Celebrating Canada Day,

a little late and 4th of July a little early, with a group of rowdy Canucks and Americans. It is times like this big events that revolve around family that one misses home and loved ones.

But it is times like this that local ex-pat ‘family’ gathers up and create an alternate celebration! It is especially good for us Americans, used to center stage in July, to honor our friends who wear tooks instead of hats, sit on chesterfields rather than sofas, drink soda instead of pop, and adorn the home with as many maple leaves as stars. We BBQd, talked, laughed, ate, then settled down to play dominoes and Canasta until 10pm. (Yes, Aunt Jane, I have learned to play Canasta. Kinzi, who plays no cards and talks while the fam slugs it out over card games, is ready to join the fray. Muuhaha!)

We all get out our America-centric t-shirts, since they aren’t good around-Amman-wear. Our Canadian friends wore those too, and the teen boys had some hilarious messages:

What is the definition of a Canadian?

An unarmed American with healthcare

heh-heh…heh-heh-heh…hehhehhehehe!

I AM A CANADIAN

I do not travel by dogsled

a loonie is a dollar, not a relative

I live in the second largest country in the world

winter only lasts one season

I live in a house, not an igloo

I do not know your second cousin John in Saskatoon

our currency is not based on Monopoly money

the parliament buildings are not made of ice

we are the best hockey players in the world

Oh, Canada!

Whoa, JO! Cement that Stereotype, Will Ya?

JO Magazine’s June issue had an article that really disturbed me, as a woman and a long-term foreigner who daily battles the uninvited and misplaced attention of Jordanian men. The cover itself was definitely not what your children should see, especially if they have already observed their post-middle-aged mother  already dealing with unwanted advances.

There is a bit of truth in the premise of the piece,  most stereotypes are rooted in some thread of truth.  I am upset by what Hamza Jilani has done to cement the stereotype that American and European women in Jordan are wildly desirous of a piece of Bedouin behind. Hamza quotes a hotel employee in Aqaba:

“Women come up to me and the staff all the time. They aren’t that good looking, and they really come off as desperate – you can tell they don’t get much action at home.”

“The rich old ladies are the worst. The offer a hundred euros as if it’s nothing. A lot of us try and say no, but you knew, everyone has his price…”

Yes, some European and American women, of a more sexually promiscuous kind, do hope to sleep with men they meet on vacation. Not just in Jordan, but anywhere. Hamza quotes a writer of sex tourism, claiming there is some special mystique to Arabs, that they are ‘real’ men. A young woman from California says cheap romance novels often depict ’smoldering desert warriors…they melt women’s hearts with their raw masculinity’.

The article states that Bedouin elders are against the practice of prostituting their young men, but, alas, this is the only way those young men can support their families, and the practice ‘sustains tourism’ in Aqaba. Oh please. As Momma Bean commented, if it is that prevalent, then please supply us with more than a couple anecdotal stories. Especially in light of the male propensity to exaggerate their conquests, I hardly think tourism in Aqaba is dependent on female sex tourism.

A friend and I were talking about this, and she recounted a situation at the Marriott Dead Sea where a pool attendant made a detailed observation of what she might look like under her bathing suit to another employee while her husband was getting a drink. My friend understands Arabic, and told her husband (who is big and buff enough to have had a part in The Hurt Locker). He made enough of a scene, having become a bit Arab about his woman’s honor, that the manager made sure the employee was sent to a different part of the hotel.

The icing on the cake was the last story of the piece, which I will let you read yourself. Oh, the poor man, “confidence shattered, hurt and scarred from trying to juggle their notions of tradition and honor with the desires of sexually and emotionally hungry Western women.”

On the prowl, indeed. As if we are American Cougars in Amman.

Hamza and JO, you did the ex-pat women of Jordan a grave disservice. From a magazine that continually focuses on deconstructing stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, I would expect more. This article gets thumbs down from the women I polled.

Shut Up, Mark Sanford

Just shut up, please. Stop all the Biblical analogies and God-invocations and get your sack-cloth and ashes out.

Repent, dude, for real in private and with your family before you say another word in public.

Yeesh. Someone start a new political party in America, Please. I’m a little tired of politicians who can’t keep their pants on.

Especially Christian, married ones who say they stand for family values. Ya LaTEEF.

**UPDATE: Now I understand why I am getting tons of visits for last year’s “Letter to An Unfaithful Husband”. Duh.

Another Reason to Love Jordan: Medical Care

History Buff has been battling a high fever for two days. Poor  little treasure, it’s not fun. This morning, checking his tonsils, it is confirmed: white dots mean strep throat. I suppose I should be glad it isn’t Swine Flu, who knows what would happen then!

I am pretty laid back about these things, after four kids worth of every illness in the book, I don’t go to the hospital unless there is a broken bone or unstoppable bleeding. I know when it is serious. It helps that one of my BFFs is a pediatrician, she even does “Play Date House Calls”. I do her mending, she sees my kids, what a deal! She’s checked ears after church and administered tetanus shots before school.

She happens to be in the US this summer, but I also happen to have another friend who is a doctor. She’s one I’d love to bring in the BFF circle, but we are both too busy at this stage in life.In fact, I have THREE friends who are doctors, their names all begin with “A”. I call them the Triple A; call when there is a breakdown!

So when things began to look iffy with History Buff’s condition, I text-ed her. I know I will be getting a text back soon, with what anti-biotic to buy. I’ll jot it down, walk over to the neighborhood pharmacy, and they will give it to me with a smile, asking about the kounouz by name, I will ask about their grandkids.

So uncomplicated. Many things in Jordan are complicated, but not medical care when you have the friends and the means.

The Engagement Story, A Continuation

When we left E & J, the 3ariis was now fully confident in the diamond business and didn’t need my help further in that regard. He had consulted his Creative Friend in Hawaii for ideas, and came up with his own.  Roommates, parents and Khattebah were backing off to the let magical moment unfold at the hand of the man of the hour, Al 3ariis.

We sort knew what week it would be. After their customary Tuesday courting time, Al 3ariis rewarded Hands-Off Khalto Kinzi with a tip: he would propose the next day!!!!! Whew. It was getting REALLY hard to keep this secret much longer.

Unfortunately, my head was not 100% in it, as that Tuesday was the day History Buff got his arm sat on and broken. Poor kid, no more baseball, just like last season but with a different limb . Wednesday morning we got the cast on, and while dropping him off at school, lo and behold, who pulls up in a rental car?

Al 3ariis!

Al 3aruus, you see, is a teacher at my son’s school. I am not the only observant Khalto quietly watching this relationship develop. I was the only one blogging about it though, and several of her co-workers and parents of her students were following the progress here. Spikekid/Manchild was too, since he claims responsibility in getting Al 3aruus to Jordan: he bugged her everyday on Facebook to take a job opening at school.

So, I got the scoop of the romantic plan right there just before she did! How good of God, and Al 3ariis. You have to wait a sec, though.

As History Buff went up to his classroom, I hung out in the foyer as Al 3aruus was called down from her classroom, a little confused as to why The Most Amazing Art Teacher in Amman asked her to help unload supplies from a car.

The Art Teacher was in on the plan, as was the principle. The principle herself was going to sub for Al  3aruus’ class that she would miss as she was whisked away for a romantic proposal. Us Khattebahs will bend over backwards to facilitate a new love story, even subbing a study hall with a bunch of rambunctious teens.

Al 3aruus, confused but compliant, walks outside to the car and confusion is further compounded by the fact that there are no art supplies in the car (I am watching from a window, clapping hands). Art Teacher smiles as Al 3riis walks up behind her, takes her hand and says “Come away, my beloved, my fair one” (I don’t know if that is what he said, but it is a great verse from the Song of Solomon, isn’t it?)

Al 3ruus, ever responsible, explains she has a class, and then sees Art Teacher smiling and the rental car. If she had seen me, she would have seen frantic waving, jumping up and down. She gets it. She leans into Al 3riis and puts her forehead on his shoulder, he gives her a quick hug and she REALLY gets it now. I almost cried, it was so sweet. I think Art Teacher did, too.

Sob, please pass the FINE!

(Cambridge Man, send me some of your behind-the-scenes male insights!)

Slummin’ With the State Department

What an interesting summer it has been thus far. for the first time in our sixteen years on Jordan, we have become members of the US Embassy club in order to use the pool.

In previous years, I either had too many small non-swimmers, or membership was closed or WAY too expensive (keepin’ out the rifraf expats like us, I heard) or our friendship circle had so many non-Americans it wasn’t fun for the kids without their buddies.

This year, the price was right (cheapest pool pass in Amman I kid you not), a friend offered sponsorship, other friends were joining.  I find myself surrounded by Embassy employees.  Many of them we have known from baseball, so it is a nice carry-over of relationships forged over coach-pitch.

So what a paradigm-shift to be hanging out with State Department officials, to get an informal view into the workings of the Embassy, the hearts of minds of  foreign policy shapers (and enforcers). They seem to be interested in my opinions as a long-term resident of Jordan, too. Should I tell them to read your blogs?

Some of them are even bloggers, talk about other and self-censorship. I wish I could blog about things I am learning.

One of my fav ladies there makes me laugh every time I talk to her. This lady is a baseball friend, and a riot, she is so funny. One of those straight talkers who just tells it like it is, she said “Hey, there is a new gal I want you to meet. She’s one of those Christians like you. I think she is a conservative like you too, and yea, we are so full of loud liberals in our division she may have a hard time. Can you call her up and make her feel at home?” I did, and we are enjoying talkign about being the religious and political minorites among the masses. And some people think Neocons still rule Washington.

I remember one of my favorite nasty commentors (yes, there have been times I have enjoyed what they have to say) who accused me of ’slummin’ with the Aye-rabs to tell my white US friends how tough it is here’ . It was a comment that I have used in self-correction in the event I am moving to close to that accusation. Now I am laughing, it’s the other way around, ’slummin with the State Department so I can tell my Aye-rab friends how tough it is here”. Except that I can’t.

I am enjoying hanging out in Abdoun, swimming in a US tax-payer funded pool. It is breezy, quiet, and no  leering shabaab. Back in an enviornment that you have to be a 20-something Angelina Jolie look-alike to turn a head. It’s very nice. I’m getting  tan and reading a parenting book I want to blog about. Since politics is out.

My Michael Jackson Post

Spending time with Gayle King’s (Oprah’s BFF) little sister Lynnie, I cut my musical teeth on the Motown Sound as much as the Beatles.  A couple years later; as lonely city girl new to a mountain town, I put up posters of Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 as a reminder of the happy life I had left behind in San Francisco. It was culture shock indeed.

The sickly sweet story of Ben the rat tapped into the pathos of my new life as the child of alcoholic parents, and solidified my path down the road into the dark arts of Wicca.

Being an early teen disco queen, his music shaped my identity. I identified with his odd quirkiness, and hoped for my own  Off The Wall type debut into significance. I could get completely lost in that song as I danced, but it always ended; my turn to stand out didn’t seem to come beyond that disco. I found a man there, another lost soul who overly identified with Michael, and we decided to multiply our dysfunctions in marriage. Our mutuality was the dance floor, which Michael’s music dominated throughout our time together. It was an Off the Wall union, two victims of abuse uniting around a famous third.

Thriller was the beginning of the end of it all. It renewed our vitality as dancers, but I had found the significance I searched for in a discovering Jesus Christ as my life-love. My spirit soared without the beat, by identity being reformed in light rather than mangled by darkness, the bondages of abuse were released.  I ceased to relate to darkness. My partner was threatened by my freedom, as it revealed his, and he worked hard to drag me back into the dark with him. It almost broke me. But for me there was no going back, and he gave up and retreated to a shadow life of drunken, cocaine-fogged, self-abusive existence, finding other under-age girls to seduce into being his caregiver.

I prayed desperately for both of them to find their way out of such sadness. God alone knows.

The opening notes of Thriller and Billie Jean don’t thrill me anymore, although I still appreciate Michael’s talent. I just wish he could have found healing in time to use that talent in a different way, to see what he would have produced unbound by his demons and pain.

Jordan the Cutting Edge of Agricultural Technology

Well, a few thousand years ago anyway. But hey, give a hand to ancient Jordanian Ghor dwellers!

More than 1,000 years before humans began domesticating grains for food, they were building sophisticated storage buildings to hold the wild grains they were cultivating, researchers reported Monday.

Collecting large quantities of grains and other foods is a prerequisite to establishing sizable communities, but such collection requires a system to store the perishables so they can be kept for months at least. The new find reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences represents the oldest known storage system or granary to date — about 11,300 years old.

The earliest known domestication of cereal grains was thought to have occurred about 10,500 years ago.

Four granaries were discovered in the settlement of Dhra’ near the Dead Sea in what is now Jordan by archaeologists Ian Kuijt of the University of Notre Dame and Bill Finlayson of the Council for British Research in the Levant in Amman, Jordan. The granaries were among 10 buildings found at the village, which was occupied for about 100 years. The other buildings appear to have been used as dwellings and food processing sites.

Read it all here

The Gift for the Team Mom Who Has Everything

My son’s baseball team was VERY generous to me as their team-mom. It was one great group of moms (as was T-Ball with MommaBean and Umm F) and a joy to be mommy-organizer for. They gave me the mani-pedi extravaganza AND a gift certificate at BH. I now own a cute pair of bronze cork wedge sandals, thanks to these ladies, to show off my cute (and still manicured) toes.

Not all the teams I have mommed are such stellar examples of fun, fairness and responsibility. This year, all four teams were super. I also ended up co-momming the Seniors team, as the head coach’s wife is an older blonde Cali Gal like me. Two such heads were better than one, oh yea. It seemed like a bit much, especially when I was collecting for coach gifts for both teams. Fortunately for this old blonde, my wallet has ten compartments.

I discovered that Project Boy’s team mom was partially momming not just one but TWO other teams! Her son coached one, her daughter was on another, and her older son on yet another. This Urdani-Muhajibabe (is that a sexist thing to say? I forgot, but it is a VERY cute play on words, mish?) is not only beautiful, talented, organized and a sacrifical giver, she is one of the most hands-on local moms I have seen in her social circle. No nanny-ing in that home, and in addition to a career, she cooks ALL the food that family eats.

She has been a pillar in the Amman Little League Association for probably a decade. I learned on another team we shared kids on that She Does Not Want a Team Mom Gift at the end of season. She is not the kind that doesn’t want you to trouble yourself, nor the kind who try and make it diffucult while secretly hoping for Galler chocolates or the mega-basket from Natural Looks.  It could be that she received so many lame gifts that were a waste of money and space that it became her new policy.

All season I got her sms’ about practices and games, I imagined her sending them in the middle of a boring business meeting (which is where she told me she sends them from). I saw her there every Friday, since we had kids on three of the four divisions together. Sometimes she would come and go to Ghamadan Park 2-3 times a Friday between getting lunch ready and prayers. She was amazing. I wanted to bless her somehow, thank her for her ta3ub.

So I thought, you know, she is a selfless person, maybe she would appreciate a donation given to a charity in her name (or anonymously, as she would probably prefer). I asked Desertmom and MommaBean,  two of my more clear-headed friends with whom I bounce my multitude of ideas off of. They both thought it was worth a try.

I asked her older son what he thought, and he brightened up and said, yes, she woudl like that. So I asked him, “What is her favorite charity? Orphans? Gaza? Impoverished families? Ramadan packages? Habitat for Humanity? Gift of Life? Operation Smile? King Hussein Cancer Foundation?” His brow knits just like hers when he is thinking, it is very sweet. He thought for a moment and said “Yes, King Hussein Cancer Foundation, that is what she would like”.

I am a natural-born fund-raiser/recruiter/networker, so collecting one dinaar from the participating parents of the three teams she mommed was easy-peasy. Even had a free compartment in my wallet, and unlike coach gifts, no one dared to give me a 50JD note and ask for change. I have a friend at the KHCS, so the contact was simple.

So the big End of Season Award Ceremony came. I was so excited. I thanked her on behalf of all the teams and told her that  the gift that would be given in her name, and her son was right, she loved it!!!

SO, if you have any friends who have everything they need, consider a gift for others on their behalf. It helps a circle of friends grow in depth by declaring their love for that person by helping another in need.

Haneen, you are the best. May God crown your year with goodness, and make His heart’s desire your own.

New Series, Insha’allah

After my last post, I realized this “Jesus and Women” topic is broader than I thought. Taking notes this morning, I came up with:

Jesus Hears the Pushy Kaffir Widows

Jesus Meets the Shameless Hussy/Serial Bride

Jesus Heals the Unclean Woman with Permanent PMS right before

Jesus Tele-Heals the Military Brat

Jesus Deals With Emotional Females

Jesus Delivers the Possessed Soothsayer

Jesus Raises the Beloved Seamstress

So maybe every two weeks or so, I’ll post a new one.