to Wikipedia, was translated in 705. In a religion accepting of all creatures, it demonstrates the deep-seeded mistrust of female sexuality. One of the main practices of Dharma in attaining enlightenment, as stipulated in these ancient texts, is to release yourself from all sensual pleasures. At such an early age, Buddhas were men, and a form of sensual pleasure was the woman. The temptress could comprimise the Mind of True Essence if a man was not strong enough. Consider at the origin of the religion is the tale of the Enlightened One, who abandoned his wife and children to begin his pilgrimage and subsequent transcendence.

Other religions have also laid the blame on women. Some Islamic scholars translate Koranic texts to justify the covering of women from head to foot so that they don't arouse and encourage debasement in men. And one need only read The Scarlet Letter to grasp Christianity's view on women and sexuality.

It might seem a bit anarchronistic to use such early texts to analyse modern religious practices. But what is religion except dogmatic tradition? Culture is not a far cry from this. I dare say that life has changed much. From prostitutes to rape victims, a women is often blamed for the pain her sexuality reaps. I do believe men are scared of the vagina. The placement of blame is a means of control. Considering the origins of philosophy, the course of history, the all pervasive patriarchial system that modern society is built on helps one to considered how intrinsic it is today and how to do away with it tomorrow.

Why has feminism has become a vulgar word?

My vow to post about feminism seems to have given me an excuse to procrastinate. We'll see if 2009 energizes my constitution.

I have been contemplating system-wide change lately and how both women and men can revolutionize their culturalized gender roles in order to bring about both greater equality and a more exciting, inviting and livable world.

For example, the very notion of equality doesn't do much good if women simply demand the ability to participate in the world as men do. Men haven't created a very desirable world, have they? I definitely am not asking for the ability to proposition men in hair salons or make men uncomfortable by grabbing their ass in broad daylight on the beach in front of my friends.

To quote from an online discussion I have been having with some friends: "Radical feminists (often anti-capitalist) have criticized liberal feminists for the latter's characterization of feminism as 'women can do anything men can do.' The basic criticism is that such a formulation leaves the door open for things like 'women can now join the military and go kill brown people on the other side of the planet' (to pick one of the most negative) in addition to more obvious positive opportunities. This is a criticism I tend to agree with; I also think it neatly reveals the distinction between progress inside a larger structural framework (again, US capitalism/democracy) and a change made to that structural framework. 'Allowing' a woman to do a job that has a hand in demeaning women seems to indicate a very limited and specific type of progress/change. To wit: the presence of, say, Condoleeza Rice (or Margaret Thatcher) on the world stage doesn't seem to have helped end patriarchy very much, does it?"

To further the point, this from a recent article discussing the same issue that argues inclusion doesn't necessarily equate to empowerment: " In South Africa, she pointed out, women’s political participation was among the highest in the world – but so were levels of violence against women. Sometimes women’s inclusion into institutions doesn’t resolve the deep-seated problems of gender equality." (http://www.thevarsity.ca/article/6462)

So then what I deem as needing to happen is the reconsideration of a man's role, masculine values and the overall structure of a patriarchal society. But how does one go about recreating masculine values when the men are the ones in power?

My project is running in to this problem. We are providing nonformal education classes about human rights and gender equality. Our goal has more to do with changing the way men perceive their place in society than direct empowerment of women. Men are the gatekeepers, afterall. But men are highly uninterested in attending these classes. About 2/3's of the participants are women, all extremely eager to have their quieted voices heard. But it seems in many ways these women are already there. It is the men who need the changing. So how does one create such change?

To further complicate matters, issues such as gender equality in development perpetuate "the idea that brown men often mistreat their women" and development agencies use this "as a reason for northern interventions. At the same time, romanticizing all brown (or white) men as angels is clearly a problem." (http://www.thevarsity.ca/article/6462)

What the author suggests is that such a type of intervention needs to be lead by local women and their allies, "as they are the ones who have the right to say who is impeding their ambitions and desires." While Senaglese women are asking for this project, I must say it isn't exactly locally initiated. And the white (and brown) men in my country haven't exactly created space for local women either. But is it space that I'm asking for or a new, perhaps even unperceived world?

Most definitely a woman's problems are not the same the world over. But women the world over are locked in to the same system, a system created, secured and sustained by men. So as global citizens, let's not create change that allows us to play a man's game, but to literally change the game.

Modesty

Some define modesty as a freedom. The freedom from vanity or conceit. I define modesty as a prison. A justification for confinement, specifically applied to women.

Modesty is cultural. It is the regard for decency of behavior, speech, dress, etc. In many places decent dress means a woman must cover her bare flesh and sometimes even her face and hair. Decent behavior means she stays inside. Decent speech means she keeps quiet. A woman's actions risk not only stigmatizing herself, but her entire family. She bears the weight of shame her whole life.

This isn't just in conservative societies. To quote Lil' Kim (yeah, that's right, I'm quoting Lil' Kim) "Here's something I just can't understand; If the guy have three girls then he's a man; He can either give her some head, or sex her raw; If the girl do the same, then she's a whore."

I'm tired of feeling like I can't wear shorts below my knees in stifling heat, while men don't even have to wear a shirt. And when I do wear "revealing" clothing, I'm tired of men interpreting it as an invitation. I'm tired of hearing stories from 40-year old Senegalese women who can't walk around alone at night because her in-laws will accuse her of being scandalous, while her husband works in Paris, doing whatever he pleases in the wee hours. I'm tired of never seeing another female jogger on the road. Not once in my two months, while men jeer at me.

I'm tired of modesty. I no longer feel that cultural relativity can explain away this perpetual inequality. Decent behavior should simply be to respect others regardless of what they are wearing or who they are having sex with. Women everywhere are on display. This judgmental theater is suffocating

Feminism

"Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age. As students, women are probably treated with more equality than we ever will be again. The school is only too glad to get the tuitions we pay. But later come the important 'radicalizing' stages in a woman's life. The first is when she enters the labor force and discovers that men by and large, still control the workplace. The second is when she marries and learns that marriage is not yet a completely equal partnership. The third is when she has children and finds out who is the principal child-rearer. And the fourth is when she ages, which still involves greater penalties for women than for men."-- Gloria Steinem (quoted in the book: "May you be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India by Elisabeth Bumiller.)


As an over-confident, self-righteous college student (I write this as if I've changed), I espoused an quixotic argument that the study of feminism was meaningless. While I didn't have the words for it at the time, through the haze of my polemic, the idea of mainstreaming drifts to the forefront of memory. I guess I thought that studying it in such a defined category really didn't do a whole lot of good. That the world needed action. And I thought action meant work, outside the home. My poor roommate and best friend was forced to listen to my ranting as she earned her degree in feminism.

As Lenin aptly put, "Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." Now I find myself reading as much as I can about theories of feminism and women's rights. And simultaneously eating my words. I guess in part because it's my job. But the chicken or the egg? I sought the job because women's rights interests me, I'm interested in women's rights because it's my job.

And it is so interesting. I work on a holistic gender empowerment project in Senegal. It is a new component to a community empowerment program the organization has been successfully implementing in rural communities for years. Participants in these nonformal education classes will now learn about gender, in addition to human rights and general life skills.

Gender is culturally influenced. In Senegal, the categories of gender seem more calcified and rigid than in the United States. Indeed, Western women are referred to as the Third Gender because we don't fit into their predefined categories. In Senegal, women are very much relegated to the private sphere, or the reproductive activities in a society. They cook, they clean, they take care of children and elderly, they take care of the sick and any other domestic necessities. They mainly stay at home. The men are the "productive" members.

Besides work, there are other practices that I believe limit the freedoms of women. Polygomy is practiced by 20% of the population (family.jrank.org). Men can have as many as 4 wives. Of course, the reverse is not true. 25% of the total population practices Female Genital Cutting. Unfortunately the rate is as high as 80-90% among practicing groups. The national rate is low due to the Wolofs, whom make up 40% of the population but do not practice (DHS). Close to 90% of women marry before the age of 18 (DHS).



Having come from a different background, I have to admit that certain aspects of these gender roles do nothing less than infuriate me. I sometimes find myself swallowing my anger. But in part this experience is helping me to reflect on my own culture and America's oppression of women.

We have gender roles that are just as limiting. While "liberated" women now have the ability to work outside the home, we also must do the majority of the domestic work. I remember in August, having returned from Jordan, watching American comericals for the first time in a year. Every single domestic product from laundry detergent, to dish soap to diapers was geared towards women. I never once saw a man mopping with Mr. Clean.

While America doesn't expect women to cover their faces, we do something quite the opposite, but I think just as sick. Our expectations of beauty for women are so high and pressured that one in 200 American women suffers from anorexia and two to three in 100 American women suffers from bulimia (an estimated 10-15% of people with anorexia and bulimia are males) (South Carolina Department of Mental Health). This is just one example of a culture that is highly obsessed and demanding of the way a woman looks. While I think there is pressure for men to look good too, I challenge anyone to argue this pressure is equal.

This might be true the world over. I know some say it's simply biology. I can't quite aptly comment on that. But I do know that expectations of beauty are different. For example, I recently shaved my head. Not to make a point but because it just looks so much more comfortable and easy. And it is. It took me six months to build up the courage to go bald. I was worried about other people's reactions. In Senegal though, people love it. Men constantly compliment me on my new look. I hear Rafetna (Wolof) and Joli (French) (both words for pretty), regularly. I know that most men's reactions in the US would be more likely to wonder if I'm a lesbian. As well, a skinny woman here is far less desirable that a voluptuous woman. I have to admit, I find these expectations of beauty liberating.

Regardless of differences in expectations, I truly believe women are the most oppressed minority in the world. People think change has come and gone and we're now empowered. Let's move on to the developing countries who still need the revolution. This, of course, is crap. Unfortunately I find myself at a loss to support my assessments and observations with theory. So I've decided to dedicate my blog for the remainder of my year in Senegal to the subject of gender. It will only help with my work and will motivate me to read books and journals I should have long ago familarized myself with.

Technology and Power

Technology is power. Having just refamilarized myself with Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I am reminded that technology can be used as a powerful oppressor. Whether intentional or not. Where once being poor meant not having enough to eat, a place to sleep, access to education, today it denies you access to the cyber world. A world we live in more and more every day.

I was not surprised to learn that most of my colleagues don’t have PC’s. I was surprised that most of them had never had an email address and could not conceptualize navigating the web. It’s simply a matter of exposure.

Recently, the volunteer house in which eight tubaabs were living, awaiting regional assignments, was robbed. The burglars sawed the metal bars off the wall, broke the glass and then stole four computers and ipods, several cell phones and a pair of sandals right out of their rooms as they slept. I count myself as terribly lucky for having escaped unscathed. I had just moved to my Kaolack cave.

Upon hearing about such an incident, I was immediately frustrated by my organizations lack of security. I also thought it unjust when the organization hesitated to buy replacement lap tops for the victims to use for the remainder of their stay. Their justification: they can’t even afford laptops for their Senegalese employees (who make up 99% of the organization). I reasoned that those Senegalese employees were at least getting paid.

Now that the newly purchased laptops are residing with the volunteers, I question this line of reasoning. People get robbed here constantly. After the incident, a Senegalese friend explained how one night she came home to an empty house (even the couches were gone). And this is just one recount of the many stories that were offered up in sympathy. Whose responsibility is it really to secure your possessions?

It’s true that the volunteers have built their lives around computers. The West demands it. Some volunteers who were writing their thesis or in the midst of a university program, would have been forced to return home. Senegal is not yet so demanding. But of course the argument rises that a lack of PC’s is one of the reasons Senegal is still developing.

Listening to my Senegalese colleagues admit their ignorance about computers and the necessity for a computer in order to do their work well was quite compelling. So who deserves those new laptops more? The volunteers or the Senegalese staff?

This Pen Dwells on Guilt

"...The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt. " Martin Luther King, Jr.

Do you experience guilt? Does it debilitate and alienate you? Are you sometimes rendered an awkward ineffectual because of that existential weight? Or a ranting annoyance?

I think I've pointed out my guilt in previous posts. Dare I say, I've harped and grumbled and whined and beat a dead horse about my guilt? Well it hasn't gone away. I'm beginning to accept that it doesn't go away. My graduate diploma could read Guilt Masochist, MA.

And my anomalic pigmentation, my proficiency in both the colonizer and neocolonizer languages, my nationality, my profession, these are very visible brandings of why I might have cause to succumb to guilt in Senegal.

So why am I once again pontificating about my guilt?


Let the anecdote commence:

I went to the market in Dakar with a very unlucky friend. During her first month in Senegal she has parted with $100, an unwilling and unknowing donation to a smooth con-artist. She has lost a computer in a burglary. She has fallen victim to malaria and an intestinal infection. She wasn't born yesterday, but she is considering visiting a voodoo doctor to surgically remove her hex.

Shopping is not my favorite activity. I just don't like to buy things. When I do, I impulse buy. My money vomits out of my hand like bad vodka. It's too much stimulus, too many choices. Chaos. I've found large souks to be the worst. Large souks where people scream out foreign words, kiosks reek of rotting fish in blazing heat and buzz with flies, little children and grown men beg for money.

Combined with her bad luck and my shopping ineptitude, what did we expect?



But we should have known better. When the rasta-resembling Baye Fall (a Senegalese brotherhood of Islam based on Qur'anic and Sufi traditions) saw our polite response to his Wolof salutation (call: Nanga Def; response: Mangi fi) as an invitation to join us, as an interest in visiting his shop, we should have just kept quiet until he left us. But we couldn't shake him. Did I mention the market is stressful? He grew from one to three. All pursuing us for monetary compensation. When one man asked my friend for a kiss and pursed his lips, she snapped at him to leave us alone (in Wolof: Baima).

Unexpectedly, the man grew enraged. He called us racists (ironically, my friend's father is black). He became aggressive, screaming, specs of his spit hitting our wide eyes, veins popping out of his forehead, arms failing, pointing at his skin. He told us to go home. That we were no good.

Being called a racist is a big deal where I come from. Being loudly proclaimed as a racist in front of a market full of Africans is horrifying. We quickly jumped in a taxi and sped away.

The man was wrong to have done it. We later found out that this happens to tubaabs (foreigners) routinely in Dakar. Yet, I get it.



I not only represent a past of disgusting brutalization but a present of both visible and unseen exploitation (just in different terms such as food colonialism, resource extraction, structural adjustment policies, bilateral free trade agreements, the war on terror...).

God, all the reasons this man has to be angry with me. With my simple luck in being born an American in a comfy Midwestern "mansion" while he has to hustle in the streets everyday, begging young white girls for money, working for the Lebanese and French, imperialistic ghosts, watching American media and wondering why not him too?

Poverty is violent. Very violent. This man is a victim. I have guilt about this.

However, he's also a perpetrator. I have no doubt his anger was borne in some small way out of hurt pride. Like every other country in the world, Senegalese women are the man's inferior. He most likely didn't expect such a strong reaction out of my friend's mouth. Can he really expect us to allow such sexist insults? I have no guilt about this.

And funny enough, his spoken language, Wolof, and possibly his tribe, is a sort of African colonizer. It has become the national African language, even though there are hundreds. The Wolof tribe dominates the country. And it was the Wolof tribe that sold their Seneglese neighbors to the slave traders. Few people in this world have clean hands.

So yes, my presence in Senegal and my guilt is as horribly complex as the situation is horrible. My guilt though, is not a problem. In fact, my guilt, if channeled resourcefully, can be part of the solution. I would argue that the only way we will have real change is when a lot of us, a whole lot of us, start feeling really guilty. And start doing something about it.

Water

The drinking water in Kaolack is, well, undrinkable. At least when meeting my inflated Western standards. There's salt in it. And probably a whole host of parasites that cause a variety of corporeal discomforts. This is unfortunate considering Kaolack is hot. The kind of sticky heat that suffocates you in your sleep. If Queen Mab even grants you entrance to that nether region. And when the power goes out and the fan stops working and the malaria invested night yields no refuge, not only is quenching your thirst predicated by your ability to afford bottled water but taking a cold shower means dousing in sodium. Your skin starts to itch within days.

I wish I had more time to research the causes of Kaolack's water problem. There are salt flats mere kilometers out side of town that are exploited. By whom, I'd like to find out. I doubt many local Senegelse profit from the salt cultivation here.

Currently, I know merely what many of us know, that water poverty is a stark and forever growing fact of our future, that "while a handful of the wealthy routinely drink expensive, high function mineral water, one out of five people in the world cannot count on getting any safe drinking water at all" (Japan Focus, Tomoko Sakuma).

Senegal

It's been long since I've posted. I don't feel guilty. I would have loved to record my travels through the Middle East with two of my best friends. But they are far better company than a computer screen. Reverse culture shock, bouncing between five states, graduation and reunion with my past deserves documentation too. But my memory suffices. And that was a month packed with either constant activity or constant stasis. I could have indulged in more of the latter.

And now, Senegal. I'm letting it wash over me. Posts will become more frequent soon as I move in to a working groove. A groove that I oscillate between hating and coveting. For now, I will list posts I hope to expound upon, questions I have and observations, issues I'd like to pursue. It's not a promise, just a goal. I'll let some pictures do the talking for me. Because I've discovered I can't think and sweat at the same time. I will get a beer and ponder further all I have left unsaid.

1. Underdevelopment
2. Talibee boys
3. Learning Wolof
4. Speaking French
5. My work
6. Islam in Africa

Escape From Amman

A cliche for most of our weekends. While not exactly prison, too many expats in this congested and amenity-lacking city would jump to make the comparison. Expats the world over share a passion for travel, yet here we're spurred by a lingering dissatisfaction with our growing conservative habituation.

And so we fled. To paradise. In the Arab world. It felt as surreal as it sounds. The twelve hours of dealing with Jordanian police, confused port laborers and desperate Egyptian taxi drivers was worth the head ache of traveling to Dahab. Lounging next to the red sea, basking in the perfect breeze, it's hard to imagine an area which so inspires chill to have been enmeshed in fifty years of violent back and forth land-grabbing between Egypt and Israel.

Thankfully Egypt is in control now. However, it may not look too different if Israel were. The sea side village is inhabited by liberal Egyptians and Australian scuba divers. Both partake in smoking herb. Honestly, it goes with the territory. Smoking anything freely besides tabacco I had considered a strictly Israeli phenomenon in the Levant. There were whispers of its procurement in Tel Aviv, a city strikingly European nestled on stolen Arab land. Ahhh, but Dahab was a refreshing reminder that Islam does not equate to fundamentalism. Like all religions, practitioners pick and choose the dogma that will rigor their life. Many Muslim friends in Jordan imbibe the spirits but avoid the joints. This however, I think is due more to harsh enforcement.

The Arabs who migrate to Dahab seem to be drawn by the same force as the tourists. This is "The Life". Waking well after dawn only to nap in a bathing suit on a blanket under an umbrella, sipping fresh squeezed juice, wind surfing or snorkling, exchanging pleasantries and intimacies with strangers, lulled into wonderful satisfaction with "The Life".

And indeed, it was hard to leave "The Life" behind. To return to an aggressive city where the hospitality is born more out of tradition, obligation and an expectation for something in exchange than as a true extension of the heart. As we boarded the ferry, we reflected on our perfect weekend, on our sunrise on top of Mount Sinai, on our new friends entertaining us on their porch in Camel Camp watching palm trees dance with the Moroccan drum beats. Unfortunately, a creeping suspicious of something amiss began to mare our elevated perception of the heaven that is Sinai. We asked ourselves "where were all the Egyptian woman?" Were they all under the age of eight and hawking bracelets to tourists? Of course this is impossible. And regrettably, we realized, this liberal paradise, decorated with bare flesh and lax beliefs, only extends to Egyptian men and foreign women (who are not judged because of special dispensation). Perhaps this is one of the sadder aspects of what separates Dahab from Tel Aviv.

*Pictures soon to come

Mullings Over Dialogues

So I've been mulling over a post, slowly compiling it in my head. Because I'm running out. Of Ideas. And Time. All of my mental energy has been redirected to magazine and thesis pieces. In doing interviews, Jordanians made some cultural assessments about their own people that I thought I'd expound on.

Today though, I had a break through. Talking to a US educated Jordanian, we mused about how his sons weren't interested in getting an education in the states, or even forging a life there. They preferred Canada or Europe. And I thought, yeah, it's becoming the European dream. Death of the American dream. I'll write about that! I'm brilliant. Minutes later I realized someone had already written this brilliant article: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony By Parag Khanna.

Fear of Commitment: A business man told me that Jordanians break contracts because they can't commit.

They do break contracts.

And renege on agreements.

Tour operators are constantly battling hoteliers because they'll sign on a price and then they'll raise that price, sometimes double. It does "send foreign investors flying" as my capitalist companion stated, hands aflutter. Perhaps Jordanians are so "committed" to their religion and relationships, that they act out in this way. Like a kid tormented by their parents to be clean and organized. As an adult, their own house is littered with laundry and trash. (Yeah, I'm talking about myself) Or perhaps capitalism simply takes on a different form here. Or capitalism breeds survivalist tendencies. Or poverty drives people to shady business deals.

It has it's positives though. Low expectations sure take away some of life's pressures. For instances, you can make a reservation and they only take your name, not your credit card number. This comes in handy when you don't show up. No charge, no foul. However, it's not so fun when you do show up and somebody took your place.

Public Space: A good majority of Jordanian's entertainment is viewed, enacted, etc. in the privacy of their homes. One reason is because there are very few public spaces where people can gather together to entertain. Another may be hyper emphasis on the family nucleus. All atoms must rotate around it and cannot stray too far. Jordanians spend a majority of their time in their homes with their relatives. Islamic dogma further discourages interaction with strangers. Think: no dating. The city has been attempting to create more festivals so that citizens can slowly become accustomed to interacting with strangers in large public domains. Because currently, when this happens, there's chaos.

Taking It Easy: Jordanians work six days a week. Many can't drink alcohol. Or smoke marijuna. Or indulge in casual sexual activity. Which lead to a whole host of other don'ts that for the Western world equate to stress relief. Jordanians are HIGH STRUNG. Traffic is awful. Prices are high. There is no where to cut loose. They live with their parents until they marry! I think Hilter serves as an excellent example of uptight gone horribly awry.

Cats

Cats own Amman. Unlike Santiago, where dogs roam the streets and nap in intersections, cats reside in every nook and cranny of this congested city. They jump out of trash cans, scream like mythical banshees as they fight (or fondle) in the middle of the night, and take refuge under cars. For a dog in the Islamic world it's a rough life, "Traditionally, dogs have been seen as impure, and the Islamic legal tradition has developed several injunctions that warn Muslims against most contact with dogs." Cats seem to be the compensation pet. And sometimes feral menace.

A wild cat is fascinating and takes to the life style, I think, much more than dogs. They aren't desperate for love and they'll be damed if you try and pour it on them. In Santiago, lonely dogs would wander up to you on benches, earnestly placing its paw up on your knee begging for affection. A cat will fight tooth and nail if you try and lure it into a comforting home. It embodies the Charles Dicken's rapscallion. It was born for the independence and adventure of street life.

What I love most about these feline friends is that every tourist site I've visited in Jordan, from the Ma'in Hot Springs, to Petra, the Dead Sea to the Baptism site, and even Wadi Rum village, has its own pack of cats. Let's call them a tribe. I think they're family too. Because they're ALWAYS orange.

Above is a picture of a Russian baptism in the Jordan River at the baptism site of Jesus. Standing watch on the railing is the ubiquitous orange cat. That site is in the middle-of-no-where. It's the wilderness from which John-the-Baptist cried. These cats are the world's new pilgrims.

Lost Month

This blog has been sorely ignored. And while I have not formalized an entry or jotted down a rough draft on a napkin, or hell, even really thought about what I'm going to write, I didn't want the month of April to disappear like that of March. I hope then this doesn't become word vomit. I feel a strange penchant to wax about my ever shifting moods and uncertainties than to try and contemplate a real issue. But I know this is what private notebooks (for the love-of-god not a diary) and friends (such accepting, patient people) are for. In the end, I missed the blog.

My silence has not been for lack of inspiration, but my writing efforts have been stretched in other areas, such as thesis research, magazine articles, job and fellowship applications, feeble attempts at fiction and ugh, business plans. I have little left to give. And my preference to focus a post on a particular topic, one that isn't solely about well, yours truly, has posed an obstacle. Because I'm lazy and rambling is easy. But I had a list in my head, really. For example, in writing an article about intellectual property rights for a local magazine, I became more acquainted with the oppression that is Jordan. Three journalists have recently gone to jail for writing criticisms about the government (don't quote me on the exact details of this, look it up for yourself to verify if you plan to disseminate). Every minister I interviewed at one point opened up to me about the "real" problems they faced in their working life. Lack of organization, coordination, corruption, yet, always followed by an "this is off the records" disclaimer. And each interview ended with a rehearsed-sounding thanks to the King and the Cabinet and a plea to view the article before it went to print. Because people can get in real trouble here. Fast.

I took a trip to Chile and was startled at how accustomed I had become to the Middle East. I realized that I love the Western life-style. The ability to imbibe substances without guilt, to wear tank tops without stares, to kiss your partner without question, to protest, to stand-out in a crowd. These liberties that I tentatively indulged in again, which I hadn't even realized were lost to me, made it difficult to leave. Yet my time here has taught me more than I ever imagined. That if you open yourself, every place, from Nebraska to Saudi Arabia, has worlds to tell you. And I'm brought back to that age old truth I seem to cling to, which is perhaps not true for everyone, but is for me, that real knowledge is painful. Much like one might suffer for their art, I think one suffers to understand. Like being interrogated for two hours by Israeli airport security, at 2 am, nearly missing my flight. A little inconvenience and strangely humiliating to be singled out and repeatedly asked to justify my decisions, my actions, my existence. I feel though vaguely, oh so vaguely what it must be like for others, for Palestinians who try to enter the US with all their paperwork in order, and yet are made to strip naked and stand in a room while people examine them. Simply for who they are.

For those of you who pushed through to the end of this tangential novella, my real intention was to egoize, as much as I tried to deny it. I have no idea what I want from life beside a few fundamentals, such as travel and learning. While normally I would be scrambling to plan for the year ahead without considering what might actually be best, I'm hoping to step back. I'm hoping my applications fall through and that I'm forced to wait without any idea. Limbo is one of the scariest realities for me. So I hope to practice what I preach and suffer through my fears in order to understand what I'm doing in this life. To stop making blind decisions based on security and even spontaneity, to eke-out some calm and perspective.

"Even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." --Aeschylus.

[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.”

A Poll

A popular radio station was running a poll this morning. The poll had already been run in the States and they were comparing the answers. The question was, which would you rather have: the perfect body or a million dollars? Keeping in mind these things are grossly inaccurate, 78% of Americans had answered: the money. 66% of Jordanians wanted the body. One female, Jordanian listener texted: "Why would you need a million dollars if you had the perfect body? Then you could get men to buy you anything you want."

*Al Pasha Turkish Hamam (bath house)

The Human Side?

In 2005, the Hadassah Medial Center in Jerusalem, Israel was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize due to its equality in treatment, its ethnic and religious diversity, and its efforts to build bridges to peace. On my last trip to Jerusalem, I stayed with a Bolivian couple. They lived in an apartment complex next to the hospital that gave discount rates to patients. In the lobby milled sickly, skinny, bald residents, or pale children, their lips aseptically hidden behind blue masks.

It is a microcosm where death is present in every action, and risky procedures are debated over coffee. The Bolivian couple sighed over how many friends they had lost this year. During my stay they treated Nigerian guests. The boy was 24 with gorgeous, brown eyes and leukemia. He had never been sick a day in his life. He missed Africa and was returning home as soon as he could to await a match. While his brother, who had accompanied him, enjoyed the night life in Tel Aviv, he had trouble walking down the stairs. His frailty was visible through his sweat pants as he melted into the couch. He remained silent, his eyes drifting, while his mother discussed his bone marrow transplant.

Both the Bolivian couple and the Nigerian family had chosen Hadassah after being left without other options. The Bolivian girl had spent a year in Peru and was near death. Hadassah was the cheapest hospital and the most willing to perform experimental procedures. Neither patients had much money to spare. But the Nigerian woman said it best, "it doesn't matter the cost, you'll pay if it's your life."

Because of her treatment, the Bolivian woman had finally, miraculously lapsed into remission. The couple was leaving for home the next day. As they spoke of the ethnic conflicts in Bolivia, their city, Cochabamba, that they had to defend from "indigenous" rebels with sticks and rocks, the men they saw fall dead at their feet, the hate they experienced from those they considered fellow country men, it was obvious they did not wish to leave Jerusalem. The Bolivian man had taken me and my friend around the old city, to the significant Catholic sites, and spoke with affection for Jerusalem. He had found a people in Israel who had helped his love to live.



Living in America can mean that your spheres of influence are largely pro-Israeli. The media does a piss-poor job of unbiased coverage. Whether this is because there is some kind of Zionist conspiracy (i.e. Zionist owned media corporations) or, what I believe to be more likely, a complex and multi-faceted problem, which constrains journalists, such as a lack of historical knowledge, cultural acceptance, time to fact check and space for true analysis, a pressure for constant and easy news, a reader's short attention span and ultimately, the corruption of capitalism. One should never forget the news is a product. It is sold for consumption. And in the end, terrorism is sexy. Sex sells. In America, it seems easier to label an Arab as a terrorist than a Jewish holocaust survivor. But far worse, it is the tendency to create these terms such as "terrorist" that deny the labeled of context.

I'll admit that as a young person, learning about the Sbarro suicide bombings in Jerusalem in 2001, I was horrified by these acts of "terrorism". However, as I grew older, and was influenced by international experience and liberal ideology, my mind broaden to consider the reasons for such acts of desperation. Now on my fifth visit to Palestine and anticipating more, I am finding myself struggling in the other direction, to open my mind to how Israeli's could be drawn to commit such acts of terror.


I had wanted to visit a Jewish settlement on this visit. However, I was unsuccessful in finding the time and the means. I would love to visit Har Homa, an illegal settlement creeping like a virus onto Bethlehem's land, to discuss with a settler the infection that is a constant reminder as it fills the horizon, the view from the windows of Bethlehem.

But my experience with the Hadassah patients has helped to, in some small way, humanize Jerusalem for me, to remind me that a government is not the equivalent of its people, that perhaps there is hope that if a hospital can be renown for its equality, then perhaps this equality can extend to its Arab neighbors.

* Pictures of Bush's visit to the Old City