Unsettled

There was a murder in Hashmi yesterday.

I know, sounds shocking, right? I've rarely heard of murders happening while I've been in Jordan (other than, say, the occasional honor killing that makes the news). Last year a student was stabbed to death during the school day at the University of Jordan. My program diligently sent text messages to all of us warning us away from class, saying, "Avoid the north gate. Tribal spat."

A similar even occurred yesterday at Plaza Mall, just up the street from where I live. Someone was shot to death for tribal reasons.

We're all feeling kind of icky, the way that you do when you hear about something bad happening so close to home. I suppose, however, that we can comfort ourselves by knowing that it was connected to a tribal fight, and neither my roommate nor I are involved with tribes in Jordan. I guess that's better than in the U.S., where shootings in malls are done at random and targeted at everyone, right?

In other neighborhood news, a Jordanian man from around these parts who had been harrassing Iraqis and behaving as a shitty person slipped, fell, and died yesterday on the pavement in front of his house. Karma, I guess.

After the fact

I'm now pretty removed from the thesis writing fog, but I still found these lolcats to be quite amusing.

Beyond 2nd Circle

I recently visited several Somali refugees. They live mostly in Jebel Amman, right off 2nd circle. The closest main street looks surprisingly nice and middle class, with an assortment of clothing shops and restaurants. Every few steps there's a gap between the buildings that leads down many flights of steps into a labrynth of hovels that cling to the side of the hill. This is where the refugees live.

While it looks fine during the day, I've been told that the area turns into a sketchy prostitue hangout at night.

From what I've heard, the majority of the Somalis are moms and children. I don't know of any Somali men here, although I've only interacted with a handful of Somalis period. They all have very difficult situations, of course, complicated by a lack of Arabic skills, although the children are attending public school and usually speak Arabic well enough to translate.

Whenever I visit refugee families in their homes (whether Somalis or Iraqis), I'm always surprised by how open the parents are in front of their children. They tell the whole gruesome family story in front of everyone and I can't help but wonder if maybe the little ones should be asked to step out. One of the Somali families was no different. The mother's whole pack of offspring clustered around her on the sofa and on the floor at her feet while she answered questions. In fact, the children needed to be there to help with translation. The mother got through the parts about the missing father, the murdered relatives, and began to talk about her missing children who might now be dead. Then she started crying and the eldest daughter (a teenager) finished the story.

The customs office killed my childhood

The final Harry Potter movie premieres today and, for those of us who grew up alongside the leading trio, it's a BFD. Being in a time zone 7 hours ahead of most of my friends, I was originally celebrating the fact that I'd be finishing the movie before they even started it and was planning a correspondingly smug Facebook post. That won't happen because, for whatever reason, the Jordan custom's office is in some kind of standoff with foreign filmmakers. No new films are entering the country. That means no Harry Potter. There's more information about the situation here. I'm so so bummed.

ما شاء الله

Masha'Allah

Last year, an American student told me that Masha'Allah meant something like, "God guide you," along the same lines as Allah Kareem. I used the phrase with Arabs twice. The first time happened in Damascus with an elderly woman who was selling cloth decorated with Islamic sayings. 

The second was in Amman. I had a taxi driver who, upon realizing that I partially understood Arabic, went on a long vent about the situation in Palestine. He had 11 kids (or something like that) and they were living in really poor and difficult situations in the West Bank, and there was not enough clean water for the children, etc. etc. He wanted me to go back to Amrika and tell people about how hard their life was and try to change it.

When I got out of the taxi, I really thought I was being nice by saying Masha'Allah.

Well.

Yesterday, an Iraqi friend who is fluent in English explained to me that Masha'Allah is something said to remind yourself out loud not to be jealous of another person's good fortune, because Allah doesn't approve of jealousy (it's a nice sentiment).

In fact, the Wikipedia page says that it "expresses appreciation, joy, praise or thankfulness for an event or person that was just mentioned. Towards this, it is used as an expression of respect, while at the same time serving as a reminder that all accomplishments are so achieved by the will of God...It is said upon hearing good news...Another reason people use this phrase is to prevent the evil eye or jinxing, similar to the Western idiom "knock on wood."

So this Palestinian taxi driver was telling me about his family's desperate situation, while driving me to the wealthy Deir Ghbar neighborhood, and when we parted I basically said, Gee, I Guess It's Just God's Will For Your Family And People To Be In A Shit Situation And I'm So Thankful That It's Not Me And Knock On Wood That I Don't Wind Up With Your Luck.

Great, Lucy, great.

Her: 4 Me: 1

The food war is still going strong after the skirmish of the watermelon v. cupcakes. Yesterday morning she dropped off a hot plate of some kind of fried dough with cheese inside (so good). Then today it was half a batch of dolma (Stuffed zucchini. It is probably one of the 5 best dishes in the world).

I have a few ideas to make a comeback, although I'm getting awfully close to raising the white flag.

In other news, our playground equipment was delivered today for the new backyard/courtyard area. After dark, we ran out there with our neighbors to try it out. It was a riot. Five adults running around a dark playground, laughing uncontrollably on the seesaw and spinning on the merry-go-round until we shrieked that we would vomit.

Toy shopping

There are two new refugee families who recently arrived from Iraq with almost nothing in their hands. Some private donors sent money to provide a few toys for the kids and, after consulting with the parents, we got to go toy shopping!

Wust al-balad was, of course, the place to go. We spent almost 4 hours perusing the factory vomit, and enjoyed a few of our finds:

Dolls are hugely popular. Especially dolls that "will produce a sound with the light."

And dolls with highly unnatural hair color. It is extremely hard to find dolls with dark hair in Jordan. Light hair is really prized.

Kids are never too young to learn the value of hard work.

The box on this one says, "Let Our Children More Hardworking"

That was definitely made in China.

And finally, we have American Dream meets Jordanian Dream.

A blonde wife

A closet full of dresses

A flatscreen tv.

What more could you want?

Vomit from the Yangtze River

There must be a pipe that runs directly from China's factories right to Wust al-balad in Amman.

There are a million and one things for sale in downtown Amman that were MADE IN CHINA. Stores and the few feet of street outside their doors are crammed with cardboard boxes holding what, to me, looks like what would happen if China's manufacturing industry suddenly vomited all over the pavement.

As with everything from China, everything is produced in mass quantities, the prices are great, but the durability questionable.