taking the long way home. almost to the finish line.

Monday, May 21, 2007

And after somewhat of a long sabbatical, I am back. Back from recent peace corps traumas, back from months of vacation and guests. Back to my own little slice of Jordan, whatever that might be to weather out my last 3 or 4 months. First trip was in march. I was off to Geneva where they lost my bag. The poor lady at the baggage claim could not understand what a seemingly homeless girl was doing in the airport. I told her I didn’t know where I was staying, didn’t have a phone and didn’t own any other clothes in the whole world so she really needed to find my bag. I still don’t think she understood that if my bag had not been found I would have been wearing the outfit I had on for the next 4 months. But the bag was found and off I went to paris. I liked paris much more than Geneva. Even the red light district there was clean and the police men tipped their caps politely to the working girls. But paris was dirty and a little rude and felt like a real city. We found a great underground bar that had been a 17th century torture chamber. Since I had been before and already seen all the tourist sites and museums, I mostly took pleasure in just strolling around the city in short sleeves. But I would say that the highlight of that trip was that everywhere I went, people just assumed I was from there. In turkey, Geneva and france people asked for directions and nobody stared at the obvious foreigner. I hadn’t realized how intrusive it feels to always be stared at.
When I got back the girls I had babysat in Berkeley were here with their mom waiting for me. I showed them the sites and we went on a 2 day camel trek in wadi rum (think Lawrence of Arabia). One day would have been sufficient. The second day saddle sore was murder, and the freezing cold rain in the middle of the ride only enhanced the extreme joy of it all. There is nothing romantic about riding camels in the desert. Should you ever choose to run off and join a tribe of Bedouin, buy a jeep and leave the camels to the tourists.
After my guests departed it was off to cairo to meet up with my dad. We spent a week seeing the sites. Pyramids, sphinx, museums etc. One night we went to see a light show at the pyramids. Spectacularly cheesy. I loved it. it was a monologue from the point of view of the sphinx accompanied by epic music and lasers and lights on the pyramids. Good stuff. We saw cairo, which is way more crowded and hectic than Manhattan - cars and people speeding every which way at all times of the day. I befriended our driver, Mohammed, who had a voice like Shaggy (the rapper, not the cartoon) and he took us to Alexandria, the delta and his workshop. The last day we were there we went and ate lunch at his friend’s house. We were apparently the first Americans to visit his house and he was really happy to have us. My Arabic got us through quite a bit in Egypt, although the Egyptian accent is much different than the Jordanian accent and at times there was a lot of talking in circles. From the land of papyrus and essence (expensive perfume) it was off to the land of, well, dirt and rocks I guess. back to good ol’ Jordan. Here I got to show dad a little piece of my current life. My small house, coworkers and the locals who are overly excited to help out their little foreigner’s dad so she can show off in front of him. This included whirlwind deals on terrible rental cars, hotel rooms at 1/6th the normal price and meals all around town. And unfortunately he also got to come with me to a 3 day youth camp. I’m not sure if having translators made up for him having to sit through drama skits done by Jordanian 10th graders. But overall his trip went well… and more importantly didn’t involve camels.
From dropping my dad off at the airport it was off across the border to Jerusalem. We rode across the border up north, near Syria, in a bus. On the Palestinian side, or Israeli depending on how you want to say it, we had a lot of trouble getting through customs. They wanted to know why we were visiting, what kind of visit it was, and just exactly why we spoke Arabic. It wasn’t exactly a warm welcome. We visited Jerusalem and the old city, and all the requisite religious sites. And we also spend a lot of time wandering in circles with our backpacks on looking for cheap places to stay. Everything there cost about a thousand shekels. And everything was even more expensive than normal due to the overwhelming presence of a ton of American birthright tourists. It was strange to be in the old city though. There were Muslims, Jews and Christians all milling about together in seeming peace. Then again, just south of that truce were all the standard problems of Gaza. I got a lot of texts from people in my village while I was there, all worried for my safety. I have a small circle here who consider themselves to be my Jordanian family since I am all alone here, and they expect me to do all the things you might do with your parents, like check in when you arrive safely from vacation.
So now I am back. It is getting to be hot and my exercise classes have started yet again (I actually turned purple in my class today from the heat). I should be able to update the two of you that still read this at least two or three more times before I run off to Africa.
In other news, Dan O’Brien, while devastated by Alison’s loss, is still rad. Hamdullah.