3 Tourists Assaulted in Ajloun Wadi

Spring is when we all head outta town and go wild flower watching. There is nothing like the high desert in bloom.

BUT, beware. Three American tourists were assaulted at gun and knife point in a wadi near Ajloun yesterday afternoon by four intoxicated shabaab. If another group of hikers (a family with small children, mind you) hadn’t come along, this may not have ended well.

Thankfully, the Jordanian police force is all over it. They said that they are battling marijuana growers and drug running in the more remote areas.

Be very careful when leaving the city. Don’t go alone or in small groups, let others know where you are going and expect to be back. May not be a bad idea to bring Glock along, too.

Great Steps, Mr. Rifai

From the Jordan Times:

Prime Minister Samir Rifai has called for intensifying inspection of under-construction buildings to ensure their conformity with required safety and engineering standards, following a building collapse in a western suburb of Amman.

These are steps toward transparency, and accountability between the government and private sector to protect the citizens of Jordan.

An additional step would be re-inspection of any buildings where suspicions of skirting engineering standards might be suspected.

And if found, naming the names of those responsible.

Funniest Blog About Jordan Post

Dino the Chocoholic wins, even without some of her trademark cartoon-enhancements.

Khoubezzeh’s Revenge

We have had an unintentional bumper crop of khoubezzeh this spring. This is a wild growing plant of the marrow family, and delicious when sauteed in olive oil and garlic. It is often eaten in Palestine, a sort of poor man’s bread, and I discovered it through another blogger. I use it as a spinach substitute in other recipes. Makes me feel really agrarian, hatta low city-dweller.

So it was growing thigh-high in our backyard, and I kept putting off incorporating it into the dinner menu. This week, I finally got around to doing so. I picked carefully, rinsed, washed twice with anti-ick bleach water, triple rinsed afterward.

Forgot that maybe the age of the plant may not make it compatible with the digestive system. Oops.

Note to self: pick it when it is young.

So, Was That US VP Joe Biden Messing Up Mecca St?

Tell ya, today was not the day to have breakfast on American soil in Jordan. The embassy was abuzz, most certainly over the US Vice President Joe Biden’s arrival from Israel. After all the extra security, the breakfast burrito was delicious, and worth it in the end.

Tonight I was taking a bunch of kids home from youth group, and noticed that the other side of Mecca Street was utterly empty. Oh boy, big accident, I thought. Then I noticed the jaysh (military) lined up along the road,  heard that unmistakable European siren, and thought Oh yea, Joe Biden is in town.

I thought about waiting in the then piled traffic jam, but decided to cut through the back of Mecca Mall. Everyone else had the same idea, it would have been faster to wait and get to see the motorcade. We have probably seen more US leaders in diplomatic motorcades than most stateside Americans.

Just wonder what he is going to say next, after his meetings across the river. One must hold her breath and pray when our VP speaks.

I hope he got to try mansaf.

BAJD 2010/World Day Against Cyber Censorship

I am a 50-year-old American who has spent 2/3 of her adult life in Jordan. I’m not married to a Jordanian, I am not a Muslim. We came for Iraqi refugees on a short-term basis, and fell in love with Amman.  There is a part of me that has become Arab, and sometimes I operate out of that part so fully that I think I have the right to confront my home-away-from-home like a local. As I will do now, in love, in a manner that is constructive.

Love is a verb, not a noun. It is a choice. It can’t be forced and nothing kills it faster than compulsion. Or betrayal.

But true love has a habit of forgiving and resurrecting, stronger than before.

It returns just a little wiser, for loving and trusting are two different relational currencies.

In my work with victims of abuse, we say that it is crucial to forgive your abuser, for your own sake. To relinquish the ‘right to revenge’ unhooks the victim from the cycle of hatred. Often abusers are people we love. Can we choose to love them again? Yes.

But do we trust them?

No. Not yet.

Trust is an earned commodity. If it is broken, it needs to be re-proven, restored, re-earned over time. That involves acknowledging the problem, fully and even publically owning responsibility and culpability. It means carefully, over time, laying a new track record of trust-worthiness.

Everyone who lives here knows what a huge issue corruption is: it is a rampant, permeating cancer which at its cellular level revolves around favoritism and lies. It is dirt that has been ground into the weave of Jordan’s fabric of society at all levels and destroys the fibers that hold it together.

It worked when that was the only game in town. Those who had none just had not, khallas. And those who had got more, and protected that privileged place by various forms of informational shell games and sleight of hand.

But the internet has redefined the game. It has provided access of information to expose the depravity of the game. It has given a platform for the have-nots to plead their case, and for the haves who are sick of ‘having’ at the expense of the have-nots.

God has a habit of leveling the playing field from time to time, hearing the cry of the have nots and forcing the haves to come to grips with their greed. He has called us to care for one another, and when we withhold from our wealth and cease to engage with those around us, He has His ways of equalizing.

Freely flowing, uncensored information is a gift to hold greed and corresponding corruption in check. Greed is in the genetic code of bani-Adam, no government or religion or level of education has succeeded in eradicating the selfishness of mankind. But those who allow a level of informational freedom are getting farther than those who don’t, as there can be trust that the bad news will come out sooner or later.

Freedom of internet speech needs to be held dear in this country I love. It will help provide a balance, and those who practice corruption, knowing they may be exposed, may actually chose to practice business and life with transparency. The law is the tutor to grace.

Transparency builds trust.

Trust needs to be restored in Jordan.

With it, Jordan can fulfill her mandate to a regional leader for positive change.

Without it, we will become an aid-butressed buffer country with no real impact.

Jordan, let your people speak freely; I believe you will. They have much to say. With each conversation, a new track of trust will be relaid.

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” from Saint Paul the Apostle

Love you, Jordan. Jesus loves you. Be your best, create a new standard of trust.

Wadi Seer Building Collapses…

…without an earthquake!

Time to measure the millimeters in your steel reinforcement,  folks, get up on the roof and chip away those finished ends of concrete and measure it yourself. Especially those with homes built in the last five years.

2mm can make the difference between life and death without an earthquake.

I think it a little ironic that everyone is considering themselves blessed to be alive. I think it is not a special blessing to be able to consider your home an uncollapsable structure. I am thankful the men who survived did, and it was a blessing from God, but I wonder what God has to say about contractors who use substandard material?

Where is the name of this contractor?

And lists of other homes he was responsible for building?

Time for a little transparency.

People’s lives depend on it, even before an earthquake. Note that this faulty construction affected the neighbors next door as well.

http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=24746

Sandouqa noted that despite losing his life savings, he was “blessed” to have survived, blaming the collapse on faulty construction and accusing the building’s owner of cutting corners.

“He used 14-millimetre steel bars, while he should have used 16-millimetre ones, especially since the building is built on a slope and strong floods are common after heavy rainfall.”

“I warned the owner that the building might collapse after I saw the horizontal cracks. This is the result of his greed,” he added.

Twenty-year-old Ahmad Sahouri, who worked as a plumber at the building, said his life was saved when he insisted on taking Wednesday off.

“I was supposed to come to complete my work at the building today [Wednesday]. But I called the owner Tuesday night and said I wanted to have the day off and he agreed,” he said, noting that although his employer changed his mind and requested him to come to work, he declined.

“Thank God I did not come. It seems that God wants me to live longer. If I came today, I would have been under this rubble along with my co-workers. I hope they will live. May God be with their families,” Sahouri told The Jordan Times.

**UPDATE: Five dead, thirteen still missing under the rubble, five (including four kids from next door) hospitalized. Some were not blessed, I would say.

***Update

Gonna Be In A Book!

I got a comment on an older post about incest from a uni prof who heard me speak on the topic last Fall. We had a great talk after I spoke, and he told me about the book he is writing on the theology of spiritual recovery for sexual abuse victims. He and his wife are also survivors – we like the term ’survivors’ better than ‘victims’. We are not staying in victim-hood, and not even merely surviving, but thriving as a result of our abuse.

I had shared the testimony of God’s redemptive work in my soul through the pain of my abuse experience, and he said he would love to have it as a part of his book, as my story (His-story!) perfectly underlined the premise of it. I had forgotten, but he had not, and tracked me down on my blog.

So I have a new writing project, and I need to get on my knees and seek wisdom on how to tell it in a way that glorifies the God who saved my soul and redeemed me from the mess of my own making. The last two songs I blogged about have become my prayer:

To God alone be the glory
To God alone be the praise
Everything I say and do
Let it be all for You
The glory is Yours alone

MFW II, Glory to God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h64opCwLZCw&feature=related

Verse 1
Before the world was made
before you spoke it to be
You were the King of Kings
yeah you were,  yeah you were

And now you’re reigning still
enthroned above all things
Angels and saints cry out
we join them as we sing

Chorus
Glory to God, Glory to God
Glory to God, Forever

Verse 2
Creator God you gave
me breath so I could praise
Your great and matchless name
all my days, all my days

So let my whole life be
a blazing offering
A life that shouts and sings
the greatness of the King

Bridge
Take my life and let it be
All for you and for your glory
Take my life and let it be yours

World Day Against Cyber Censorship March 12

From Naseem Tarawnah of the Black Iris, join the FB group here

Dear Jordanian Bloggers and Tweeps. March 12th is the World Day Against Cyber Censorship, which has been organized by the French-based organization, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) for a few years now. RWB will also be releasing their annual “Internet Enemies” list, which compiles the names of governments that have unfriendly cyber policies – and most of those governments are of course Arab. The list also includes “under surveillance”
countries and we can expect Jordan to possibly make an appearance this year – and of course we all know why.

Over the past year, pieces on the board game seem to have been shifting adversely – from the parliament’s lawsuit against Khaled Mahadein’s online article to the very recent case that was brought to the country’s Supreme Court, which resulted in a very unfavorable ruling – to revealed designs that the government may be planning to implement a “Cyber Law” to regulate the online world.

All of these moves, and more, are implications that we, as members of this online world, are under threat. What we say and what we do online is under threat. The guarantees once made are slowly disappearing in the face of increasing government intervention.

In other words, there has never been a more important time to fight back, to take a stand, to speak up, to mobilize, to say something.

As a Jordanian blogger I can only call on those who are fellow bloggers to take this upcoming day as a chance to voice your support for a free Internet in Jordan.

For my fellow tweeps, I can only ask that you come together to tweet those posts produced by the blogosphere, or tweet your own messages in support of a free internet. Perhaps we can use the single hashtag of #WDACCjo (World Day Against Cyber Censorship Jordan) to unite our tweets.

Put up a badge found on RWB’s site, or come up with a twibbon.

Let’s simply come together on this day (and yes, I know it’s a Friday) to do something that says to the world and to our government that we are present, that we stand for something, that what we think and say matters, and that it matters enough to stay free and uncensored.

Thanks!