In one breath...

In the past week I've been to Damascus and turned 24 and read To Kill A Mockingbird for the first time ever and welcomed a new roommate, an American guy here for two months from Johns Hopkins, making three 24-year-olds in the house; legitimately called "guns!" more than once during a round of the left/left merge jet fighter game on bikes at sports city (i'm getting better), had a frustration meltdown or two, woken up to a mystery single lightning crash, laughed until it hurt and kept going until I scared my friend, gone dancing Ladie's Night, finished off the NesCafe, helped Valentina kill a roach by saying 'morire, bastardo!' and vowed to remember her by repeating such when killing cockroaches from now til forever (we have a whole nest of them in the back of the fridge, it seems, so I'll be able to practice), derived silly amounts of happiness from having a line to hang laundry on in the sunshine, lost and found my sunglasses, attempted to provoke three major catfights, the stories of which are increasingly hilarious when told by He who is the Territory I was marking - oh fun - did pretty well for myself in an all-out 100-meter sprint, had a dinner party at Abby's and resolved to get serious about My Kitchen and Cooking all over again, managed to have hopes of being a UPR trainer in Erbil inflated and dashed several times over by UNOPS, and re-translated a press release about the Network of Arab Human Right Trainers from Arabic.

I have not, however, been able to keep up with my part-time job... ie, the one I earn some actual monetary compensation for - and if prudent should probably not be blogging any of this, even in detail (but the truth is I miss you) and I can't wait to come home to Chicago June 27-July 7.

More later when work is done.
(& we wish the same to you)

Meeting to Watch Obama's Speech

Does anyone know of a place other than this? Or have a contact who could convince them to put on a TV in English as well? My friends and I would love to gather with people other than, well, ourselves to watch and discuss afterward. Now that the time has been changed from today (Wednesday) to Thursday, June 4th at 12:45pm Amman time, I'm thinking I should just open up my own home for a reception ... hmmmm. Input welcome. Contact me at emgrace at gmail dot com.

The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy
cordially invites you to view and discuss
U.S. President Barack Obama’s
speech to the Muslim World live from Cairo

on Thursday, June 4th
at 12:45 p.m.
at the American Language Center (ALC) (map attached)

RSVP: 590-6579

P.S. The speech will be in Arabic. Light snacks and drinks will be available

Amnesty International Publishes 2009 "State of the World's Human Rights" Report

Amnesty International has published its annual report titled "State of the World's Human Rights." With the report's release, "Amnesty International is calling for a New Global Deal on human rights, because of a human rights investment gap by world leaders."

Emphasizing the connection between economic crisis and increased repression of basic freedoms in many countries around the world, Amnesty's Secretary General Irene Khan writes about the need for a new kind of global leadership of both economic and political systems which work for the benefit of all and not a select few. The many faces of inequality and forms of insecurity cataloged in the report, she says, show the urgent need for governments to purposefully invest in human rights as their citizens "demand dignity for the prisoners of poverty."

Jordan appears in the report several times, first in a discussion of the nearly 2 million refugees who have fled Iraq, "mainly to Syria and Jordan." In the section dedicated to Violence Against Women, Jordan is cited for honor crimes and migrant domestic worker abuses over the past year, and in the regional overview of the Middle East and North Africa it is included in a list of 12 countries from which Amnesty has received substantive reports of torture.

On pages 191-194 of the document in English, the human rights situation in Jordan is examined under the following subtitles: counter-terror and security; justice system – administrative detention; torture and other ill-treatment; unfair trials – state security court; freedom of expression, association, and assembly; violence and discrimination against women; migrant's rights – domestic workers; refugees and asylum seekers; death penalty.

The full document is available to read online or download as a .pdf in Arabic, English, and five other languages from http://thereport.amnesty.org/en/download.

What's in a name?

My brain was caught rambling when I burst into choking laughter at the dinner table a few days ago.

What if we went back to naming children with virtues and values?

...This is my friend Democracy and his girlfriend Independence.

Seventeenth century Englishmen enjoyed giving their children names that extolled the virtues that they held in such great esteem, says a vituperous student columnist at Columbia. ("..your child’s destiny lies in their name. Don’t believe it? How many Supreme Court Justices are named Jayden?") He imagines the names Merit-Scholar and Robotic, even branching out to imagine this trend spreading to other cultures ("Somalians might appreciate names like 'food.'")

:)

Taxi Driver: 1, Me: horribly disappointed...

May this be prefaced with a disclaimer: this is one example of a cabbie - the only such negative experience I've had since the last time I blogged about them - and I have ridden with, on average, one cab every single day this year. It is much more often that I meet someone remarkably generous and welcoming - like the guy who drove back to my tutoring client's house to drop of the mobile I'd left in his backseat yesterday and wouldn't accept any compensation for it - than I run into a beaut like this.

Jabal Amman, Sunday 17 May, 10:00pm

"dowar khamis," I exhale as I fall next to my stuffed backpack in the back seat of a taxi on 1st circle. I'd just walked up the length Rainbow street from the Royal Film Commission, where they're showing a week of American Documentaries in the evenings, sponsored by our illustrious embassy. I had to catch the inaugural night showing none other than STREET FIGHT - about Cory Booker and Newark, New Jersey.

I was wearing nothing more provoactive than jeans, a baggy oxford shirt, and greasy hair. Still, for some reason the shabab in the street were worse than I can ever imagine them being in Amman - hanging out their car windows to taunt, making comments as I passed them gadeen with their thumbs ... we'll keep this PG ... but nothing particularly upsetting. I was a bit baffled, slightly amused, exhausted, and looking forward to home.

The last group of offending street rats I encountered were posting up on first circle itself, so I was quite relieved to catch a cab right away. It felt like I'd arranged an escape car; perfect timing, and the driver seemed an affable older man. When he didn't hear my first gasp of directions, I repeated myself - my fault for starting talking, I know, but it was a gorgeous night and I was full of homesickness and idealism and motivation from the film and those boys were getting to be a bit too much.

I said, "sorry - 5th circle - or anywhere that isn't here!"

why? / oh nothing, sorry, just the boys on the street tonight. / ya it's just because it's because it's the first day of summer, my sister. it's warm now. should I put up the window? / what, because of my hair? it's not important to me! the weather's fantastic. and i dunno about the weather, but i'm telling you the rainbow street was like the souk street in Madaba tonight. / you've been to MADABA?

... It went on like that, including a discussion of appreciation for the social cohesion and closeness that can be found here, the emphasis on the family, despite me saying that I didn't alway enjoy that so much. I didn't look at the meter. I haven't been speaking Arabic much at all. Hanging out with other foreigners more than ever before in my indpendent existence abroad and writing proposals in English for a living (just got part-time gig number three today) has made me almost lonely for the language .. which is ridiculous! ... so I went ahead and broke the "don't chat with the cabbie" rule. Every once in a while you do find someone capable of decent, refreshing conversation who even corrects your grammar while you talk. He said nothing inappropriate whatsoever.

We stop in front of the house.

The meter reads JD 2.40

for those not accustomed to taking cabs in Amman - that should have been a dinar less, maximum. It is often JD2.3 to get from my home in Jabal Hussein to Jubeiha, a 20 minute ride (and sometimes longer). As for what one dinar and forty piasters can buy, well, in the grand scheme of things three dollars is three dollars. I was down to my last thirteen dinars and there were weeks last year when JD2.4 stretched could feed me for a week. Besides. It's the principle of the thing. Betrayal. Manipulation.

"2.4? No way should it be 2.4. Here, I have 1.25 exactly."
"Hey sister, my dear, the meter says 2.4 - what do you want me to do? Do you want to go to the police?"

neighbor-man, who had come out to grab something from his car at the end of the driveway, catches my eye and halts his return to his house. stays with me, watching, the whole time, and I give him a warm 'good evening' when the cabbie has left.

I end up doing a hasty, and possibly incorrect, cost-benefit analysis weighing my reputation in this neighborhood and the ire of a cab driver who knows where I stay and has had the nerve to say:

"if you live in jabal hussein, why are you getting out here?" with a tone implying "which part of russia do you really come from?" (i know; i know; but let the evil impacts of the 4th wave of human trafficking and the unwilling Natashas of the world be a separate discussion, please)

...I weigh THAT potential nastiness and end up giving him a 10, taking my 7.60 back, and bestowing upon him every arabic language blessing I could remember, including wondering out loud whether Ramadan had come early this year, and resigning to having wished him a Ramadan kareem.


bravo, cabbie. I didn't even take your plate number. next time.